A story of family, place, and time before the Chesapeake Bay Bridge paved over a way of life with a six-lane highway. "'The Land That Once Was Eden'...a warm and personal account of a place and time, written with restraint... delicacy." -- Sidney W. Mintz, Johns Hopkins University "...Freedman conducts a remarkably circumspective exploration of a place that engages all the senses.... This is no ordinary account." -- Charles Camp, Maryland Institute College of Art "...when there were no traffic jams, no suspended steel bridges...the bounty of...Chesapeake...summer nights filled with stars." -- Rose G. Spik, The Bay Times "it had fishing, ferries and farms; now...bridges, shopping centers and...motor vehicles.... Freedman...adept at intermingling old ..and new." -- James H. Bready, The Evening Sun, Baltimore, MD Salt marsh...sea air...insects buzzing on a long, summer afternoon...freshly mown grass crossed by evening shadows.... These are among the sensations vividly recalled from an Eastern Shore childhood. Janet Freedman's lyrical prose carries us back to life on Maryland's Kent Island, in the heart of Chesapeake Bay cCountry, as it was in the days before modernity transformed the land. It's a magical place, where phosphorescence lights the oars as a boat slowly glides on evening water, where generations gather on the screened front porch to talk...and remember. Life is wonderfully self-sustaining, the Bay and the land generously provide. How could such wonders ever end? This is memoir at its finest, personal experience informed by history, reveries proven true in interviews with those who lived it. Trained in history and folklore, and drawing on the words of those who were there, Freedman gives us Kent Island through the yes of a gifted writer, from Native American caretakers of the land to English settlers, through the boom and bust of oyster culture and finally, to life lived by softer rhythms in the early twentieth century. To read this book is to realize once more how deeply one can be rooted in time and place to friends and loved ones, and how rewarding it is to be part of a small, closely knit community. Used Book in Good Condition