Health Care in Crisis
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- Written by Kris Legates
COVID accentuated the pre-existing condition of staff shortages. In coastal Delaware, other factors heighten the need for a remedy.
By Pam George
Photograph by Neil Parry
From the May 2022 issue
Julie Short didn’t dither over career choices after high school. Like her grandmother, she attended Beebe Healthcare’s nursing school, now the Margaret H. Rollins School of Nursing. “I joke with my manager and say, ‘You know, I drank the Kool-Aid in the womb because I have grown up at Beebe,’” says the fifth-generation nurse, whose mother has worked at Beebe for more than 40 years.
“I have a loyalty to Beebe,” says Short, a rapid response and “code blue” nurse. (A code blue is called when a patient experiences unexpected cardiac or respiratory arrest that requires resuscitation.)
Unchanged by Time and Tides
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- Written by Kris Legates
Broadkill Beach retains the quiet charms of an earlier era
By Michael Morgan
Photographs courtesy of the Milton Historical Society
From the April 2022 issue
‘Barefoot Thursday’ was duly celebrated on Broadkiln Beach last Thursday,” the Smyrna Times reported in 1859. “Everyone present on that occasion was obliged to take off his boots and go barefoot. Great country that Sussex! — and great people live ‘thar.’”
Broadkill Beach (or, as it was often called in the 19th century, Broadkiln Beach), with its wide view of Delaware Bay, is washed by that waterway’s gentle waves splashing on replenished sand. Situated on a sliver of shoreline northwest of Lewes, hemmed in by Primehook Beach to the northwest and Beach Plum Island Nature Preserve to the southeast, Broadkill is isolated from crowds, commercial outlets and traffic.
A Vital Sign
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- Written by Kris Legates
Dolle’s distinctive lettering is gone from the boardwalk, but not from Rehoboth
By Susan Towers
Photographs by Scott Nathan
From the April 2022 issue
A few hundred onlookers watched in silence on a clear winter morning as the familiar orange Dolle’s sign was removed from its perch overlooking the Rehoboth Beach boardwalk. It had stood as an iconic landmark in the resort town for 60 years.
“I never thought I’d see the day the sign would come down,” says Tom Ibach, the third-generation owner of Dolle’s Candyland. He was a small child when his grandfather erected the sign.
A team of nine from the Milton-based Rogers Sign Co. worked for hours to remove it, cutting steel supports and making sure the 15-by-30-foot structure didn’t crash to the ground. With a crane and a network of ropes, cables and straps, they slowly lowered it onto a trailer waiting to take it to a nearby storage area. Although weighing more than 3,700 pounds, the sign and the attached steel frame seemed to float down to its resting place, like a feather.