YESTERDAY …
10 years ago — May 14, 2005
(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)
BANGOR — Bill Knight hopes to be there. So does Dick Gifford. The pair, who between them served in three wars, will join 130 World War II veterans and volunteers for a one-day trip, organized by the Cole Land Transportation Museum in Bangor, in September to the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Museum founder Galen Cole, who has been at the forefront of efforts to honor veterans for many years, has been working on the trip for the past year, but couldn’t find a plane. Finally he asked Pan Am President David Fink, a fellow veteran he has known for more than 20 years, for the use of a couple of smaller planes to take approximately 50 veterans to Washington.
Fink went him one better, promising a 727 from the Portsmouth, New Hampshire, based airline to carry 130 people from Bangor International Airport to Washington and back.
HOLDEN — A subdivisions property line was moved, a new home for Nancy’s Scrapbooking was approved and two site visits were planned at the planning board meeting.
Nancy’s Scrapbooking, owned by Nancy Saunders got planning board approval to move down the road from the current location. The new address, 251 Main Road, is a home that will be refurbished into the retail shop.
25 years ago — May 14, 1990
BANGOR — It had all of the ingredients of the typical spring wedding — a bride in white, a groom in a tux, lots of relatives, lots of photographs, flowers, and a few bowlers.
Bowlers?
As John Jay Hall and Pamela Linda Brown lined up to exchange wedding vows, the not-too-distant sound of balls crashing into candlestick pins in the sweeping hum of reset machines could be heard.
A bowling alley in a church? Well, how about a church in a bowling alley? Sort of.
You see, explained Jay after the ceremony, it was the second time around for both, and they nixed the idea of a stuffy, straightforward ceremony. Keep it a little loose this time, so to speak. Jay, being an avid bowler — a member of the professional tour, in fact — sparked the idea from Pamela: the concession area of the bowling alley.
BREWER — Come June 1, as Capt. Charles Shuman of the Brewer Police Department walks out the doors of the office after a quarter-century with the department, he will leave behind a career he began as a member of a five-man department sharing two cruisers.
Back in 1958 when Shuman joined the Brewer Police Department as a special officer, there were no portable walkie-talkies, no immediate contact between law enforcement agencies; only long, 60-hour weeks in which he and his colleagues used as their headquarters the old Brewer City Hall.
In 1958, Shuman explained, private citizens didn’t carry guns. They didn’t have to.
Officers didn’t have to attend police academies — they learned the trade from the streets.
50 years ago — May 14, 1965
BANGOR — Bangor’s latest redesigned, redecorated and renamed eating establishment, the new Peter’s Candlelighter, will hold a public grand opening today.
Formally Peter’s Restaurant, its owners, George and Arthur Brountas, said they felt the imaginative styling of the restaurant will provide a cornerstone, literally, for the new downtown Bangor. The restaurant is located at Main and Union streets.
For example, when rebuilders ripped off the front, it was decided to retain the original seven solid iron pillars for decorative purposes. Painted black with the existing emblems found on them restored and antiqued, the front provides for a walkway or shelter for pedestrians.
The restaurant and new cocktail lounge are a far cry from the original food store that landmarked the corner, established some 30 years ago by the owner’s father, Peter. He later turned it into an eating establishment, and after his death in 1949, the firm acquired the Greyhound Bus Lines franchise. Seven years ago the restaurant expanded into the adjacent store, and three years ago opened the Brountas Travel Services in still another adjacent section, housing the bus service.
OLD TOWN — President Lyndon B. Johnson has been invited to visit this city in July, but it will surprise quite a few people if he accepts.
Police Chief Otis N. LaBree extended the invitation earlier in the week as chairman of Old Town’s 125th anniversary celebration dignitaries committee. Also invited to attend the celebration, scheduled for July 17-24, were Maine Gov. John H. Reed, U.S. Senators Margaret Chase Smith and Edmund S. Muskie, and U.S. Rep. William B. Hathaway. LaBree said Red Auerbach was contacted to see if members of the Celtics would be available for the celebration.
LaBree, who put in some pretty long hours as a security officer during previous presidential visits to the state and who had to track down a bomb threat during President Kennedy’s 1963 visit, described the effort as just a stab in the dark.
“If he really comes, I’ll head for Canada and never come back.”
BANGOR — Beth Abraham Sisterhood will celebrate its 25th anniversary with a Silver Jubilee Program at Beth Abraham Synagogue. Rabbi and Mrs. Henry J. Isaacs are chairmen for the occasion.
In 1940 group of 18 women met at the Beth Abraham Synagogue and formed the Sisterhood for the purpose of raising funds to assist the members of the congregation in defraying expenses for maintenance of the synagogue. Mrs. James Viner served as the group’s first president. During the past 25 years many improvements in the synagogue had been made possible by the work of the Sisterhood members.
100 years ago — May 14, 1915
CASTINE — The Boy Scout Fire Company held its first drill under the direction of Chief Thomas of the Castine Fire Department and Schoolmaster McKoon.
The boys showed speed and spirit. They went through the hose and hydrant drill twice, took out and manned one of the engines and did a bucket line drill.
With a little more practice they will be a very valuable addition to the regular department.
OLD TOWN — The death of Capt. Thomas O’Connor occurred in his home on Stillwater Avenue at the age of 78. He was born in York, Ireland, a son of the late Mr. and Mrs. John O’Connor. When a small boy his parents moved to Virginia where they made their home for a while. When a young man he went to New York and enlisted in the Volunteer Mounted Riflemen, from there he went to Philadelphia for final examinations and was stationed in Arizona from 1856 to 1861. He was among the first white men to pass through the Grand Canyon of Arizona. In 1861 he went to Springfield, Illinois, where he enlisted in the 10th Illinois cavalry, drilling both privates and officers. He fought in many battles and was wounded several times. He enlisted as a private and worked up to captain. He received an honorable discharge in 1865. He then returned to Springfield, Illinois, where his sister, Mrs. Mary E. Walsh lived. While there the death of President Abraham Lincoln occurred. Lincoln was a neighbor of his sister’s and he rode horseback in Lincoln’s funeral procession. Later he came to Boston where he was on the police force, coming from Boston to Maine. He was employed as a stonemason, building bridges and doing the stone work on the Bangor and Piscataquis railroad, now the Bangor and Aroostook.
Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin