Kathy Brodkin

Memories of the First Resident

“We had the first FHA mortgage in Columbia and they built a little square concrete step outside our back door as a gift for being the first mortgage and the first FHA mortgage in Columbia.”

Kathy Brodkin, 90, was the first homeowner in Columbia. Her husband Peter, who worked for The Baltimore Sun at the time had heard about the new town. The first time Brodkin came to Columbia, bulldozers were dredging Wilde Lake, eight months later in 1968, she moved with her husband Peter into 10713 Faulkner Ridge Circle from Baltimore City.

Brodkin grew up in rural Connecticut with an RFD postal number and a four digit phone number. If she missed the bus to school, she faced a three mile trek.

Brodkin had no concept of racial segregation until she went to an all white high school in Water Town, CT. She recalls the family housekeeper, a black woman, whom she respected like her mother and firing her babysitter in Baltimore because of a racist remark.

“We had found this really great babysitter for our kids and she was with us for a while. Then one day my daughter said something about a nigger and I was like where did you hear that?"

Before the Brodkins moved to Columbia, they never had diverse neighbors like Herbert and Marion Simmons who live near her to this day. She recalls frequent visits with her neighbors, like Ruteena Blake, the local president of the NAACP

“In 1968 to have a neighbor living across the street that was a black family, that was awesome, we were so excited when we found out were were going to get black neighbors!”

She also remembers the first Christmas in Columbia. Mr. B was Santa she says and all of the shops served alcohol to the adults while the kids received candy canes from Santa.

Of course the neighborhood had it's share of excitement from time to time, like the exhibitionist who went door to door exposing himself, or the Peyton Place neighbors.

“The people next door to me, the wife was out sneaking down the street in the back yards behind our fences and meeting the husband of somebody down the street. They were having an affair. And it was so shocking that they actually had to move, they were so embarrassed to be in the neighborhood.”

Brodkin says one year, after the fireworks at the lake front, she and her children picked up pieces of paper and bottles to clean up the area. That was the year Columbia lost its innocence when one of her children showed her a condom among the trash.