All of the stories in my book, Staying Put in Lincolnville, Maine 1900-1950 are based on interviews with the (adult) children or grandchildren of the people featured.  This one, about Claude and Ethel Heald, was related to me by their son, Erwin and his wife, Evelyn.  The facts – Claude’s difficult childhood, the desertion of his father (as well as his mysterious little trunk), his attendance at the Rockland Commercial College, his work on the yacht and more — were part of family lore. These are the details Erwin heard from his parents. Interestingly, it’s often the wives who know more of the details of their in-laws’ lives than their husbands. Typically, I found that in talking with a son about his family, it was his wife who, in years of conversations with her mother-in-law, had the whole story.

     Once I had the facts I added the details of daily life in the era, putting the characters in a setting, doing something. So while neither Erwin nor Evelyn told me that Claude sat on deck one evening watching the sunset and dreaming of his future with Ethel, they did say he had to work on the yacht Scythian for several years to save up for their house while his wife worked as a dressmaker. They told me how methodical he was, how careful he was with money, so I took a leap and put a pencil and worn notebook in his hand that imaginary evening, had him gazing back at the Camden Hills.

     One other detail about these stories are the current addresses I added whenever possible. Many of us here in Lincolnville live in old houses; most of us live on land that was once part of someone’s farm. I’m always curious about the folks who lived in these old houses back in the day, about what happened; maybe you are, too.

 Starting From Scratch:   1907

The long July sunset lingered behind the Camden hills when Claude Heald finally climbed wearily on deck to relax before bed. Supper was over, and he’d finished up the last of the dishes, scrubbed the galley clean, and doused the wood fire. The guests on the yacht Scythian were all below decks, engrossed in their nightly whist tournament, and he had the topsides to himself.

Claude sat with his back against the mast, staring moodily at the line of the hills, so many miles away across Penobscot Bay from their anchorage here in the lee of a small granite-rimmed island. Ethel would be sitting in the glow of the same sunset at this very moment, he knew, though probably her hands were still busy, stitching a garment or shelling peas, or any of the numerous tasks that occupied her. His wife of two years was as diligent and hardworking as he, and along with her widowed mother, Jennie Young, worked for two maiden seamstresses on Elm Street in Camden. Ethel and Jennie would be home by now, he thought, at the house he shared with them in West Rockport. He longed to be there himself.

He pulled out a worn notebook from an inside pocket and a stub of a pencil. Opening it against his knee, he carefully added in his month’s wages, paid just this afternoon. Even allowing for rent on the house in West Rockport and other living expenses for him and his wife, they were making progress. Much as Claude hated spending so much time away from Ethel, working as deck hand and cook on the Scythian was paying off. Why, even the savings on his food put them ahead some; it all added up.

Still, at certain low times like this, with the sound of carefree laughter wafting up from below, he couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for himself. There’d been few enough carefree moments in his own life so far. He’d been just a little shaver when his family—mother, Melissa Richards Heald and father, Hosea Chandler Heald, and his older sister, Hattie May—moved back home to Lincolnville. His father, a leatherworker, had already moved them to “every town in Massachusetts,” as his relatives loved to recall.

Once back in their hometown, they moved in with Uncle Eugene Richards, his mother’s brother, and his wife Nellie, on Youngtown Road. Not long after that, his father had picked up his mysterious little trunk, the one he always kept locked, and took off, deserting them just as, the relatives said, he’d deserted the Union Army during the Civil War. His mother didn’t live much longer, dying when Claude was just four. As good as orphaned, his sister stayed with Uncle Eugene and Aunt Nellie, while Claude moved in with Aunt Sarah Richards Lunt and her husband Edgar [847 Beach Road]. Still, as a teenager, he was back and forth to Uncle Eugene’s, working with his cousins Leigh Richards and George Cameron on the Youngtown Road farm.

Though his mother’s relatives had been good to take him in, and he’d been grateful, he’d come to regard the opportunity to attend two years at Rockland Commercial College as the highlight of his life. From that had come his belief in himself and his abilities. In those two short years, he’d learned all he needed to know about managing his life.

All the while, he’d been keeping his eye on the pretty girl down the road from Uncle Eugene’s, waiting for her to grow up. Ethel Young, who’d been only 17 when her father, Albert, died, pitched in to help her mother, Jennie, and brother Winfield, run their farm. Claude saw, young as she was, that Ethel would be the partner he’d need to get ahead.

She was twenty and teaching a term at Slab City School and boarding in that neighborhood, when he got an idea. To this day, he couldn’t imagine what possessed him to pack a suitcase full of cooked lobsters and bring them to her. He’d never forget the way she’d looked at him when she saw what his surprise was. He smiled even now remembering the picnic they’d enjoyed that evening. Still, it wasn’t until several years later, in the middle of October 1905, that they had gone off to Camden where Reverend Lombard had married them. He’d been thirty-two years old, and felt as though he’d waited a long, long time to get his life started; Ethel was just twenty-three.

And here it was two years later, and though they were closer to reaching their goal, it would be at least two more before they would have enough saved to build a house. Ethel’s brother Winfield had married his neighbor, Blanche Hardy, at nearly the same time as they, bringing his bride to the Young family farm [367 Youngtown Road, site of the Cellardoor Winery]. Blanche and Windfield had started their family already, while he and Ethel, well, their turn would come.

Even now he was eager for the end of this trip. They should be in to Camden Harbor by the weekend, and as soon as he could, he’d catch a ride out to West Rockport and his wife. There was a handsome house on Elm Street, not far from the seamstress’ shop where Ethel worked; he intended to build a house just like it on the property she had inherited from her father, practically next door to Winfield and Blanche’s on Youngtown Road. He hoped she would like it, too.

Claude did build a house for them on the property she’d inherited, a handsome house, unlike any other in town, a copy of the one Ethel admired on Elm Street. They lived in it all their long marriage. It still stands, halfway across Youngtown Road, number 435, looking essentially the same as when Claude built it.  Incidentally, there are four stories about Claude, Ethel and Erwin Heald in Staying Put, one in each decade, 1900-1940.

Remember that dog licenses renewals are due January 31. Take a valid rabies certificate to the Town Office or renew online 

Both the Selectmen and the Planning Board meet this week (see calendar). Both are televised, so if you have cable you can watch them on Channel 22.

Lincolnville Central School Committee

            Congratulations to December’s Students of the Month: K – Elise Talty and Amelia Davis; Grade 1 – Kennedy Blake; Grade 2 – Awnin Oxley and Bryson Hise; Grade 3 – Aidan Greeley and Maren Kinney; Grade 4 – Freya Hurlburt and Nathan Oxley; Grade 5 – Bailey Curtis; Grade 6 – Dylan Morgenstern; Grade 7 – Paige Chester; Grade 8 – Kris Kelly.

Author Kristen Byrer will be the speaker at the first Winter Library Presentation of 2016, Wednesday, January 20.  Kristen and Jon Bryer are an author/illustrator team, writing and illustrating children’s books, including The Adventures of Bluedoe  and A Tail for All Seasons.

From last Friday’s Bangor Daily News: