Bipeds of Brookland: John Feeley

Bipeds of Brookland: John Feeley

John Feeley remembers playing in the woods as a child. “There were a few hobo camps that added a little excitement, that you might run into someone vaguely threatening. There was creek back there, where Providence Hospital’s parking lot is now.”

He moved into the  neighborhood when his parents bought a house in 1960. Later, when John began teaching in Philadelphia, his mother would send him job ads from the newspaper in DC. “When I called my mother to say I was taking a job in DC, she said, ‘Well, you can live in the family house. I took a job in Pittsburgh so your father and I are leaving.’ ” He lives in that same house today.

John taught in DC Public Schools and received training in Montessori methods. “Montessori asks children what they want to learn and the teacher has a curriculum ... but the thing that helps the Montessori class run is that children are also doing independent learning, sometimes as extensions of what the teacher has presented and sometimes just coming from themselves.” He taught Montessori lower elementary, 6-9 year olds, for 19 years in PG County and is now teaching  9-12 year olds in DC.

John was recently re-elected for his fourth term as Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners for ANC 5B05.  He shared concern for the construction, against community opposition, of a 1500-car garage near the Metro. “All I’m hearing about this past week is from residents whose homes are shaking and feeling very unstable. The [Ward 5] councilman  has not been very interested in this project at all.”

John has been an active member of the Brookland community for many years. “I’ve been a deacon at St. Anthony’s for ten years, and I have been involved with Cub Scouts at St. Anthony’s for the last 30 years.” He researched the history of Brookland and scoured pictures from libraries with Rosie Dempsey in 2014 to create the book Images of America: Brookland for Arcadia Publishing. He says, “Brookland is still a middle-class, integrated neighborhood, the way it has been my whole life.”

Bipeds of Brookland: A weekly series introducing the people who make Brookland their home, one step at a time.
Article and photo by Tom Sabella.