All of the stories in my book, Staying Put in Lincolnville, Maine 1900-1950 are based on interviews with family members – the children, grandchildren, even great-grandchildren – of people who lived during the 20th century. The people who told me their family stories were nearly all elderly at the time we talked; they were remembering incidents from the lives of their parents from the perspective of a child.

     Evelyn Brown Eilers spoke of her parents, Louise and Merrill Brown, and her maternal grandparents, Mertie and Will Pendleton. Will Pendleton was originally from Islesboro, and apparently the first of that name to settle in Lincolnville, when as a young teen-ager he found himself orphaned and alone at Lincolnville Beach. He and Mertie married in 1886 and celebrated their 50th anniversary in 1936 at Tranquility Grange. Their descendents, many of whom still live in Lincolnville, are numerous. Virginia Dyer who, along with her husband Gene, died in the awful house fire last summer, was a great-grand-daughter of the couple.

     Mertie and Will Pendleton lived in the big house at 294 Searsmont Road that many know as “Rosecroft”, a name given to the place by later owners; today it’s the home of Bill and Nancy Carroll:

     Louise Brown was in a hurry. The trouble was she couldn’t actually hurry. Three little children would slow anyone down, she thought. They must be making quite a procession parading down the middle of High Street, if there’d been someone to see.  Here she was, a grown woman pulling a child’s wagon with baby Robert, lying on his back, gurgling at the sky overhead. Three-year-old Mary was holding tight to her hand, trudging along on sturdy little legs, while Evelyn was skipping ahead with all the exuberance of seven, kicking up clouds of dust in the process.

      “Evelyn, stop skipping! Come back and hold your sister’s hand,” Louise called. The little girl obediently turned around and waited for the others to catch up. Mary exchanged hands without a murmur, holding onto her older sister’s with complete trust. Louise’s mother, Mertie, had sent a postcard yesterday asking if she could come for the day and help Will pick berries. Since Merrill was away on a carpentry job this week, she welcomed the chance to take the children and spend the day with her parents. She should have been there by now, she thought, judging from the sun, but her mother would understand.

       At the intersection of the old road [directly across from Lloyd Thomas Road on High Street] Louise stopped and took the baby out of the wagon. “You can pull it,” she told the girls. “The road’s way too rough for the baby to ride.” She settled Robert securely in her arms, and stepped carefully down onto the old roadway. Evelyn showed her sister how to walk in one of the ruts, while she pulled the wagon, bouncing behind her. Pretty soon the two girls were playing up ahead, while Louise and the baby came along slowly at the rear. No sense in trying to go any faster, she thought. If she turned an ankle she wouldn’t be any good to anybody. Her father would start without her.

        Stonewalls marched along the high banks on either side, giving the sensation of being in a deep trough, or even a tunnel. Louise remembered her parents telling her this was the road they took to the Centre, traveling on it all the way from Muzzy Ridge in Searsmont where they’d lived when they were first married. Later they moved to Lincolnville, and Louise grew up in a farmhouse on Levensellar Mountain that was now falling into ruin. When she was eight they moved to the big farmhouse that her father, Will Pendleton, had Joel Lamb build for them in 1905. She remembered the excitement of running through the new rooms, smelling the good oak and pine smells of freshly-milled woodwork.

        Watching the girls frolic in the tall grasses that grew up to the edge of the rutted road reminded her of her own childhood. Until she’d become a sober-sided mother herself, she’d never actually walked on this road, but rather ran and skipped and hopped like Evelyn. The road used to lead between the two halves of her world—it still did. She and her parents were at one end, [as well as her older brother, Clifford, before he married and moved to his own place, 105 Searsmont Road], and at the other, on High Street, was her mother, Mertie’s, childhood home, the farm she and Merrill now owned [now gone].

          When she was a girl, Louise loved to visit Mertie’s elderly mother and aunts, the five Cross sisters. The old women would laugh and tell stories about their younger days. One involved the young man who came to visit sister, Fannie. She only agreed to see him if no other prospects were in sight that night, and then, only after sending him home to wash his wagon! One sister, Helen, lived in California, Eva lived in Boston and came back to Lincolnville every summer, Fannie lived in Camden and Clara lived in Newton, Massachusetts. Everyone fought over Mary, Mertie’s mother and Louise’s grandmother; she was such a hard worker all the relatives wanted her to stay with them.

          When Mertie was a girl she’d lived with her Aunt Clara in Newton, where she’d attended school to learn tailoring and pattern-making. She always said tailoring was her contribution to the family income. As a little girl, Louise loved to watch her mother make a newspaper pattern and fit it over her dressmaker’s form. On the days a customer was coming for a fitting, they would hurry through the morning chores, then arrange the partially-completed dress on the form. The woman usually drove herself to the house, and then turned her horse over to Will who would feed and stable it. She often stayed all day, having dinner and a visit while Mertie worked on the dress. The dollar or so that her mother earned hardly seemed enough, now that Louise looked at it from the vantage point of adulthood.

     She admired how her mother always spoke her mind about things, and wasn’t afraid to speak up to the town selectmen. Specifically, she felt the Searsmont Road wasn’t getting as much attention in the maintenance department as other roads in town. In fact, it was a mudhole much of the year. She hadn’t gotten satisfaction yet, but Louise was pretty certain she’d eventually get the town to fix it.

        But Mertie didn’t just complain. If she saw a need she pitched in and helped. Why, just this spring she’d opened up her house to have a bean supper to raise money for the town’s first real fire engine. Everyone brought a dish and then paid $.50 to eat. After seeing how successful it was, Louise and Merrill decided to have one as well in a few weeks.

       Louise could see the house now, sitting the middle of her father’s hayfields and berry patches. The little girls promptly disappeared inside the house where their grandmother was probably even now feeding them cookies and cold milk. She stopped and watched her father in the distance, bent intently over his raspberry bushes, carelly filling the little wooden pint boxes. Will Pendleton’s berries had an excellent reputation with the Boston buyers, and for good reason. He would be glad of her help today with the tender fruit. They took a delicate touch, and Louise certainly had plenty of experience, for she’d grown up picking her father’s strawberries and raspberries. She and Merrill were also finding a market for the blueberries that grew wild on their farm, picking some carefully into wooden boxes for the Boston market, then raking and winnowing the rest for the Hope cannery.

         The baby was wiggling wildly now; Louise shifted him to her shoulder. She’d go in and see her mother, then put him down for his nap. He ought to sleep soundly after all this fresh air. Then she’d be free to come out into the raspberries and help her father.

Garden Group

 Fall Presentation and Concert at the Library

The Great Disappointment

Making Scarecrows

Upcoming Events

A contra dance featuring Karl’s Dad’s Reunion Band will be held Friday, October 30 at the Community Building, 18 Searsmont Road. The caller will be John McIntire. All ages welcome, all skill levels. Call Jack Silverio for more information; 763-4652. Sponsored by United Christian Church.

            Crossroads Community Baptist Church will once again sponsor its popular Family Fall Harvest Festival at Lincolnville Central School, Saturday October 31, 5-7 p.m. Free to all; contact Eileen McDermott at 850-499-5294 for more information.

Halloween in the Center will once again be sponsored by the Center General Store, and will feature your carved pumpkins, food and trick or treating.

Remembering our own folks

        Writing about other people's childhood memories reminds me of our own. “Our” because after so many years of marriage, Wally’s childhood and mine sometime seem the same, though they couldn’t have been more different. I asked him the other day why he started smoking a pipe at seventeen (and continues to this day). Did someone in his family smoke a pipe? “No….nobody”, he said. Then we both remembered Grammy O’Brien, who immigrated to Boston in the late 19th century as Bridget Ryan and worked as a domestic in Augusta. She married William O’Brien, and in Wally’s childhood was a mythic figure, sitting out front of her house, speaking Gaelic and, yes, smoking a corncob pipe. “Was she your role-model??” I asked. Then another image came to us, a wonderful old photo of his maternal grandfather, Addison Woodward, hugging a young calf and smoking a pipe!  We’re both happier with that model….

         I think about Ruth, the mother I lost to dementia way too soon, long before I’d grown up enough for us to be friends. The bits and pieces of her that live in my mind include the food she used to make. Last night I tried, yet again, to recreate one of my favorites. I’ll call it “Ruth’s 4th of July Spaghetti”:

         Saute some mushrooms in butter. (I used part of the giant hen-of-the-woods Wally harvested the other day; my mother would have fainted at the sight of it. I think she used canned mushrooms; it was the 1950s after all.)

         Add a bit of chopped onion and garlic. (Ruth only knew about garlic salt; I don’t believe they’d invented garlic cloves at that point).

         Sprinkle the mushrooms, etc. with a spoonful or two of flour, then about a half cup of milk or cream and continue cooking until it’s sort of saucy. (Ruth used Campbell’s cream of mushroom, but my version was a pretty good imitation).  

         Meanwhile, cook some spaghetti. Drain, put in a casserole dish, and toss in 2-4 strips of bacon, uncooked and chopped up.

         Stir in the mushroom mixture, a can of tomatoes, and some grated cheese. (I used cheddar; Ruth used Velveeta. I actually prefer the Velveeta, but never buy it, so don’t have it on hand.)

         Bake at 400º until it looks nicely cooked down; I left mine in until I’d finished a glass of wine. Ruth would have approved of that.