This Week in Lincolnville

The Youth of Lincolnville go Forth

Sun, 08/23/2026 - 5:38pm

Ed O’Brien

“The Road goes ever on and on down from the door where it began. And I must follow, if I can, pursuing it with eager feet, until in joins some larger way where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring. (Photo by Ed O’Brien)

Thirty-three years ago, I packed up most of my clothes, a few posters, my CD collection, and a new Lego set into the family’s white Nissan minivan for the trip south. Goodbye to Lincolnville, goodbye to people who had known me all my life, to start an adventure in a new place, where no one had any preconceived notions of who Eddie O’Brien is.

I had a strong love for this little place that raised me, even then, but I also wanted nothing more, that summer that I was 18, than to get out. To be somewhere no one knew me, my parents, or my brothers. That place ended up being Wheaton College, my second choice of the three colleges I applied to in those days before the Common App. My first choice, Colby, just an hour or so inland, had rejected me, and I had already decided that Saint Michael’s in Vermont wasn’t really my place. And Wheaton was a solid liberal arts college, a brick and ivy campus between Boston and Providence, and they offered a decent financial aid package. My super cool aunt was also a Wheaton alumna, so that probably helped.

It wasn’t until my dad started getting into genealogical research a year or two later that we learned that his matriarchal line had deep roots in the town of Norton, Massachusetts, where Wheaton stands, with my direct ancestor Noah Woodward fighting as a minuteman from Norton before immigrating to Sidney, Maine, after the Revolution.

Wheaton was founded in 1834 as a women’s seminary, with the goal of creating an educational environment for young women equal to those available in the prevalent men’s colleges. The great advocate for women’s education Mary Lyon was brought onboard to create the first curriculum. Wheaton College’s mascot is the Lyon, portrayed as a ferocious, snarling lion (no mane, of course.)

Never quite as well known as some of the other Massachusetts all-women’s colleges like Wellesley, Smith, or Mount Holyoke (founded by Lyon a couple years later), Wheaton persisted. It admitted its first men in 1988, just a few years before I started my freshman year in 1993.

Being a man at Wheaton, then and now, meant being in the minority. Wheaton never attempted to reach parity in the genders, and I believe that to this day, Wheaton women still outnumber Wheaton men two to one.

Wheaton ended up on my daughter’s much longer list of schools she was applying to last winter. When the dust settled, one acceptance letter stood out, and offered a decent financial aid package. My daughter would be entering the Wheaton class of 2030.

This week, we will pack up most of my daughter’s clothes, music collection (yes, her generation has started collecting physical music again) and a few posters into the bed of her mom’s pickup and make the trip south. I will have to get her a Lego set.

She leaves a family, a community, who know her to live in a new town, a new place. To learn, and certainly all the most important lessons will not come from classrooms.

She leaves behind her brothers, for who she was ever the big sister. When the three-year-old middle boy, skinny and bald but cancer-free, finally came home from the hospital for good in November 2013, she insisted on pulling her bedding to the floor next to his bed, so she could look out for him. She stayed there for at least a couple years. The boys will miss her, and I hope that they will continue to stay close as they also start heading into the world.

When she was born, my elders told me that she would be grown before I knew it. Back then, 18 years seemed like a long time. This week I will drop my daughter off at college. Eighteen years were not long enough, but they were also the right amount. My little girl is ready for her next adventure. I suppose I am, too.

Sympathy

To the family and loved ones of Missy Yandell, matriarch of a vast local family. She will be dearly missed.

Library Happenings

Needleworkers will meet, as always Tuesday at 3 p.m. Cribbage for everyone will be held Thursday, August 27 at 3 p.m. Mah Jonng will be on Friday at noon.

Did you sign up for the Lincolnville Library Summer Reading Program? It is time to hand in your reading logs or journal to the library, and enter the raffle, winners which will be drawn on Saturday, August 29.

Okay, Lincolnville, send your best wishes to all our youth starting their way into the larger world around us. May the nurturing that our community provided them be a benefit to them on their journeys. Be well, and reach out at ceobrien246@gmail.com.

Municipal Calendar

Monday, August 24

School House Museum open, 1-4 p.m., 33 Beach Road

Select Board, 6 p.m., Town Office

Tuesday, August 25

Library open 3-6 p.m. 208 Main Street

AA Meeting 12:15 p.m., Community Building, 18 Searsmont Road

Lakes and Ponds Committee, 7 p.m. Town Office

Wednesday, August 26

School House Museum open, 1-4 p.m., 33 Beach Road

Library open 2-5

Planning Board, 6 p.m., Town Office