Maryland and More

Explore interesting HerStories and MoreStories near my new home in Maryland. I’ll be roaming to nearby DC and Virginia as well. Click here to get updates about new walks and stories on my website.

Here are some jaunts I’m developing.

Edith Throckmorton and Ken-Gar Walk

Come enjoy the lovely Edith Throckmorton Park in the quiet community of Ken-Gar! Many thanks to the awesome Montgomery County Parks for telling the story of Edith‍ in the info-packed historic sign. It’s part of their Untold Stories program that brings alive overlooked stories of our diverse communities—check them all out.

Along with learning about this civil rights shero and a few others, we’ll talk about the neighborhood’s history; see the site of a former segregated school now a community center; listen to a tune by a stellar neighborhood songwriter and fiddler; walk over a healing bridge and sing a song; and walk to the park where Juneteenth is once again celebrated.

Takoma Women Walkabout

Meet the religious ladyboss who transformed Takoma Park economically; parks and rec women even awesomer than Amy Poehler; educators who boosted generations of kids, such as the teacher called Montgomery County’s Harriet Tubman.

We’ll pass by a tree that can make you teary, plus a historical home and underground railroad stop that belonged to an outspoken birth control advocate—in the 1870s!

Malcolm X/Meridian Park Meanderings

We’ll visit Joan of Arc (one of only THREE DC statues of women not inside a building) and imagine Angela Davis at the park proclaiming Meridian now be Malcolm X Park

Next up, we’ll pay homage at the home of Black suffragist and publisher Mary Ann Shadd Cary. We’ll snicker at a millionaire’s castle site and recall his racist folly.

Then we’ll salute the many women strengthening the Latin American community. And we’ll hear the saga of how a rocking group of Texas ladies carried on their feminist Women’s Commonwealth—dubbed by some the first women’s shelter back in the 1870s—smack in the middle of Mt. Pleasant.

Kicking around Kenilworth and Deanwood

The lush water lily gardens that Helen Fowler fought to keep alive are dazzling, but we’ll move on to the dazzling Nannie Helen Burroughs and the many ways she educated and agitated.

In between, a raft of rad women (and men) who lifted and enriched their communities. And a pleasant stroll past community gardens and cool art and children’s playgrounds in Marvin Gaye Park.

Chevy Chase Exploration

Any walk that starts at the home of the very musical Seeger family (yes, Pete, but stepmom Ruth and half-sibs Peggy and Mike star as well) will include singing or at least listening to a few selections.

On to the verbal reinstatement of the hijacked history at the Newlands fountain and a stop by the site of the Col. Belt’s plantation. Then on to appreciate the public histories of the Black-owned Belmont subdivision that was squashed by the White power structure.

Sligo Saunter

We’ll start at the former Mrs. K to gab about the famed restaurateur who served both First Ladies and hungry working stiffs. Then on to walk the Sligo Creek path of environmental savior Rachel Carson.

Always, we’ll give a thumbs-up to local women who did the meat and potatoes of growing healthy communities: educating children, starting libraries, providing healthcare, and feeding folks during wartime and peacetime.