Morattico, Virginia

The information on Marty is sparse, but by my estimation, she was born some time in 1933. She grew up in Morattico, Virginia, a small town on the Rappahannock River. The town was named after the Moraughtacund Indians who settled in the area first. Based on the book, life seems like it was quite boring there; Marty said “Morattico history was never discussed, for history was something that happened elsewhere.”

The river was the center of life in Morattico. Marty said every family in town had a wharf, though the Glenn family’s own was sort of falling apart. Marty recounted a story from her youth about trying to jump from her family’s boat onto the wharf:

“Just as he turned from picking up the packet of peelers, I was squatting to begin my leap onto the wharf, arms reaching for Daddy to catch me. Seeing me about to jump from the boat that was drifting away, he yelled, ‘Don’t jump, Mart! Don’t jump! I can’t catch you!’ Stopped just as I was about to plunge into the deep, dark water of the channel, I began to cry. Of course, his harsh voice frightened me, but, more than that, I was stunned by the awful truth I had just heard: There was something he could not do."

Culture was strong in Morattico; the “dog days” of summer were taken extremely seriously, with rules barring swimming after eating. Marty said her parents did not really care about that kind of stuff, but one rule they did live by was going straight to bed after showering.

The Glenn Family

Marty spent a lot of time with her family. She never mentioned having any siblings, but her dad was an alcoholic, and though she said he got better when he was older, her father would get really angry when he drank. She said that as she got older, she would often join in on the arguments, since her mother would not entertain his temper. Marty’s mother called them, “black gum against thunder.”

Marty mentioned living close to her nana and grandpa, the latter of which she said; “...passes before my eyes like a figure run in slow motion on a silent screen, yet there is nothing graceful about the image. His movements are labored, stiff, as if the space through which he moves offers mute resistance.” Her father would shave her grandfather’s beard on Sunday mornings; there was always a tension between them, but in moments like these it did not matter. Marty said, “On Sunday mornings, however, I thought my Daddy was a good son.”

Marty’s family went to a Methodist church, but her mother claimed to be Presbyterian. Marty was confused on whether to become a Methodist herself, but when she watched a Baptist Church baptism take place at the beach, she thought: “With all of those stinging nettles out there? I was horrified to think how it would feel to fall headlong into a stinging nettle. No Baptist Church for me, I said, not even if they use an indoor pool behind the pulpit.” She became Methodist after that.

“My world was small until the bombs fell on Pearl Harbor.” Marty was tuned in to world news from a young age. She recalled watching the news with her family and being terrified of Nazis; she would put food in hiding spots and memorize parts of the Bible and poetry to avoid going insane, should she ever be taken as a prisoner of war. On a totally unrelated note, Marty’s grandfather often described her as, “high strung and nervous.”

Marty's Social Life

Marty had friends, but she often found herself jealous of a girl she hung out with, Peggy Lou, because of her perceived perfection in relation to Marty. Marty’s mother often said, “You would jump off a cliff if she told you to do it.” Marty suspects Peggy Lou had tried to ‘steal’ a mutual friend of theirs, Annabelle, away from her at times, but Annabelle always made sure Marty was included in their trio. Above all, though, Marty said her best friend was a boy who lived down the street named Beale Johnson, whose brother Jim was killed when he joined the Navy. Marty said, “Nothing brought death close to me until I knew that Jim would never ever come back home.”

Dating was an awkward experience for Marty. When she was sixteen, she went out with a boy named Freddy Hopkins for a night in the middle of summer. Freddy had a car, and he liked to go super-fast in it, but Marty was afraid her dad would catch them if he found out what they were doing. She asked Freddy to drop her off a little ways away from her house, so her father would not come out, “...in his undershorts raging through the parlor toward the front door from where he had been sleeping on the back porch.”

Returning Like Tides

Eventually, the fighting in the Glenn house grew to be too much for Marty. Their home life was falling apart, Marty’s dad was trying to stop drinking but it just made him sick, and her mom would not find them somewhere else to live. Marty argued with them both until she moved away, and she didn’t come back to live in Morattico permanently for almost thirty years. She lived in Culpeper, Virginia with some extended family after graduating high school, and a few years later, she found her parents had moved to her nana’s house, and her father was sober. She came around more after that, and met the man who became her husband, Blue, when he visited Morattico.

Marty moved back home after she and her kids grew up. She had divorced her husband and lost her job, and she started living in her family’s abandoned house. Her parents had both died within a very short time, and Marty mentioned she would dream about her mother a lot. In these dreams, her mother would reassure Marty that she was alright in Heaven.

Sources & More Information

Works Cited

• The River Me Call Number: Special Coll F 234 .M76 T39 2010
• Wikipedia Contributors. “Morattico, Virginia.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 11 Aug. 2025, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morattico,_Virginia. Accessed 4 Mar. 2026.

Additional Resources

In my research, I found a video interview of Marty done by the Northern Neck History Channel on YouTube. Check it out here: Morattico Oral History Part 2