Memories build a bridge to our past, but for the elders who took part in a memory-sharing event held recently at Harbor Hill Center in Belfast, some of those recollections spanned almost 10 decades.
“I remember the [Bangor and] Aroostook Railroad,” said Mildred Marden, 101, as she reminisced about her childhood, at the center that provides nursing, medical and rehabilitative care for residents.
Marden graduated from Brewer High School more than 80 years ago; her stepfather had worked for the railroad on a section of the line, she said. As a child growing up in the Millinocket area, she was impressed by the big, lumbering freight and passenger trains of the now-defunct railroad company founded in 1891.
“Oh yes! I used the train to go to school. I went to school 9 miles. I took the train the other way to go to piano lessons in the Bangor area. I taught piano. I can’t use my hands so well now, but I’m getting back into playing the piano,” she said.
Marden, however, is still warming up the keys.
“She comes about every day to the library, where the piano is, and plays an intricate piece she has retained from memory from her former piano-teaching days,” said Harbor Hill activities director Evelyn Simmons, after the event.
Altogether, eight residents from widely diverse backgrounds took part in the gathering, joined by six family members who came to help loved ones exchange the fleeting but deeply emotional images that weave the intimate tapestries of our lives.
“We’ve got a lot of amazing memories here,” said Rhoda-Neshama Waller of Freedom, who organized and facilitated the informal, memory-sharing event.
Waller is the founder of TimeLines Community, a nonprofit organization dedicated to encouraging the creative self-expression of people over the age of 60.
“Part of the TimeLines mission is to preserve the memories and culture of our elders for future generations. They value themselves when they see that people want to listen to all their accumulated years of knowledge and history — to hear about a way of life that no longer exists,” she said.
Her husband, John Clark, and his mother, Dorothy “Dot” Clark, 94, who lives at the Belfast health care center, also took part in the social event.
That day, the group was honored by the presence of resident and former schoolteacher Nellie Thompson, 94, whose hometown is Morrill. She holds Morrill’s honorary gold cane as the rural town’s oldest resident.
Harbor Hill resident Delmar Ward, 79, who jokingly introduced himself as “Clark Gable,” was raised in the Brooks area, in a home with no electricity.
“We had kerosene lamps, then,” he said.
Ward shared the moving story of his childhood bout with polio and the fears of contagion his illness raised for the family, school and community.
“They burned my school books. For a week and a half, I couldn’t speak. My mother was in the kitchen, and suddenly, I hollered. She got on the telephone and told all the neighbors that I started talking. She even told the man who brought in the groceries. And he told the neighbors,” he said.
“I couldn’t do well in sports,” he added, referring to the aftereffects of the illness.
To help stir memories, facilitator Waller opened the event by playing tunes from yesteryear, beginning with “Autumn Leaves,” sung by the immortal Nat King Cole.
Residents and family members who had difficulty singing along with Cole’s 1955 hit tune enjoyed hearing John Clark belt out the lyrics:
“The falling leaves drift by the window
The autumn leaves of red and gold.
I see your lips, the summer kisses
The sunburned hands I used to hold.”
That day, Melton Higgins of Belmont was visiting his mom, Muriel Higgins, age 100. His wife, Pat Higgins, asked the group whether they remembered the first president they had voted for.
The question stumped participants, but later, several residents remembered when Harry S. Truman was sworn in as the 33rd U.S. president, after Franklin D. Roosevelt died in office in 1945.
Now, Harbor Hill residents have lived to see the first black president elected in U.S. history.
On the farm
Rosie Richardson, 91, born in Lubec, was one of five children raised on a hardscrabble farm in South Freedom.
“I was the oldest girl. There was a year between us. We’d fight over washing the dishes,” she recalled.
Life wasn’t easy growing up in rural Waldo County in the early 1900s. Her mother, Lillian Caler Pottle, died of uterine cancer at age 29, she said.
“I had my 10th birthday the year she died. It was hard. We had to do all the work,” she said. Her father, George Pottle, kept the family together.
“I had a father you worked for, or else. He worked in the woods. That’s all the work there was. We didn’t have too much. When it came time to rake blueberries, you raked them. I remember spreading hay on blueberries. You do that and you’ve done something. We were tired, I’ll tell you,” she said.
She attended a “new,” two-room schoolhouse built years ago in South Freedom.
“There were eight grades and one teacher — Margaret Weed — right out of high school. Them Weed girls was pretty — Christina and Maggie Weed. We’d walk to school. Lord, yes. We’d be walking the old woods road and across the big field,” she said.
Winter brought memories of sledding and snowshoeing.
“We’d slide down the hill on our coattails. We didn’t have no sleds,” Richardson said.
At age 14, she married Ernest Greeley. She was only 15 years old when the first of her two sons was born. Later, she divorced Greeley and married Kenneth Richardson, who worked for Maine Central Railroad, she said. Her son Harold Greeley lives with his wife, Viola, in Freedom; her younger son, Roy Greeley, lives in Knox.
“Life is kinda tough, but you can weather it,” she said.
Mildred Marden remembered playing “fox and geese,” in the snow.
“We’d go snowshoeing. We once walked 12 miles on snowshoes. It’s easy if you’re doing it right. I used to love it. I wore one pair out,” she said.
Nancy Burwell, 87, recalled playing street games as a child in New York City.
“We had rubber balls and threw them up against city walls,” she said. Her husband, Basil Burwell, was a professor of theater in New York.
“We did summer stock in Maine and upstate New York. I did acting too. That’s how we met. We both had the same interests. He wrote one-act plays and published two books of poetry,” she said.
“He was instrumental in founding the Belfast Maskers in Belfast,” director Simmons said later.
Residents who grew up in the pre-TV era recalled listening to radio programs such as, “The Lone Ranger,” “The Shadow,” “The Jack Benny Show” and “Amos and Andy.”
Wartime memories
Living through the uncertainty of World War II raised vivid images for residents and family members alike.
Dot Clark, formerly of New York City, recalled when everybody had to put the lights out at night, for fear of possible attack by enemy aircraft.
“We’d sit in the dark. My husband patrolled the streets with a flashlight to see if there were any enemies. We were so thrilled we were part of it,” she said.
Pat Higgins shared a similar experience.
“In China, Maine, we had air-raid drills. We had one man patrol the streets. When they turned off the streetlights, it was very dark. I was afraid of the dark,” she said.
Then, came V-J Day, marking the victory over Japan. The war had ended. Americans celebrated for weeks. Higgins remembered church bells ringing.
Dot Clark also shared her memory of V-J Day revelry.
“My mother took out all the dishes. We lived on the third floor. She threw dishes out the window and watched them smash up on the street,” she said.
Culturally stimulating events such as those held by Waller are welcome activities at the center, Simmons said.
“A time-capsule activity is one of the best we can do. … A lot of the families would never know about their loved ones’ lives and what they did, if they don’t share it. They [residents] have seen everything from [the first] electric lights to the man on the moon,” she said.
Lynn Ascrizzi is a freelance writer and lives in Freedom.
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• For more information about TimeLines Community, a nonprofit group dedicated to encouraging the creative self-expression of people over 60, contact Rhoda-Neshama Waller at: 382-3135 or e-mail, rlwaller36@yahoo.com.