If you can image Cynthia Brock stopping traffic on Reservoir Road eighteen years ago to rescue a tiny, abandoned kitten, you will doubly appreciate that her “Kitty Bean”, now a respected elder, sleeps in a heated bed! Her dog, “Butch”, is a lab mix and beloved octogenerian who smiles a lot.
Cynthia was born in Greenville, Texas and graduated from high school in Ashland, Virginia where her family had a small farm and where her love for animals blossomed. As she was about to graduate from JMU, she met her future husband, Joe Brock, who managed the Virginia Craftsman factory in Harrisonburg. The couple built a home on Paul Street in 1960 and raised their two children, Steve and Gina, there.
When the children were young the family made many special trips into Mexico – Monterrey, Mexico City, and Oaxaco. She tells the story about traveling Highway 1 between Mexico and Guatemala when the highway passed through a jungle guarded by armed border inspectors who would search the trunk of the car, remove their cold beer from the cooler, and send them on their way with a cheerful “Adios”! This was a reasonable toll, so they always remembered to bring extra beer for the guards.
Cynthia is an artist, and art was her first love. Although she taught school for many years, she enrolled in art classes at JMU in the summers. In the 1980s, she discovered silk painting (again at JMU) and became so proficient that her scarves were sold in museum gift shops and at professional craft fairs. To my eye, the scarves’ rich, lustrous colors would be better viewed hanging on walls rather than around necks!
She is an enthusiastic member of the National League of American Pen Women, which stresses education in the arts, and the DAR, which has revealed some previously unknown connections to her past ancestry.
--Martha Merz
