Mount Vernon — Enjoying perfect weather Sunday, Sept. 23, some pacifists celebrated “homecoming” on their two acres of tranquility surrounded on three sides by the U.S. Army. The Religious Society of Friends, commonly called “Quakers,” set the roots of Woodlawn Meeting in the 1840s beside Route 1 on farmland mostly to become Fort Belvoir. Walls of the meetinghouse built during 1851-53 still display graffiti of bored Union soldiers stationed there in the Civil War.

Despite these military contexts, Deborah Haines, Clerk of the Meeting, describes the site, and especially the historic meetinghouse, as a “pool of peace.”

Group membership numbers about 100, with regular worship attendance hovering at 40 or 50. This year's homecoming is judged a great success since 80 partook of worship, food, music and, of course, friendship.

— Michael McMorrow