One thing Allen Miller could say for his wife, her house was always open to their relatives. Summers were especially busy, with his sister Mary coming up from Brockton with her daughter – they often stayed the whole summer. Emma’s sister, Ada Cammet, came every year from Chicago, bringing news of the latest fashions in clothes and houses. 

He thought back to his own first visit to the city, before his marriage, sometime in the 1870s after his mother had to mortgage the farm. If there was one thing he was death on, it was owing money. As soon as he was old enough, he traveled down to Brockton, Massachusetts, and found work as a carpenter at a dollar a day. At that rate he soon had the mortgage paid off, and the farm owned outright again by its rightful owners. He chuckled to himself, recalling his first morning in Brockton where he was staying with his sister. He’d stood in front of the window, fiddling with the shade, trying to figure out how to raise the blame thing, when it suddenly sprung out of his hands and rolled itself up, taking the front of his nightshirt with it!

From Staying Put in Lincolnville: 1900-1950

Doris Miller Holmes told me this story about her grandfather’s first experience away from home; she remembered how the house filled up with relatives every summer. Allen and Emma Miller’s siblings, along with their families came home for many reasons, I’m sure. To escape the heat of the cities where they’d settled, to help with the farm work, to check up on the old folks, and just because it was home.

More than a 100 years later the pattern still holds. Young people move away, find jobs in faraway places, marry, have kids, settle down. But when “home” is a beautiful spot on the Maine coast, it’s not surprising that so many come back every summer. My New Jersey sister-in-law does. Though Wally remembered her leaving Augusta as a teenager for the excitement and opportunities of Philadelphia, I met her the summer we moved into this house. She’d come home, for the first time in years, with her children to visit us. Likewise another sister, who traveled from California that summer in a VW beetle with her four tweens and teens to settle down in her hometown.

Nearly every summer since, those two sisters reunite in Augusta, and that always involves a trip down to the coast, even now, though their brother is gone. We laugh about all the family reunions when half a dozen kids or more were sleeping all over this house, on the floor, out on the porch, in tents. When both fridges (house and in the barn) were overflowing with huge bowls of pasta salad, New Jersey hoagies, peaches and tomatoes, cases of soda and beer. Bags of chips, pans of homemade brownies, always plenty of food.

I learned early on that having a house in Maine, especially if you came from somewhere else (as I did) meant back-to-back company most of the summer. Everyone wants to come. We loved it, but couldn’t help noticing that no one came in February or March. Those months we really could have used some fresh faces around the table.

The pattern of families returning continues down through the generations. Some are coming to their ancestral homes, perhaps, rarely, even to the actual house of their great-great-grandparents. I’ve happily watched my friend Don’s kids, along with various other family members, make the long drive up to the house their great-great grandfather, Joe Thomas, bought in 1878 or so.

Inevitably, late into the evening, the boxes of old photos come out, you know, the ones with no names on the back. Then the guessing game starts: “That baby, she’s got your mouth” one will say, “is it Grandma?” or “Look, in the background; that’s our bay window.”

Interestingly, the one full summer Don spent here with his grandparents was in the early ‘50s, one of the “polio” summers many of us remember. A house on the coast of Maine seemed way safer for a child than his crowded neighborhood in Akron, Ohio, when infantile paralysis – polio – was rampant. And then, Don and his wife, both retired, moved back for good nearly 20 years ago, to the house so long a part of his family.

And that brings us to today.

Whole families have settled in among us, refugees from the viral hot spots of urban/suburban America. Real estate and rentals are booming, especially as more and more people find they can – must – work remotely. I keep an eye on my neighbors’ driveways, watching them fill up with cars bearing New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut plates. This one’s son is staying all month, that one’s got both sons and families here. Another has a revolving series of visitors; nosy me keeps track. I picture the sleeping arrangements, air mattresses on the floor, tents in the backyard, guest room full.

One friend, a late-in-life first time grandma, has been hosting that baby and his parents since March when everyone deemed her Camden house a safer haven than their Boston three-flat.

Another couple, happily ensconced in their cozy (read small) home on the shore, have welcomed in a daughter and her two (or is it three?) young children. They’ve been there most of the summer.

“We love it,” their grandma told me, “but it’s exhausting!”

Of course it is. Also, exhausting, though in a very different way I’m sure, are the households holding only one, or perhaps two, the loneliness and isolation a huge challenge.  And the constant daily contact of a husband and wife holed up together must get wearing. One friend said she’s ready to scream if she hears her husband burp one more time!

Though speaking as one who no longer has a spouse to share these long hours with, I’d give a lot to experience once again any one of his irritating habits. And the funny thing is, I can’t remember a one.

Most of us have felt pretty safe from the virus here in Lincolnville, especially now that we can be outdoors for most of our gatherings. And gather we do, though carefully and only with people we feel are acting as cautiously as we are. A new word -- "pod" -- has entered our vocabulary, describing a group of like-minded people, vis a vis the virus that is. For instance, four knitting friends switched our Monday evening meeting to outdoors at noon. Instead of sharing a potluck supper we make it lunch and sit far apart. Will we feel safe enough to meet indoors again?

Every morning I check the Bangor Daily News' coronavirus state-wide update, especially Waldo County's cases. For weeks the number didn't budge, 55 cases in all, most of those from last March when Tall Pines suffered such a big outbreak. But this past week or so has seen the number creeping up; this morning, Monday, Waldo reported 69, 7 more than Friday.

School is scheduled to reopen Sept. 8. Today my upstairs grandchildren transition from summer mode to school, meaning everyone has to be up, dressed, fed and ready for school by 8:30. Ours will be doing remote school for the first three weeks, moving on to in-person school by October.

Their at home teacher (Tracee) says they'll spend an hour every morning the rest of August doing school stuff, getting those learning muscles back in shape.

I'm hearing notes of a clarinet and guitar drift downstairs for the first time in months and have agreed to do daily keyboard practice with each child. That means I'll get their help transcribing those 19th century diaries I've been working on, history lessons and reading cursive writing all in one.

Remember how August used to drag a bit, as school loomed in our future? We complained a lot about summer ending, about going back to school, but secretly we couldn't wait.

I think they're ready to move on.

Town

To clarify the voting information, David Kinney has sent out this:

“To receive an absentee ballot either call the Town Office (763-3555) or stop in to request one.

“If you are not registered to vote please consider doing so in advance of Election Day.  You can register to vote on Election Day but it is easier for all involved if you register to vote in advance.  If you wish to read the State of Maine Voter Guide concerning how to register to vote Click Here. You do not need to be enrolled in a political party to vote but you must be registered.  Do it now and it will be one less thing to worry about on Election Day.

“One other item regarding the return of absentee ballots.  To be counted, absentee ballots must be received by the municipal clerk by 8:00 p.m. on Election Day.  Ballots can be returned via mail (USPS, UPS, FEDEX, etc.) or in person.  Our preference would be that ballots be returned to the Town Office well in advance of Election Day but we will accept them at the polls until 8:00 p.m. on Election Day.”

Note: “the preference would be that ballots be returned to the Town Office well in advance of Election Day….” And of course, the tried and true voting method of showing up at the polls, which are open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. is the fool-proof way to make sure your vote arrives!

School

LCS is opening two ways, remote and in-person, with each family deciding which is best for their child and situation. With some reconfiguring of classrooms and other spaces, children will be appropriately distanced from each other. If a parent wishes to change from remote to in-person or back they can, providing they give five days notice so the school can make the necessary changes.

You can watch the school committee meetings discussing the issue. Teachers will be taking their three teacher workshop days in the first week of September; these are normally spaced throughout the school year, but doing them right after Labor Day will give everyone time to prepare for this new challenge. A great deal of thought has been put into this plan, new territory for us all.

Library

Librarian Sheila Polson writes:

“Good news for young readers! The library now has complete sets of books in these popular series: 

• Land of Stories by Chris Colfer (The Wishing Spell, The Enchantress Returns, A Grimm Warning, more)
• Warriors by Erin Hunter (Into the Wild, Fire and Ice, Forest of Secrets, more)
• Ivy and Bean by Annie Barrows (Ivy and Bean and the Ghost that Had to Go, Ivy and Bean Break the Fossil Record, more)

“And these are only some of the library’s many wonderful choices of books for readers in this age group. 

“To see more, go to the library website and click on “Books and Resources” and then the catalog. You can search by subject such as juvenile fiction or by author or book title. To order books for curbside pickup (now taking orders for this Saturday!), email  or call 706-3896 and leave a message. 

“We look forward to hearing from you!”