Eastern Shore Heritage

Maryland's First Woman Mayor...by Nancy Pierce

Appearing in the December, 2010 edition of Shoreline, published for the Members of the Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture at Salisbury University, is an article about my great grandmother, Anna Matilda Brown, known by friends and family as "Mom Till," Princess Anne's first woman mayor. Mom Till was, in 1934, the FIRST woman elected mayor in the State of Maryland and the SECOND woman mayor elected in the United States! Enjoy Nancy Pierce's latest article about Mom Till, and others about the local history of Maryland's Eastern Shore, by contacting the Nabb Center at 410-543-5312 or emailing rcdhac@salisbury.edu.

A Boy's Eye View of World War II...by Frank H. Pierce, III.

In honor of Frank H. Pierce III, his family is once again publishing his beloved story, A Boy's Eye View of World War II and Other Reminiscences of Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

A Boy's-Eye View of World War II and Other Reminiscences of Maryland's Eastern Shore, by Frank H. Pierce, is precisely that - the warm but extremely accurate account of "home front" life in a small town on Maryland's Eastern Shore during the War. Written as seen through the eyes of a young boy growing up in the small town of Princess Anne, Maryland during the Second World War, Frank Pierce's detailed account of his experiences on the Eastern Shore of Maryland during wartime is invaluable for the historian and any others interested in how World War II affected small-town America.

In his remarkably engaging history, Frank Pierce relates how World War II touched on all aspects of daily life in Princess Anne, Maryland: how gasoline and food rationing worked, what it was like to have a garrison of American Infantry suddenly thrust into the middle of the peaceful and isolated life of a small town on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and how his close-knit community adjusted to several thousand German prisoners-of-war, camped not more than five miles away. In addition to recalling life on the homefront during World War II, Frank Pierce examines the isolated and insular nature of Eastern Shore of Maryland itself, a region either blessed or cursed by geography and the Chesapeake Bay to remain separate and distinct from the increasing urbanization of America's East Coast. With engaging insight, he analyzes the Eastern Shoreman's attitudes on race relations, on wetlands, farming, education, and even the controversial "right to bear arms." And he recounts the closure of this almost classic sociological isolation with the opening of the great Chesapeake Bay Bridge shortly after the War and the ultimate demise of what had become known as the "Eastern Shore Way of Life."

Frank Pierce, in his book, A Boy's-Eye View..., provides primary source information for the historian and the sociologist about the geography, people, and places of the Eastern Shore, including Princess Anne, Deal Island, Salisbury, Ocean City, Pocomoke, the Wetlands, among other locations, and provides rare insight into the lives and character of true Eastern Shoremen.

To inquire about ordering this wonderful keepsake book about life on Maryland’s Eastern Shore during the Second World War, please contact Heritage Books.


	The Tagebuch of Ernst Silge - USN Departing from our "Family Heritage" theme, we offer Frank Pierce's The Tagebuch of Ernst Silge - USN, the daily journals kept by a young German immigrant sailor in the U.S. Navy during the late 19th century. From his first forays into Shanghai, Singapore, and other exotic ports of call aboard the U.S.S. Omaha, to his later years spent homesteading in Colorado and gold-mining in the Rockies, Frank Pierce draws us, day-by-day, into Ernst Silge's life, his struggles and successes, and includes a captivating portrayal of the overwhelming hardship and splendour of life on America's Western frontier. To inquire about ordering The Tagebuch of Ernst Silge-USN, please contact Heritage Books.