This past Sunday, April 21, 2013, I attended a ceremony to dedicate a historical marker beside the entrance gate to Hyde Park Farm in Burkeville, Virginia. Surrounded by members of the Thalhimer family, Marsha and Bob Gillette (author of The Virginia Plan: William B. Thalhimer and a Rescue from Nazi Germany), the current owner of the farm, an assortment of friends and neighbors, local dignitaries, and representatives from the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, the marker was unveiled to great applause. But the most amazing part of the day was a realization voiced by Mr. Gillette: it was exactly 75 years TO THE DAY since Gramps (William B. Thalhimer Sr.) purchased Hyde Farm as a refuge for young German Jews fleeing Nazi Germany. The day Gramps purchased the farm was April 21, 1938.
Serendipity is one of my favorite things, but I wonder if this anniversary was mere coincidence. Bob Gillette taught me a Yiddish word that I think is more fitting: beshert. It means destiny. Fate.
Whether it was predestined or not, I’m certain that Gramps was smiling down on us as his great-great-grandchildren unveiled the historic marker acknowledging his heroic attempt to save as many German Jews as he could at Hyde Park Farm.
After the ceremony, as I sat on the front porch of the old farmhouse eating a deviled egg and chicken salad croissant, I watched my daughter Lyla and her cousins chasing each other in the yard. I thought of the German Jewish teenagers tending to the fields and the chickens on the same land 75 years prior. 75 years before the refugees lived at Hyde Farm, slaves lived in the outbuildings and toiled in the fields. I wonder what Hyde Farm will observe over the next 75 years?
