More often than you may think, a chance telephone call to verify information can turn out to be a most interesting and educational experience.
Take, for example, my call last week to the telephone number listed for the Historical Society of the Town of Hancock, 422-3080.
The Society recently announced its summer hours, which are 10 a.m. to noon, Tuesdays in May and June, and 10 a.m. to noon, Tuesdays and Wednesdays in July and August.
However, if you would like to visit the Historical Society of the Town of Hancock, which is located upstairs in the Hancock Town Hall, you can make an appointment by calling that number.
The person who answered my call turned out to be Lois Johnson, the Society’s volunteer curator.
Lois and I had a delightful conversation about this very special place that, she told me, is just filled with all kinds of interesting information and objects that are available to anyone who would like to stop by for a visit or call or write the Society.
“We have a nice, small museum,” she said of the organization that boasts 3,000 file folders containing information on everything from families who settled the town to its stores, fire department, the Crabtree Ledge Lighthouse, which no longer exists, trains that passed through Hancock and Civil War material such as letters and information about those who served.
The museum, she said, “is a wonderful, open space.
“School kids love to come in and pick up stuff and look at it.”
Lois said the museum’s latest acquisition is “a cobbler’s stand, not a bench, but a stand, that dates to the 1880s and that, apparently, was my great-grandfather’s.
“I can remember my father re-nailing kids shoes on it, and I know his mother’s father was a cobbler, so that’s why we must have had it.”
Another special item is part of a family Bible that dates to 1715.
Lois, who is a Hancock native, returned to her hometown in 1982 after being away for 30 years and resides in the house where she was born.
She’s been involved with the Historical Society since her return and loves what she does.
One of the charms of this museum is that it is what she describes as a “hands-on affair.
“People come in and sit down in a chair and read what they want,” she said of items such as letters and diaries that were written, long ago, by teenage girls and transcribed by Historical Society volunteers.
Everyone is welcome to “come in, pull up a chair, and do their research,” Lois said, and she gladly opens the museum whenever requested to do so.
The Historical Society does not have a website, but its volunteers try to be as helpful and cooperative as they can.
“The filing is constant,” Lois told me of the work she and volunteers Bertha Smith and Page Riggs are doing most of the time they are there.
The museum has hundreds of newspaper clippings on file.
“We’re one of the historical societies that, when anything about us is in the Bangor Daily News, it is clipped and filed,” she said.
The museum also boasts a number of family Bibles and “part of one” that Lois said was printed in 1715.
Lois said she and the other volunteers are ready and willing to help whenever and whomever they can.
“We often get phone calls from out of state looking for information” about the town or about families who settled or lived there.
“Usually people call the Town Hall first, and if they can’t answer the questions, they refer the questions to us.”
If you would like information from the Historical Society of the Town of Hancock, you are welcome to write to the Society at P.O. Box 74, Hancock 04640, or call the number above.
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It has been brought to my attention that the address for Apostolic Lighthouse Church, which is offering free Monday noon meals to anyone who wants to attend, is listed incorrectly not only in the telephone book but on the Web as well.
The correct address for the church is 517 Hammond St. in Bangor.
In May I wrote about the success of church volunteers in launching their soup kitchen and their plans for expansion in the future.
For more information about the free Monday noon meal, call James Gallagher, 570-8107 or the church, 942-2517, or write to Apostolic Lighthouse Church, 517 Hammond St., Bangor 04401.
Joni Averill, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402; javerill@bangordailynews.com; 990-8288.