Tenleytown, D.C.; Country Village into City Neighborhood

Washington, D.C.: Tennally Press, 1981. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Trade paperback. Very good. Lily Spandorf (Cover drawing). [4], vii, [3], 602, [7] pages. Maps. Illustrations. Book includes Introduction, Acknowledgments, Bibliography, and Index. Chapters include The Beginnings: Before 1790; The Tennallys and Tennallytown: 1790-1860; The War Between the States Comes to Tennallytown: 1861-1865; The Growing Village, 1865-1899; Peaceful Days: 1900-1914; Changes, 1914-1939; and Modern Times: 1940-1981. Title page inscribed and sighed by the author; inscription reads: For Paul and Edna Bente with all good wishes! Judy Helm, Jan 31, 1982. Pastor Judy Beck Helm graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School at the age of 16. She graduated from Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA with a degree in English and was working in Washington, DC as a writer and editor. Judy lived near Tenley Circle in DC and in the 1970's she researched and wrote a 600 page local history of the area with over 200 photos and maps: Tenleytown, DC. Country Village into City Neighborhood was first published in 1981. Judy lectured and was active in the DC Historical Society in the 70s and 80s. Paul Bente is believed to be the person who was appointed to the senior staff of the President's Council on Environmental Quality in the Ford administration where he investigated the effects of increasing population for reports to the United Nations Conference on World Population in Bucharest (Romania) and the UN Environment Program meetings in Nairobi (Kenya), and advanced green technologies through solar biofuels programs. He married his wife Edna in 1942. Lily Spandorf was an Austrian native whose paintings chronicled the physical fabric of Washington since she quietly settled here in 1960. Miss Spandorf made her living as a "deadline artist," someone who conjures sketches and paintings for publications. She contributed work to illustrate breaking news stories and features about the city. A freelance artist, she did work over the years for The Washington Post, Washingtonian magazine, the National Geographic and, most often, for the old Washington Evening Star newspaper. She also exhibited her work in Washington, New York and Europe. She had sketched and painted scenes of White House decorations since the Johnson administration. Presidents, looking over her shoulder as she sketched a scene for one publication or another, became admirers. More than one president took to passing out her watercolors as presents to visiting foreign dignitaries. The U.S. Post Office once issued a stamp featuring her painting of the National Christmas Tree. Another measure of the esteem in which she was held came when a Senate committee ordered Delaware Avenue NE temporarily closed so she could paint in peace. In the late 1980s, the National Museum of Women in the Arts had a major exhibition of her work. Tenleytown today is a diverse and fast-changing neighborhood in the Northwest section of the nation's capital, on the highest elevation in the city. In 1790 it was Tennally's Tavern, located at an isolated crossroads of Indian trails, between tobacco plantations and farms. In the 1860s it was the site of Fort Reno, the largest Union fort in the defenses of Washington. In 1890, the first streetcars connected the city to the country village on the turnpike between Georgetown and Frederick. Twentieth century development, residential and commercial, has changed the face and nature of Tenleytown. The old Tenleytown name was lost to all but the old timers - until the 1970s, when interest in this historic neighborhood was revived.