The following story appeared in the Atlantic City Press online. I want to note a few mistakes in the story up front though.
Under her photo on the AC Press website, it states that she "was the only resident to have been born and lived in Strathmere her entire life" - Her younger brother Harlan Wittkamp was also born in Strathmere and lived here his entire life too.
Later it says "Wittkamp and her younger brother, Harlan, attended a one-room schoolhouse off Commonwealth Avenue that later became her cottage home. The Township Committee named the alley behind the cottage after Wittkamp." They did attend the one room schoolhouse in Strathmere, but Bertha never lived there. Bertha's cottage was a boathouse on the family's Winthrop property that was coverted to living quaters. The alley that is being named for Bertha runs behind that cottage, not the old schoolhouse.
Also, parades were not held specifically in Bertha's homor. She rode in several 4th of July Parades in the 1980s as 'Strathmere's First Baby'
Below is the story from the Press of Atlantic City -
Upper Township honors Strathmere’s ‘first baby’ by naming street in her honor By MICHAEL MILLER Staff Writer pressofAtlanticCity.com
UPPER TOWNSHIP — Township Committee on Monday named a road in Strathmere after the late Bertha Wittkamp, who lived all of her 89 years on the island.
Wittkamp was the first baby born in Strathmere in 1901, a time when few homes on this island overgrown with beach plums and salt hay had electricity or indoor plumbing.
Her family moved to this oceanfront section of Upper Township — known then as Corsons Inlet — in the 1880s from Philadelphia. Wittkamp’s father worked for West Jersey Railroad, which had a rail line that stretched through neighboring Ocean City to Strathmere.
Wittkamp’s parents built a hotel called the West Jersey Cottage next to the rail line. The hotel served fishermen who were drawn to the island for its reputation for “channel bass,” said Samuel Baker, who studies township history.
Wittkamp’s father ran the hotel and served as the railroad’s bridge-tender and Strathmere station master.
“When she was a child, she broke her arm and had to take the train to a doctor in Ocean City,” Baker’s daughter, Carol, said.
Life on a secluded barrier island could be difficult. Residents largely were at the mercy of coastal storms and blizzards.
“They were hard stock,” she said. “That’s just how they were raised.”
Wittkamp and her younger brother, Harlan, attended a one-room schoolhouse off Commonwealth Avenue that later became her cottage home. The Township Committee named the alley behind the cottage after Wittkamp. For decades, residents in Strathmere called it Bertha’s Alley.
She worked at the Woodbine Developmental Center, a public home for developmentally disabled men, for 20 years. And she worked as a nurse at a hospital in Sea Isle City.
She was a member of the local Methodist church. Despite the island’s privations, she remained very social, Samuel Baker said.
His family bought Wittkamp’s property but allowed her to live in the back cottage until her death in 1991. In her later years, the township celebrated Wittkamp’s faithfulness to the island with parades. And the township named a Strathmere Beach Patrol boat after Harlan Wittkamp.
Samuel Baker said he thought the street would be a fitting tribute. He and several Strathmere residents suggested the idea to the committee.
“We wanted something to remember her by,” he said.
Wittkamp was buried at a cemetery on the mainland in Dennis Township, having spent virtually all of her days on the island.
Contact Michael Miller:
609-463-6712
MMiller@pressofac.com
Read the story here - Upper Township honors Strathmere’s ‘first baby’ by naming street in her honor
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