Carolyn's Blog

A meeting will be held on November 19, 2009 at 7 PM at the Carriage House in Rockwood Park on Washington St. Extension to discuss a New Castle County Department of Special Services sewer rehabilitation project which is scheduled to begin in late 2010.

If your home in North Wilmington is to be affected, you have probably received a letter notifying you of  the meeting. The interesting part about this notice is that it will have a picture of your house and markers showing where the rehabilitation will be located. I received a notice, and it says that at no cost to the homeowner, the County will line the pipe with a new cured in place pipe liner. The liner will form a new water tight pipe inside the existing lateral reducing leakage, resisting roots, and extending the life of the service lateral. The county will install the liner from the County sewer line to a point between the sewer and the existing cleanout, with no excavation required. This will be good news for those of us who have been fighting tree roots for years. The old sewer lines are terra cotta, and even if you have replaced the line on your property with PVC, as I have, the roots get in where they meet the sewer at the street.

Wow, I went outside and took a picture at dusk to celebrate, and rather than looking down in the ground, I looked up in the trees at the beautiful sky!

Preservation Delaware's annual meeting was held November 7, 2009 at the historic St. Joseph's at Providence Creek School in Clayton, Delaware. Originally founded in 1896 by the Josephite Order and financed by future Saint Katherine Drexel, heir to a Philadelphia family fortune, the vision was to give a better life to black boys from inner city locations from as far away as Chicago.

The idea was to teach the boys useful trades such as printing and machine trades and help them rise above impoverished backgrounds. Sister Katherine Drexel and her sister, Louise bought 400 acres in rural Clayton, Delaware, an area not known to be friendly territory for Catholics. The boys at this historic black school had to be walked into town two by two, in silence, during outings.

Used as a school until 1972, the property with multiple brick classroom buildings and the original church, is now called St. Joseph's Center for Community Service. There are plans to work with nearby Delaware State University, an historically black university, to restore the church on the property, estimated to be a $2.3 million project.

Marc Ostroff, the Executive Director of the Center, points out one of the 2 original windows, Jesus at Gethsemane. The period photo is of the church before a drop ceiling was installed and the pews were sold off.  The Josephite Order, headquartered on Calvert St. in Baltimore, still retains some of the original elements at their headquarters.  The Center is now looking for some of the alumni and teachers, and several have been found.  Having been curious about what the inside of the church looks like after having seen it from the outside on frequent visits to the Smyrna/Clayton area, I am grateful to Preservation Delaware for opening this building for their meeting.