John A. Storm, with his partner John W. Sherwood, ran the Storm & Sherwood Lewinsville Farm Dairy for many years -- from around the turn of the century well into the 1930s. The dairy brand persisted into the 1950s. Its bottling plant was at 3247 Q Street. There were also "dairy lunch rooms" at 2005 Florida Avenue and at Florida and Seventh Street. The Storm family was a force in Fairfax County politics from the 1880s on.

The hard work on the Storm farm was done by servants and dairy employees.

Plenty of lines and wrinkles, no doubt, after decades of hard work and the trials of life; but at the same time there is kindness there as well, especially the lady who is seated. The standing lady at first appears fierce, but a closer look reveals some tenderness beneath the rough exterior. They have seen and experienced a great deal, and I wish I could spend an afternoon under that tree sipping lemonade and talking to them about it.

I was quite surprised and pleased to note that both ladies appear much kindlier in the full view since it usually works the other way round. How beautiful our neighborhood used to be even as recently as 30 years ago when there were corn fields and cow pastures on either side of the Dulles Airport access road with an occasional hilltop farm house and/or barn. Only concrete and siding is grown there now. We all call it the Los Angelesization of Northern Virginia and, having come from LA, I can certainly vouch for that.

grass negative?

The bark and sawtooth leaves suggest elm to me.

Old enough to have lived through the war and reconstruction, these two ladies probably relished having their children and grandchildren gathered around as they told the tales of Stonewall, Lee, and the boys of the Confederacy. Their first-hand accounts are now lost to history as is the landscape.

This scene is close to the spot where they would put CIA headquarters later in the century.

And to think they're only 35 years old!

(I covet the seated lady's brooch)

to refer to the woman on the right as a Classic Battle Ax?

After they've seen these two.

The long-gone hamlet of Lewinsville was located a couple miles east of present-day Tysons Corner, between what is now Leesburg Pike (Route 7) and Georgetown Pike (Route 193).

This used to be one of the most productive dairy farming areas in Virginia, but it's wall to wall subdivisions now.

The tree looks like it might be a walnut -- the largest I have ever seen!

I was truly expecting a different kind of storm here.