Deborah Randall is the founder of Venus Theatre, the longest running regional women’s theatre in the nation. Located at 21 C Street in Laurel, the company has produced at least 70 woman-empowering scripts and given over 1000 opportunities to an array of artists. Venus Theatre was established in 2000 and it arrived at its Laurel location in 2006. Previously, Deborah toured shows and ran improv performances under the title Venus Envy. This name was born out of the SHE Company in Washington, DC, which led Take Back the Night marches and empowerment workshops at House of Ruth.
 
When Venus Theatre first opened, Deborah offered classes, summer camps, and workshops to parents and children. She and her husband, Alan Scott, wrote three different musicals for children: Juanita the Walrus Goes on a Shopping Spree, Boogsnot and the Disco Dancing Snows and Fiona the Fish and the Musical Carwash. She eventually returned to her true passion of presenting solo shows and women’s empowerment plays. In addition to performing work written by other artists, she resurrected her own solo show titled Molly Daughter, which is now published through Chicago University Press. Deborah even makes sustainable creativity a priority. Venus Theatre recycles set pieces and borrows to avoid building.

Deborah is also a trained actor who once performed political satire in Washington, DC. However, she considers herself as more of a writer. This prompted her to develop and perform solo shows. She later made a shift to more collaborative productions and started reading the work of other playwrights. Deborah hosts public staged readings, which involve holding the script and reading from the play, often with the use of music stands. She describes staged readings as “a part of the theatrical creative process which allows writers to get out of their head with the work, take some feedback and make any necessary adjustments.”
 
Deborah Randall has amplified the voices of women and children for over twenty years. Her work not only contributes to the history of arts and activism in Laurel, but it also makes an impact on women’s history throughout the nation.

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Materials from LHS collections and interview, 2021, M. Sturdivant
Photo by: Marvin Joseph, The Washington Post

The Honorable Valerie Nicholas has been a Laurel history maker since her appointment to the Laurel City Council in 2011.  She is the first and only African American woman to serve in the role, to date.  A highly spiritual woman, Valerie said, she saw an ad in the Laurel Leader for the Council seat vacancy, upon the          resignation of former Councilwoman Gayle Snyder and God said, Valerie make your petition.  Even though she had doubt, she did and she was appointed.  From that date to this, she has remained undefeated for re-election.  Valerie continues to make history as the first African American to hold the Council At-Large position since 2019 and her 2020 nomination as the first African American woman to serve as City of Laurel Council President.

Valerie is a compassionate community servant and considers her role as a “labor of love and legislation”.  2011 was an inspirational year for her, as in addition to adjusting to her new role as  Councilwoman, she also revived her non-profit, Love Is Not Enough, Inc..  This organization was born from her own painful  experiences of Domestic Abuse, from a young girl to adulthood. 

The work she does in the name of her organization is her way of turning her pain into purpose and  honoring the grace she feels from God, to live to tell her story.  Though Valerie works full-time as a  Patient Advocate at the new Adventist HealthCare White Oak Medical Center; she is up every morning at 3:00 am with a full trunk of groceries, toilet paper, toiletries, masks, hand sanitizer and more, to make deliveries to people in need; before going to work.  She has established strong donation partnerships over the years and now has two full storage units of supplies.  In April of 2020 Valerie’s organization received its first Maryland state grant.  She is now able to deliver service throughout the state.

Prior to Valerie’s life pivot to City Council and business owner, she worked for the Federal Government for 20 years, until her resignation, to selflessly become a full-time caregiver to her brother undergoing dialysis treatments, over 17 years; until his passing.  Before her current role at Adventist HealthCare Medical Center, she worked 8 years at the former Laurel Regional Hospital, as a Chaplain, Volunteer  Recruiter, and Patient Advocate. 

Valerie says that most people don’t turn to her for help with getting a street paved or adding a stop sign. Most of the time, people turn to her for help with housing assistance, employment, job readiness, food, help with utility bills, transportation, and other basic needs.  She makes it her mission to leave people better than she found them.  She has been called the “Wounded Healer”.

Valerie considers it an honor to reside in and serve the City of Laurel.  She points to the Main Street Business Grants and the City-wide public Wi-Fi, that is so critical to those without access, among her most proud legislative accomplishments.  Valerie is ready to continue making history in and out of Laurel.

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Sunday March 20, 2021 LHS Interview ~AVF

  While much of the nation’s attention has focused on removing many monuments and renaming streets that honor slaveowners and Confederate heroes, little attention has been given to the issue, or even identifying those who owned enslaved people here in Laurel. An examination of the 1840, 1850 and 1860 slave census reveals that many early Laurel founders and honored citizens were in fact, slaveowners.
 
Robert Pilson, a Laurel Factory superintendent owned five enslaved persons; William Warfield, owner of a store on upper Main Street, owned two. Jesse Duvall, whose shop and possibly Post Office were on lower Main Street, one. Not surprisingly perhaps, Theodore Jenkins, owner of Montpelier, and a key figure in both the Laurel Cotton Mill and the founding of St. Mary of the Mills Catholic Church had 14 enslaved persons at the last (1860) slave census. More surprising to some might be the fact that his brother-in-law Horace Capron owned enslaved people for at least 10 years.

Gertrude Poe was a pioneer for women in law and journalism. Known as “Maryland’s First Lady of Journalism,” she was editor of The News Leader, now The Laurel Leader, for 41 years.

Gertrude graduated from Laurel High School in 1931, at the young age of 15, and took a job as legal secretary for George McCeney. Poe graduated in 1939 from the Washington College School of Law and returned to work for the law offices of Bowie McCeney at 357 Main Street in Laurel.  However, McCeney handed her control of the local newspaper, which he had recently acquired. At the helm of the Leader, Gertrude reversed the decline in readership and the publication thrived.  She wrote a weekly column called “Pen Points,” which was like a personal note to her readers addressing local and national issues.

Gertrude covered the news of a changing world with passion and professionalism. During World War II, Poe also managed The Bowie Register, The College Park News, and The Beltsville Banner, and became a broadcaster at the WLMD radio station in Laurel. In 1958, she became the first woman president of the Maryland Press Association. She received the Patriotic Civilian Service Award in 1963, for bringing attention to the base issues at Fort Meade.  Her exacting standards resulted in many local and national journalism awards, including for her coverage of the George Wallace shooting in 1972. Poe retired from the Laurel Leader in 1980. In 1987, Gertrude was the first living person and first woman inducted into the Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association Hall of Fame. She was also inducted into the Maryland Women’s Hall of Fame in 2011.

Gertrude Poe was a published author, patron of local arts and culture, and dedicated supporter of the Laurel Historical Society. In 2004, the Laurel Historical Society honored her at our annual Gala, themed as The Wizard of Oz. Known for her chic sense of style, the beaded emerald-green gown she wore to this event was one of her two dresses displayed at the Maryland Historical    Society’s exhibit Spectrum of Fashion in 2019.

LHS has several of her personal and iconic items in our collection, including her electric typewriter and small oak desk. Gertrude Poe passed away at her home in Ashton in 2017, at the age of 101. In a 2016 Laurel Leader article, a year before her passing, Gertrude wrote that hers had been “a good life and a good livelihood.”

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Information and photograph pulled from LHS collection and exhibit files. ~Updated 2021

Randy Kroop is a fourth-generation shoe and boot maker. Her family name is synonymous with high quality leather boots. As a teenager, Randy’s grandfather, Adolph Michael Kroop, known as “Mitch,” emigrated from Latvia, Northern   Europe and made his way to Baltimore, Maryland; where he opened his first shop, near Pimlico Park, in 1907. He later moved to set up shop on Main Street in Ellicott City, across from Kaplan's Department Store and in  1927 he took occupancy in a building on Laurel’s Main Street.  By the 1960’s he expanded and relocated operations to the leather factory building, A.M. Kroop and Sons, on C Street. Being located near Laurel Park, Kroop specialized in riding boots for jockeys, who required very sturdy yet lightweight boots in sizes much smaller than the typical man’s shoe.    

Kroop boots, using the tagline “often imitated, never duplicated,” were worn by famous jockeys and celebrities. Mitch Kroop made boots for Red Pollard, the jockey who rode Seabiscuit to fame in the late 1930s. In 2003, when the movie Seabiscuit was made, Randy made the reproduction boots for the actors. She also made riding boots and jockey boots for the movie Secretariat, released in 2010. Carly Simon, Madonna, and Leon Redbone are also included in their customer roster.

From the beginning, A.M. Kroop and Sons was a family business. Having learned to cobble from his father, A.M. Kroop taught his sons the trade, while his daughter helped with bookkeeping. Randy recalls childhood days spent at the factory, and when the jockeys came into the shop in the mornings since they rode in the afternoons. Randy was very skilled in sewing and made many of her own clothes growing up, often because they did not have the means to buy the pretty clothes the girls in her school wore.

But this talent, work ethic, and hands-on attitude were a perfect fit when it came time for the next generation to take over the family business. At the time, the horse racing industry was changing, and Randy soon specialized in helping people with problem feet or those wearing braces to have custom shoes that actually fit. She remembers these experiences as very rewarding. She inherited ten employees who had worked with her grandfather and/or her father. Many of them had watched her grow up from a little girl, which added to the challenge of being their new manager. Her given name worked to her advantage in many cases, as people assumed the owner was a male, or that she was one of the “sons” in the business.

However, the work was very difficult and labor intensive, involving many steps in the boot-making process. The machines were big and heavy, and required a lot of training. Randy took on new employees over the years. However, she operated alone by the time of her retirement in 2019.  She still keeps in touch with some of the grandchildren of those employees, fondling recalling the time a former employee - the first female hired by her grandfather- chose for her 80th birthday present to return to Laurel (from Delaware!) and visit the factory one more time. Randy remembers her walking right over to her old sewing machine. The woman was French-Canadian, and Randy remembers that her father and grandfather often hired refugees or immigrants, including other Jewish families. Although the Kroops lived in Baltimore, they were one of about only five Jewish families working in Laurel, at the time.

Randy recalls other changes to the industry. When she started, Randy remembered when jockey boots were wearing size 2 or 3 boots; the famous jockey Willie Shoemaker had a size 1 last. But toward the end of her career, it was common to make bigger boots for jockeys who were 5’7” or so in height. Randy also specialized in riding boots for motorcycle police, indicating that one pair she made had a boot shaft of 21 inches around!

Although she did not grow up in Laurel, Randy spent many days of her childhood in the family factory. She remembers when Laurel had a reputation for being “shady” and remembers that her father kept the children away from the racetrack. It wasn’t until she took her dogs out for walks along Riverfront Trail that she started to get to know the history of Laurel. She remembers long walks and conversations with Jim McCeney and Jim Frazier, who pointed out historic buildings and places of interest.

Today, Randy Kroop is keeping busy in retirement and misses her old family shop. She has donated many items to the Laurel Historical Society, adding to our history and knowledge of a family business that has celebrated being in business ‘for upward of a century.”

Information and photograph pulled from LHS collection files and oral interview with Randy Kroop, 2021.

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