Did you ever ask your mother to tell you about the day you were born? I probably told my boys their birth story a dozen times each. Being boys they were never that interested in particulars, especially the one who was born at home complete with photographic record.

My own story is forever shrouded in mystery as I was plucked from my mother’s side soon after birth and never saw her again. So I made do with the “day we got you” story, my new parents’ tale of the drive from Evanston’s Cradle to Chicago’s Southside in blistering July heat, with all the windows shut “so you wouldn’t get cold!”     

It was every bit as satisfying to my younger self as a more graphic description of laboring hours, etc. etc.

Some birth stories are rich in detail, others disappointingly brief and to the point. When I was writing Staying Put and talking to whoever would sit down with me back in the 90s and early 00s, asking them questions about their lives, I hit a gold mine with Joan Sawyer Tibbetts. Joan, who passed away in 2016, remembered the tiny details of her own life, as well as the stories she heard growing up. For instance, she remembered her mother, Doris Heal Sawyer, telling her about the birth of her baby brother, and how she’d been shocked to find herself outside in her nightgown. Using that and other details of a long-ago summer night in 1909 I wrote the following story:

Three-year-old Doris was sound asleep when her father lifted her from her bed and carried her downstairs. Through sleepy eyes she saw the lamps were lit in the kitchen and dining room. As they walked through the kitchen, she saw her Aunt Frances and another woman standing at the sink. Dave Heal opened the back door, and headed out to the road with his daughter still in his arms.

“Daddy, I’ve got my nightgown on!” she protested, indignant at being outside in her nightclothes. “Where are we going?“ But he only hushed her with a finger held to his lips. The summer night was warm and still, and Doris watched the fireflies flash over her daddy’s shoulder as he strode along. The familiar street through the Centre seemed vaguely mysterious to the little girl, out for the first time in the dead of night with all the houses dark and quiet. Where on earth was her father taking her?

Before long they came to a familiar house, Aunt Ell’s. Ellen Moody was her daddy’s sister, and she lived with her husband, Allen, in the house [258 Main Street] near the town well [Petunia Pump]. Grammy Heal, her daddy’s mother, lived there with them. Aunt Ell was wearing her long nightgown, too, and she came quickly to the door as if she’d been waiting. She took the little girl from her father’s arms, saying, “Let us know as soon as it comes.” Over her aunt’s shoulder, Doris watched her daddy hurrying back down the road toward home. [228 Main Street] 

Dave found the kitchen empty; from the bottom of the stairs, he heard the murmurs of the women’s voices in the bedroom with Mary, so he went out back to pace and wait. How funny life can be, he thought. Here he was, fifty years old and about to become a father again. He’d been sure that part of his life was over when he and Lura divorced many years ago. A certain hardness sets in when a man loses his family life, to say nothing of the house he built, a house that held his heart, soul and bank account. Still, he could hold his head up; he’d done right by his oldest daughter, Leila, and her mother. That house, perched on top of Rankin’s Hill [380 Camden Road], still brought admiring glances from passersby. The land it stood on had been his inheritance as the youngest of his parents’ twelve children.

As a tiny child he remembered (or remembered being told by his siblings) his mother cooking on an open fireplace using a crane to suspend the kettles of food. Before long, though, the Heals owned the first cast iron cooking stove in Lincolnville. Patience Heal spun yarn from their sheeps’ wool and wove it into cloth. She baked bread with the corn and wheat grown on the 360 acre farm, land that stretched between Nortons Pond and the Camden Road. When his father, Emery, died soon after Dave’s birth, Patience still had nine children under the age of sixteen to raise.           

Though Dave built his house on his portion of Emery Heal’s land, he was never cut out to be a farmer. Instead, he became a millman. Over the years he’d owned a mill on the Searsmont Road next to the Old Meeting House, another at the head of the pond [Nortons Pond Road] and still another off the Heal Road. He’d done well for himself and was beginning to settle into life as a single man once again. 

So he’d been taken by surprise one summer a few years ago when Will Calderwood’s young wife, Frances, brought her older sister to a Lincolnville Town Band practice. Mary and Frances King were from Manset near Southwest Harbor. Frances, who had attended Castine Normal School, came to teach in Lincolnville where she’d met and married Will.

Mary was unlike most of the women he knew; nearly thirty, she seemed unconcerned at her single status. In fact, she made it clear from the beginning she had no intention of marrying a divorced man. She’d lived on Boston’s Boylston Street for a number of years and worked in a hat factory. She enjoyed her winters in the city, reading and attending lectures. There’d been something about her that made Dave determined to win her over. Before long she’d agreed to marry him. 

Dave, who’d been living with Ellen and Allen since his divorce, bought a house for Mary on the parcel adjacent to his Centre saw mill. The house was really more convenient to his mills, and to the Band Hall, where the Town Band practiced, than his old place. When little Doris was born, a year after their marriage, it was as if he was getting another chance at family life.

Dave was lost in thought when Frances came to the screen door with the news he’d been waiting for. “It’s a boy!” she told the new father with satisfaction. Dave took the back steps in a single bound, and a minute later, at his wife’s side, met his son, David Hunter Heal Jr.

from Staying Put in Lincolnville, Maine: 1900-1950

As I learned when writing Staying Put, from all the memories of their family life that poured out over kitchen tables and endless cups of coffee, everyone remembers events in their own way. Living with my middle son upstairs I’ve learned that there’s a lot that happened in this house that I was never aware of. What parent knows what their kids are really up to? Or how they see the events of their childhood? Ed will tell me his memory of something that I’ll swear never happened.

Still, the stories that we tell and retell, embellished or not, are the fabric of family life. And in turn, the fabric of our community life. For some time now I’ve recoiled at the phrase “you’re not from here”, implying that somehow, we who started life somewhere else, don’t belong here.

I say, “If you live here, you’re from here”.

So, I’d like to propose, as Lincolnville Historical Society president and self-appointed collector of town stories, that everyone send in their stories. Of course, there are people who prefer to remain private, under the radar, anonymous and unknown. But if you’re not one of those, if you embrace the idea of us really knowing each other, please share your story.

That story can start with your “day I was born” tale through childhood, where you grew up, what your parents did, where your people originated. Tell the things you’ve done through your life, your jobs, your kids, your passions. Illustrate your story with family photos if you want. Think you can’t write? Send in the bare facts and I’ll help you put it into story form.

If you want, along with your family’s story, take a photo of yourselves standing in front of your house. This was a classic early 20th century photo – Mother, Father, kids, Grandma sitting in a kitchen chair, all lined up in front of the house. Include whatever history you have of your house and/or property. Is it an 1840 Cape or a 1960 ranch or a 2015 modern? Who lived in it before you, if you know? If a newer house, what do you know of the land it’s built on?

A slide show of the photos will be projected onto a blank wall of the Schoolhouse Museum during open hours (yes, someday we’ll be welcoming visitors back into the Museum!). The stories and family photos will be archived right along with all the other Lincolnville families, the folks that got here a few years (or centuries) before the rest of us.

This can be a great pandemic, socially-isolated, staying at home project. Email them to me or send them to: Diane O’Brien, 217 Beach Road, Lincolnville 04849.

Let’s really get to know one another.

Town

Congratulations to our new selectman, Jordan Barnett-Parker. With 207 ballots cast at the Dec. 15 special election, Jordan got 107 to Jason Trundy’s 100. Obviously we had two good candidates to choose from, a fine state of affairs.

Notice that the link to the remote committee meetings takes you to the town website where there are various ways to access those meetings, via Zoom or by dial-in through your phone. I suspect more people are “attending” these meetings than ever did in person.  If you haven’t tried Zoom, thinking it must be complicated, it’s. not. Simply clicking on the link provided for each meeting takes you right in. You can choose whether to have video or not; it’s nice to see each other’s maskless faces (everyone’s in their own home) but some days you may not feel video-worthy yourself!

Happy New Year!

Here’s to a year much improved over 2020. I’m looking forward to that stab in the arm that will make me able to move more freely in public. At 76 I should get it this winter. And as we move into spring, hopefully all of us will have the chance to get vaccinated.