In a town like Rehoboth, it's our oral history that really provides a look at life here over the years. Camp Rehoboth Treasurer and local accountant Natalie Moss has been enjoying Rehoboth for the past 34 yearsand has seen some incredible evolution.
Having spent her childhood (her "Wonder Bread years" she says) in Florida, Natalie has always been a beach lover. Traveling with friends after high school graduation, she found herself camping at the old army base, Ft. Miles, in Lewes.
This was back in the late 1960's, Viet Nam war time, when the Army used the base as a military resort. There were little cabins near the beach and the army rented them to military families. Natalie and her friends talked with the sergeant who ran the resort and he let the group of women camp in the sandy area adjacent to the resort. Unlike today's gathering spot by the towers of the state park beyond North Shores, this was a deserted area. It's recognizable now only by a group of boarded up buildings.
"We stopped at some of the cabins and watched the 1969 moonwalk," Natalie recalls. She also remembers "you couldn't buy beer on Sunday in Delaware, but you could on the base!"
At that point in time, the beach of choice for her group was in Rehobotha place they called Whiskey Beachnear the current women's beach. Natalie remembers it as a very rowdy place, where you could drink on the beach, and buy burgers from a little stand in the parking lot.
She had no trouble meeting new friends at the beach and decided to join some of them in a group rental house at 7 Second Street in Rehobothacross from Chez La Mer and adjacent to the alley where Abizak's is now.
It was a whole gang of women, some she knew and others were strangers, many with shares in the house for different weekends. The majority of the women were straight, as Natalie remembers, but she came to find out that there were other gay women among them as well.
And Rehoboth was a party town! There were often three parties a night, hosted by various houses, which ran from 5 - 7 p.m., 7 - 9 p.m., and 9 - midnight. Some were theme parties, but the mostly straight crowd "didn't do the themes nearly as well as the gay boys in the area," says Natalie.
Natalie's next summer residence was 9 Newcastle Streetagain a share. "By that time, I'd started to come out. The Boathouse (a gay bar in Dewey Beach) had opened, so I got together with some gay women and moved to McKinley Street in Dewey. Whiskey Beach had shut down, but you could still party in Dewey," she recalled.
At that point, the Nomad Villagea tavern and package store in Bethany Beachwas the place to go. Natalie and her friends had special cards for "the other room"the gay side of the Nomad. It was mostly men there, very few women, and Rehoboth didn't really have a gay presence yet.
Natalie recalls first going out in Rehoboth about 1980 at the time the Blue Moon opened. "Nick Papatinos, who later owned Ground Zero Restaurant, had a place above Thrashers where we would hang out. Rehoboth was just beginning its restaurant renaissance and things were getting gayer all the time."
After McKinley Street, Natalie migrated to Dodd's Addition, on James A. Street in a house that looked into the backyard of a house on Silver Lake Drive. There, she could walk to Parker's Beach (now our beloved Poodle Beach). The gay presence was making itself known.
"First you would have to walk down Queen Street to the boardwalk, tromp through the sand to get to the spot of beach beyond the Dupont House. As people got lazy, they'd just walk to the edge of the Dupont property, and then just to the edge of the boardwalk where they would plop downPoodle Beach was born."
Back then, the gay beach was very mixed, with men and women. People tried to sunbathe topless and drink, and there were arrests all the time. "I remember the police standing on the edge of boardwalk, just daring people to break the rules." Natalie continues, "and because of the police pressure on Poodle Beach, women started going to the state park above North Shores."
Tired of renting houses by the mid 80s, Natalie and her partner and two other couples built a house with a pool out on Route 24. They enjoyed weekends there and rarely went to the beach. "At that time, it just felt safer to stay in our own, private place," she says. But several years later, as Rehoboth gained steam as a gay resort, Natalie once again longed for town and the beach, so she rented a place at Spring Lake. "We'd go for happy hour at The Palm (in the building which is now Cloud 9) and have dinner in town, but there still weren't many activities or tea dances for women," she says.
The state park beyond North Shore became the popular women's beach. Natalie remembers the summer a decade ago when she and other women were encouraging women to attend Sundance, an AIDS benefit then held at The Strand. She decided to go and was soon taking active roles in non-profit groups such as CAMP Rehoboth and SCAC.
"SCAC opened its first office at Henlopen Junction on a cold day in February," she recalls. "I also remember that (then) Lt. Governor Ruth Ann Minner braved the bad weather to cut the ribbon at the official opening. She was with us then and is still our friend."
She became involved with CAMP Rehoboth after reading in Letters that an accountant was needed. She answered the call and became CAMP Rehoboth's volunteer accountant. "In the early 90's, CAMP didn't make enough money to be required to file a tax return," she recalls. "How things have changed."
The rest is history. A decade later, Natalie is still CAMP's Treasurer where she oversees a budget of more than $250,000. She works tirelessly to raise dollars for the community as a co-chair of the annual Sundance benefit, and she is a driving force behind the CAMP Rehoboth Community Center Project.
"I've watched the area grow all these years. There are so many gay people here now. I wish I had the statistics to chart the growth," Natalie says. "And the growth of CAMP Rehoboth has mirrored that of the town."
"CAMP has really come into its own in the community. Things are happening that we never dreamed of," continued Natalie. "CAMP is involved in every aspect of the communitynot only our own programs, but we participate with Main Street, the Chocolate Festival, the library, film festival, and so much more. The sense of community that has taken hold here is what attracts people. It's such a nice town. Everyone works together for the common goal of equality and community. People can feel comfortable here. Nobody has to walk to the far edge of the boardwalk any longer."
Can you tell us more about your Gay Rehoboth memories? Contact Fay Jacobs at mvnoozy@aol.com or Steve Elkins at steve@camprehoboth.com. We'd love to hear from you.