What's in a name? | Peaceful Road, Chesapeake

Ginny Garrett grew up on Peaceful Road, on her father's farm in Great Bridge, on a piece of land that has been in her family for a century. She lives there still, in one of two houses built on a spot where corn wouldn't grow.

When she thinks about the name Peaceful and how it came to be, Garrett laughs.

It was shortly after Chesapeake incorporated in 1963, said Durwood Curling, the city planning director at the time. "The council wanted us to get the street name mess straight."

Some stretches didn't have names. Some were duplicated across the city. People lived on routes marked by box numbers.

Peaceful Road was a route.

"Route 56," said Garrett, now the city's general registrar. "The two residents who'd lived there the longest got to fussin' about what to call it. As best as I can remember, it was fairly heated."

Both thought it ought to be named for them. Finally, a planner named Porter Williamson, most likely wanting peace on the matter, suggested Peaceful, Curling said.

Williamson died a few years ago. In a story in The Virginian-Pilot shortly after his death, friends remembered him as a well-spoken and tolerant man.

"He did it tongue-in-cheek. Everybody kind of got a chuckle out of it," Curling said.

"I always thought Peaceful Road was pretty," Garrett said. "I love the name."

So do other folks. People constantly comment on it when they see the name printed at the top of Garrett's checks.

For the most part, she said, it has lived up to its name. On one end is a quiet neighborhood called Caroon Farms. On the other is South Battlefield Boulevard, an intersection that has grown increasingly busy. Except for there, Peaceful Road is flanked mostly by fields and trees and houses with lots of yard in between.

One of those yards recently had a sign.

"Win the war," it said. "Victory in Iraq."

Kristin Davis, (252) 441-1623, kristin.davis@pilotonline.com