By Linda Allen
When Shirley Fletcher of Brownville Junction and her daughter, Diane Abrams, walked through the door to the King’s Daughters Home for the spring open house on April 26, they stopped at the small entrance table and began to sign in at the open notebook where residents recorded their comings and goings. It was a fitting gesture for a woman who had lived at KDH 71 years ago in 1944.
Shirley, who will celebrate her 90th birthday this year, had a wide grin on her face as she looked at the familiar winding stairway to the second floor with its dark wood rail and gentle curve, upon which she had taken many trips up and down during her stay so long ago.
Shirley was a young woman of 18 studying to be a beautician when she came to live at KDH. The matron who ran the home at that time, she recalled, was named Mrs. (Harriett) Mason. Her parents had been pleased that she was staying in a controlled setting where rules were rather strict and curfews enforced.
Nevertheless, she enjoyed the experience and had been excited to revisit the home after so many years when she saw the notice about the event in the Bangor Daily News. Her comment to her daughter was, “Those were the happiest days of my life, next to having you girls, of course!”
Although not as spry as she once was, Shirley was determined to find her old room and slowly made her way up the staircase. She had shared a room at the top of the stairs that used to have twin beds and a small sink near the door. It was one of only two resident rooms that had the convenience of its own sink and she identified it right away.
That room is now used as part of the living quarters for the house parents and the sink holds a potted plant and there is a couch where her bed once stood.
Adjacent to her room, she told us there used to be a “smoking room” in what is now a small office-sewing room. In Shirley’s day, the room also was referred to as the “transient room,” since it was used for temporary boarders who stayed only a night or two while awaiting an available room or moved on to another location.
While visiting KDH, Shirley met two current residents, Taylor Pond Evans and Jocelyn Acheson, who are college students. Taylor is completing her last semester at NESCOM at HUsson University in the Web design program and will be leaving in May after having been an enthusiastic resident for three years. Jocelyn is in her second year of the dental hygiene program at the University of Maine Augusta Bangor campus and plans to return to live at KDH in the fall.
During the time Shirley resided at the home on Ohio Street, there were 16 or more residents, many sharing rooms. Recent numbers have been much lower and the rooms are configured to comfortably accommodate nine, with five single rooms on the second floor.
Parents still like having their daughters live at KDH even though rules have been relaxed and curfews eliminated. It continues to be a “home away from home” where enduring friendships are formed and young women have a chance to focus on their studies in a quiet, supportive atmosphere.
Rooms are still available for summer and fall occupancy by contacting the house parents, Dave and Lauretta Kulp, at 945-3844 or visiting kingsdaughtershomebangor.org. There is also a Facebook page where some of the past year’s special activities and events are highlighted.
As for Shirley, KDH house parents hope she will attend the next open house and tell more stories about life at the home and in Bangor in the 1940s.