Meet NeighborSpace’s Stewardship Partner at Adelaide Bentley Park

Tell us a little about yourself: where you grew up, what your background is, what other groups and projects you are currently involved with.

I’m a seventh generation Towsonite. My ancestry here dates back to 1791 and slavery at Hampton Plantation. I attended Baltimore County schools – Towson Elementary, Dumbarton Junior High, Towson High – and graduated from Morgan State University with a BA in Philosophy and attended Howard University’s School of Divinity. Give or take about a decade or so, I’ve lived in Towson all my life and now serve as a Board member of the Historical Society of Baltimore County, a delegate of the Towson Communities Alliance, a member of Indivisible Towson and, most recently, director of the Carver Playground Summer Camp. Like my grandmother before me, I now serve as president of the Northeast Towson Improvement Association, Inc. (NETIA, Inc.). I call it the organizational voice of Historic East Towson, Baltimore County’s oldest African American community.

The park is named for your grandmother. Could you tell us about her, and her love of nature and for the community?

My grandmother was Adelaide Bentley. She was the president of NETIA for nearly 30 years and participated in a number of church, social, and civic organizations. Grandma was never the wall flower. She was always engaged, and always held an office. A master delegator and well organized, Adelaide knew who to call to get things done. She was born and raised in Towson and never lived anywhere else. The second youngest girl of nine children and a preacher’s kid, she was also the granddaughter of Reverend James H. Williams, who founded Mount Olive Baptist Church 134 years ago. The church still sits at the corner of York Road and Bosley Ave today in an area once known as Sandy Bottom. My grandmother loved Towson, she loved life, and she loved people.

My grandmother had a relationship with nature. She knew some of its idiosyncrasies and respected its gravity and power as the Voice of God. She loved flowers. House plants were all over her home and for many years there were rose bushes in the front yard. Grandma believed in getting outside into the fresh air and told stories about how she and her friends would sit outside in the grass for hours into the night in spring and summer. She could smell rain in the air and knew from the turn of the leaves on a tree when a storm was coming. She and my grandfather kept a lovely front porch and manicured lawn. The front porch was almost as important in our family as the kitchen. There was a huge tree that grew in the front yard providing a wonderful shade covering on sunny days and privacy at night. Weather permitting, we were always on the porch or in the backyard. Trees, hedges, small vegetable gardens; nature was a constant for Grandma.

You have been a wonderful champion and steward of Adelaide Bentley Park. Why is this park important to you? Why do you believe it is an important asset to the community? What are some goals or dreams that you have for the park?

I love nature and the outdoors. I grew up in a culture where kids played outside with each other. Our devices were trees and bushes in a game of tag, hide and go seek, and walks in the woods. I can’t imagine life without a backyard or a park nearby. Even in New York, I managed to live a half a block from Central Park. 

Since Adelaide Bentley park has come along, nature has become a great teacher and task master. I’m constantly learning new things about the way the plants and trees interact, communicate, and thrive. I appreciate the gifts of each season. My awareness of nature’s value beyond its aesthetic and its beauty has grown exponentially. What’s most fascinating is learning how nature is used to further marginalized communities. We took so much of the natural environment in East Towson for granted until what few trees we have left were threatened.

Adelaide Bentley Park has become inspiration for the Road to Freedom Trail.

Nature is helping us to tell our community’s story of being settled in 1853 by men, women, and children formerly enslaved at Hampton Plantation. The Road to Freedom is a cycling and pedestrian trail that will connect some 13 sites of historical significance from Hampton National Historic Site to East Towson and reveal the mystery of a history hidden in plain sight and of people in place long before the American Civil War. We were here before Towson was the county seat. We have always been good neighbors and even in times of crisis, we respect the people and the processes we challenge, the ones that persist in whittling away our boundaries and encroaching upon our way of life, a life fashioned out of the various social and political pressures that some feel should have reduced us to little more than a historical marker by now. We are down to six small blocks and Sandy Bottom (now the York Road business corridor) has been erased. Thanks to NeighborSpace and Adelaide Bentley Park, nature has proven to be an advocate and friend to East Towson, a friend in need and a friend indeed.

Thank you, Nancy!