YESTERDAY …
10 years ago — Jan. 21, 2005
(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)
BANGOR — Mourners packed St. John’s Catholic Church in Bangor on Friday to bid farewell to one of the area’s longest serving priests. The governor, a pair of bishops, two dozen priests, a half a dozen nuns, the Knights of Columbus, three generations of altar boys and girls, a sprinkling of Protestant clergy and hundreds of lay Catholics attended the funeral for the very Rev. Richard E. Harvey.
Born in Portland in 1920, Harvey graduated from Deering high school and earned a degree in 1942 from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. He enlisted in the Navy and took part in the invasions of Sicily and Normandy during World War II.
After returning home, Harvey attended St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore and was ordained in 1951. That year, he was appointed associate pastor at St. John’s, Bangor, where he remained until 1967.
BANGOR — Can a group that consists of a wide variety of clashing interests reach accord on development near the Penjajawoc watershed and the Bangor Mall? Only time will tell.
The task force consists of three representatives from five groups with an interest in the area: environmentalists, landowners and neighbors, local land trusts, commercial developers in the Bangor Mall area, and city staffers.
25 years ago — Jan. 21, 1990
VEAZIE — Quilter Persis Messer of Veazie, who died in 2001, left behind a special kind of quilting legacy and it is not made of fabric. It is made of paper and words. In the mid-1980s, when she was 73, she compiled “Quilts Have a Story to Tell: A Social Studies Anthology.” A photo of her from that era shows an elderly woman of slight stature wearing glasses and a string of pearls at work on a Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt. The kindly expression on her face seems to say, “Try quilting, you’ll like it.”
Messer was a founding member of the Bear Paws Quilters Club in 1978. Marilyn Ewing, Stella Neubauer, Estelle Noyes, Pauline Rudnicki and Lucille Stark also have been identified as charter members of the Bangor area club.
BANGOR — In 1971, the average house in the Bangor area sold for approximately $19,000 and there were approximately 40 real estate agents in the area.
That was the year that James C.R. Stoneton joined the local industry. He had graduated from the University of Maine, had served a stint in the military decided to pursue a career in real estate, which always had been an interest.
For 10 years, he worked for J. F. Singleton Co. In 1981, Stoneton and two partners, Walter Foster and Richard LeBlanc, went out on their own and purchased American Heritage, and existing real estate company. They affiliated with Coldwell Banker in 1984.
Compared with today, Stoneton says that the real estate industry was a lot simpler in 1971. 20 years ago their word appraisals like those of today. Usually a bank officer simply gave the property in question a quick inspection. Information pertaining to the closing could be listed on one sheet of paper. Closing costs typically were just a few hundred dollars.
The requirements that have evolved since Stoneton started his career have been numerous. Closing costs now range between $2000 and $4000. There are now approximately 500 licensed agents in the area. And the price of a home has increased to approximately $87,000.
50 years ago — Jan. 21, 1965
BANGOR — The city of Bangor has spent millions of dollars over its 200-year history and public facilities, from its first road to the present day Kenduskeag parking plaza.
All have played an important part in boosting the city’s growth, and thus, its economic well-being.
Yet, every dollar spent in the hard road to civic and economic prosperity could not match the total value of the potential boost the city will receive in three years — a $100 million ultramodern, jet age, civilian airport.
The airport could prove a catalyst pushing Bangor and its surrounding towns into a top economic position among New England communities. Or it could prove, like the Trojan horse, the reverse, a difficult burden to bear.
The city’s economy has been tied into Air Force dollars for years. If cobwebs collect at Dow Air Force Base in the next decade, they will collect also in business show windows and in unrented apartments across the city.
VEAZIE — The cab unit of a tractor-trailer truck carrying 6,600 gallons of fuel oil burst into flames on the northbound lane of Interstate 95, holding up traffic for almost 30 minutes according to state police.
That there was no explosion or injuries as a result of the mishap, police said. John Stubbs, 32, of Bangor, an employee of the Bemis Transportation Company of Bangor, was identified by state police as driver of the truck. No cause has been determined for the blaze, which destroyed the truck’s cab unit.
100 years ago — Jan. 21, 1915
BANGOR — Bangor Lodge 244, BPOE, scored a splendid success with the Grand Ball given under its auspices at City Hall. An attendance of more than 800 people was notable at this time of year.
One of the principal, if not the most striking, feature of the affair was the simple yet wonderfully beautiful decorative scheme which made City Hall appear to its best advantage.
The color scheme was based on the lodge colors, royal purple and white, and both the stage and balcony were draped in long artistically arranged streamers of these colors. Over the center of the stage the elk’s head and clock, well-known symbols of the order, held a conspicuous place.
BANGOR — In response to the order passed by the City Council for the employment of the idle and needy men who are out of work this letter by reason of business depression, approximately 25 men will be started in hauling gravel for the city highway department. As many teams will be employed as can be used to advantage.
Alderman Matheson of the board of street engineers having charge of the employment of the men states that he has had 125 applications at least, and some of the stories told by the applicants are most pathetic, showing that the action taken by the City Council was in the right line at this time, and that the money necessary to give the employment will be well spent.
Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin