Hallowell’s History Buffs

Conversation Time at the Hallowell Community Meeting

Talk about a captive audience.

Team members had plenty of work to do getting ready for last night’s community conversation in Hallowell, but none of it involved begging for customers. Nearly 50 people showed up for the festivities in this tiny city of just under 2,500 residents. The second-floor auditorium in the Classic Revival-style City Hall building, which one ascends via charmingly curved staircase steps, was an ideal venue for the event.

Hallowell seems to boast more than its share of avid devotees of its history. And no wonder: with all the activity related to the Kennebec River, breakthroughs in medicine, a nationally-recognized granite industry, historic architecture, and much, much more, there’s plenty of material to go around.

Team leader Bob McIntire opened the event with a well-crafted old photo slideshow that whetted the appetite of the crowd. After MHS Assistant Director Steve Bromage explained the MCHP and Maine Memory Network in more detail–including showing one of the items the team already has online– each team member took the microphone to explain a particular aspect of the project.

Gerry Mahoney, of Row House, a historic preservation group, marveled at the “investigative” nature of writing the narrative and how, as much as he’s studied the city, “there’s always more” to uncover. Teachers Wendy Wingate and Libby Ladner, along with 8th-grader Erin Colwell, discussed Hall-Dale Middle School’s plans, based a pilot project the 7th grade class undertook last year. Sam Webber, a trustee of Hubbard Library, described the planned exhibit topics (on the subjects areas noted above, plus “disasters” natural and man-made) and what kinds of items might be scanned. Finally, Jane Radcliffe, of the Vaughan Homestead Foundation, offered a quick overview of the cataloging process.

Jane Radcliffe talking with a community member.

When Bob returned to the front and asked the crowd to break for sharing of ideas, completing “Can You Help?” sheets that asked for further topic suggestions and resources, and munching on tasty Slate’s cookies, he didn’t have to ask twice. About 20 minutes of convivial conversation ensued in all corners of the room.

By the sound of it, and the sight of a stack of dutifully filled out contact sheets, this team has no shortage of history buffs ready and waiting to put the shine on the MCHP.

Wendy Wingate and Libby Ladner (center and right) talk with a community member.

Exploring Maine Memory Network

Scandals and Scavenger Hunts: How to Interest Students (or anyone) in Local History

It was a small, but lively group in the community room at the McArthur Library in Biddeford last night for the MCHP team’s community conversation event.

Small often means big when it comes to fostering discussion. Every person gets a chance to speak, and those that may feel uncomfortable piping up in large groups find a smaller number less intimidating. It also means that ideas can be fleshed out, rather than skipped past as soon as they uttered.

Last night, this relaxed and expansive atmosphere translated into thoughtful conversation about how best to align topics with the students working on the MCHP.

The Biddeford Team (team leader Denise Doherty is second from left)

If you’ll recall, team leader Denise Doherty teaches alternative education students (scroll down to the September 14 entry for a more detailed explanation of the Biddeford team). While there may be challenges with this group of students that are different from those in a more traditional class, at heart, kids are kids. And, when it comes to history and good stories, they are not so different from the rest of us with a few more candles on our cakes.

A few salient tips, then, that emerged from the discussion that we might remember when choosing topics to engage students of all stripes–or anyone doing local history.

1) Don’t second-guess your audience. Since school started Denise has given students a number of opportunities to explore possible topics for the MCHP. She plastered the walls of her room with a variety of old photos of downtown Biddeford and students have spent considerable time comparing city blocks then and now. She also gave her students a little tour around the many items McArthur Library already had on Maine Memory Network and let them pick and choose which images to focus in on.

The surprising result: Students were drawn to images Denise never would have imagined would be intriguing to them, or eliciting so much discussion. A number of photographs of sewer construction on Main Street in 1914-1915 captivated one student because of the massive machinery and blue-collar subject matter. A photograph of a small boy, perhaps no more than six, selling cigarettes, launched a discussion about acceptable practices then and now. Old-time swimsuits on beachcombers at Biddeford Pool drew shock and amazement, and prompted one young woman to begin investigating fashion of the period.

The lesson here is: Don’t assume you know what will appeal to students, or even the general public. Test the market!

2) Everyone loves a scandal. Once the group got going on this topic, it was hard to stop. Murders motivated by race, political shenanigans, street gangs of the 1940s-50s, bodies caught in mill machinery and run over by trolleys… it sounds like what’s on TV tonight. In fact, it’s all part of Biddeford’s history. Every town has its share of gritty tales that have the potential to reach out and grab an audience by the collar. If they are fun and intriguing to read, imagine how much pleasure students might get unearthing the gory details. Mind you, there’s tremendous learning potential in these stories, too. Think of the horrors of child labor and how instructive such a topic might be to today’s youth.

3) Make overt connections with today. Quick way to bore someone to tears: Avoid acknowledging in any way that the past has bearing on, or relationship to, the present. History is a long, entwined, unbroken chain of events that carefully followed, leads straight to this very moment. Highlighting these connections for students (or anyone) can be incredibly enriching. Consider a diary from the 1920s that McArthur Library director Dora St. Martin is dutifully transcribing. In it, the young female author–a mill worker–recorded her daily adventures, big and small, such as a long list of all the movies she saw. And juicy stuff, too: another woman getting called the “B-word” in the street, gossipy tidbits about who likes who. Sound not so different from today? Students will soak this stuff up as they realize that people then had much the same inner lives as people now.

4) Treat the audience like investigators on a trail. Paraphrasing Debe Averill, Bangor’s team leader: “Don’t call it research. Call it detective work!” Don’t all of our senses perk up when we catch the scent of a good mystery? The Biddeford discussion offered several rich ways to turn the work into a hunt for the truth. How about literal scavenger hunts for local historical resources? Break students into pairs or teams and have them locate the plaques, memorials, statues, and monuments and uncover their reason for being. Or stick them on a bus with your historical society representative, as was suggested last night, and do a tour around town to locate (and map?) now-forgotten buildings and sites of importance. Open up ancient city directories and have students find the location of their current residence and uncover what it used to be. Then have them write about the experience as a sort of meta-exhibit: “We set out to find… and here’s what happened…”

5) Don’t forget to pick a theme. While self-selection for students is important, do provide parameters and structure before letting them go to town. This can be as simple as making sure all the potential topics and materials relate to an over-arching theme. In Biddeford, it’s neighborhoods. One person questioned whether everything students might find interesting would fall under that umbrella, but it is pretty broad. Fashion, for instance, might be looked at ethnically or culturally–and Biddeford history is full to bursting with different ethnic groups. Seek the happy medium of a unifying vision with lots of different perspectives gazing toward it. (Your readers will thank you, too.)

So, there you have it. Many substantive tips and tricks from the clever minds in Biddeford!

“After Lumber–What?”

Bangor Community Conversation, 9/23/09

That salient question was posed, albeit rhetorically, by an audience member during last night’s lively community conversation in Bangor, ably facilitated by team leader Deborah Averill and held in the lecture hall of the Bangor Public Library. (If you’ve never been there or made it upstairs, you owe yourself a visit to peer up at the stunning glass rotunda.) Like many other comments during the evening, the speaker’s question validated the brainstorming work already done by the team.

The gist of his meaning? Every Mainer knows the old saw about Bangor being the “lumber capital of the world” in the 19th century. With its more than 300 sawmills it well deserves that title, of course. It must have seemed like everyone was a lumberjack in those days. But, if you start and stop there, you aren’t seeing the forest for the trees. By the late 1800s Bangor’s lumbering industry had lost its vigor as Americans settled, and harvested forests, further and further west. It was a drawn-out demise that couldn’t help but make an impact on the once-dominant region. However, noted the same audience member, “Modern Bangor was created out of the death of lumbering.”

And “Modern Bangor” entails a heck of a lot. Somehow, team member and flip chart attendant Priscilla Soucie expertly kept up with the flow topics and ideas on what makes Bangor distinctive: Neighborhoods like Little City and the Highlands. A colorful history of crime and punishment. How urban renewal changed things. The spirit of charity and the central role of churches, missionaries, and seminaries. Trade networks. How 20th century national movements like suffrage, temperance (Carrie Nation at the Bangor House!), and abolition played out in the city. Parks and green spaces. Arts and culture. And on and on and on. (Let’s not forget “before lumbering” reminded a couple folks–Who were the native American residents? What drew the first European settlers?)

These rich contributions came from several local historians, teachers, and a young woman in high school working on a Girl Scout “Gold” Badge. (The latter reminded the group that the last 50 years is history, too, and barely gets covered in school.) By the end of the evening, which included homemade ginger snaps and chocolate drop cookies from a Bangor Rebekah cookbook, team members were full to bursting with potential subject matter for the next decade of their MCHP website. But a few had already started synthesizing the suggestions into a potential theme: Bangor as hub or gateway, where the movement of groups and ideas in and out of the city factored heavily in its evolution.

And fortunately, at the second team meeting earlier that day, the group decided to reconvene again in a week with one clear priority… prioritizing. First, organize and rate all the topics. Then, decide which ones have material behind them–either housed at the library, the Bangor Museum and Center for History, or out there in the community. (Like Lincoln, they collected such information from attendees, as well as gauging interest about mentoring students and help with scanning.) Next, mete out the topics among the two middle schools and various interested classes at the high school. Finally, as team member and Cohen Middle School teacher Ron Bilancia put it, “just sit down and hammer out” the fine details of individual student work plans, logistics of transporting collections, and how much schools will share the work or act independently.

Maine Historical Society Assistant Director Steve Bromage put it right when he said last night that Bangor has “an embarassment of riches” in terms of content. But the riches go beyond the mere fruits of the historical record. They are embedded within this strong and diverse team, and their additional community members.

People like Mr. Charles Colburn, an 87-year-old WWII veteran, recently awarded his Bangor High School diploma after missing out on it when he left for war. “I’ve got it. I’ve got it all!” he said to me last night, referring to memories of Bangor, and Maine at large, tucked away in his mind. “I can you tell stories you wouldn’t believe.” He went on to say he was quite a woodsman back in the day. “Do you know I once carried a deer on my shoulders all the way across a beaver dam? All the way across it!”

Set the trees aside for a moment… and dig into those deeply felt roots.

Cumberland and North Yarmouth: Two Roads, One Destination

Members of the Cumberland/North Yarmouth Team at Orientation

In Robert Frost’s famous poem “The Road Not Taken,” the speaker finds himself at a crossroads in a “yellow wood,” divergent paths at his feet. Sorry he “could not travel both / And be one traveler,” he lingers, debating which one to follow. At last, he chooses the one that seems slightly less worn.

Many people focus on the last two lines of the poem — “I took the one less traveled by / And that has made all the difference” — and read them as a positive commentary on taking the alternate path. In this interpretation, “all the difference” means that the speaker’s life was improved greatly by that path.

However, Frost was a master of the double–even triple–meaning. Perhaps, in fact, the speaker wishes he’d taken the other path. Or, maybe neither path is all good or all bad–one is just different from the other. They share a common beginning, and they may arrive at a singular destination, but in between, the way diverges and each is equally important. Not unlike… a history of a life, or a place, you might say.

So by now you’ve probably guessed that the use of this poem in this post is no coincidence. Indeed, “The Road Not Taken” literally helps inform the experience of the Cumberland/North Yarmouth team. Roads themsleves are, as one team member put it, “a huge part of the character” of the area. Where and when they were built has driven much of the history of the place. One example is Route 9, which connects Cumberland and North Yarmouth to the Portland metro area. Built in 1920, the road eventually established the region as a cozy bedroom community and kept other kinds of development at bay.

But it is really the metaphor of separate paths that most vividly evokes the history of this unique MCHP community. Like Frost’s traveler, the two towns started out on unified ground as part of “Ancient North Yarmouth.” Incorporated in 1680, this region also included today’s Yarmouth proper, Pownal, Freeport, Harpswell, and part of Brunswick. By the mid-1800s, however, all the towns had become individual entities. Cumberland was second-to-last to incorporate in 1821; Yarmouth itself followed in 1849.

North Yarmouth and Cumberland then wound their independent ways into the next century. Neither path was better than the other–just different. But given proximity, the paths were destined to meet up again. Prince Memorial Library provided an early linkage. Although situated in Cumberland, the library has been patronized by residents of both towns since its creation in the 1920s; North Yarmouth began contributing annually to the library’s operating budget in 1972. Perhaps the most significant alignment came with the creation of MSAD #51 in 1966. Now families from the two towns were intertwined via their children, and town leaders were connected by considerable adminstrative and budgetary responsibilities.

Fast forward to today. Still wending individual paths, Cumberland and North Yarmouth are nevertheless moving toward a singular destination via the MCHP. The mirage of a shared local history website shimmers in the distance (specifically, next June). As the year progresses, the vision will gain clarity and form.

Never mind that there are two paths instead of one. Community needn’t be defined strictly by a single towns’ borders. It can, in fact, be liberating to think of the creation of “community” as an intentional exercise–come together because you want to, celebrating each of your identities equally–rather than something imposed by the lines on a map.

And never mind that this particular destination is a “virtual” one. The effects may be just as real and long-lasting as building another road.

The Long View of Blue Hill

Members of the Blue Hill Team at Orientation

In “A Morning View of Blue Hill Village,” painted in 1824 by the town’s first minister and Renaissance man Jonathan Fisher, there is barely any water visible–just a tiny patch of the bay on the left-hand side.

The primary focus of the image–which can be viewed on Maine Memory Network (item #19161)–is the hill. The viewer hovers above it, looking south-east down into the valley of the village and then back up the other side where Fisher’s house crests in the distance. While there are three people and a horse standing atop the hill, most of the activity of the painting is clustered in the middle, in the valley. Tiny yellow and white houses trace a rough line up the hill. Here and there, stands of trees punctuate the view.

It is a bucolic, pastoral scene going on two centuries old of a small Maine town that still regularly evokes those adjectives. Of course the ocean is right there, but it’s only an inlet. The town is tucked back away from the open sea. And the coziness of the Main Street–the way you dip into it and back out again–feels as warm and inviting a pocket.

Into such a setting many fascinating people have settled, not the least of which is Fisher himself. I learned just how fascinating he was on Wednesday, the day of the Blue Hill team’s second MCHP meeting. Prior to the meeting, team member Caroline Werth, who volunteers her time at the Fisher House Museum, offered to give me a tour of the building. (Brad Emerson, also on the team, as well as three other volunteers, offered their expertise as well.) In addition to roaming around the charming nooks and crannies of an early 19th-century house, I witnessed endless examples of Fisher’s creativity and skill.

Drawing and painting landscapes and portraits (three of himself at various ages–note the increasing wrinkles) were the tip of the iceberg. Harvard educated, Fisher also carved finely detailed woodblocks of animals to make prints, kept lovingly illustrated journals full of life details and observations of the natural world, made furniture of stunning precision and beauty, built clocks and surveying tools and his own camera obscura, tended a thriving orchard, bound his own books, made buttons and hats, and, not least, read and wrote extensively. Many of his poems, essays, and sermons survive, in addition to the journals. As the town’s first man of the cloth, he even helped found Bangor Theological Seminary.

In the midst of all this, Fisher fathered nine children. That big fact reminds us that beneath the surface of every rich and compelling story, there is a back story aching to be told. Or, in this case, literally an aching back. Who was the wife who took care of the children and house so that her husband could achieve his potential? What were her interests, dreams, and ideas about the world? While not much information survives about Mrs. Fisher–especially not in the writings of Fisher himself–you can bet he was able to do what he did because she was working just as hard at at least as much.

In certain ways, this story of a Renaissance man and how he was able to do what he did in this tiny town represents the larger story of Blue Hill. Today, Blue Hill is known worldwide for its transplanted big city artists and renowned musical assets like Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival and the Bagaduce Music Lending Library. But it is also a place that grew on the backs of fisherman, shipbuilders, workers in the tourism industry, and others whose families have lived in the area for generations, long before the rusticators came north. These diverse groups still co-exist in Blue Hill and the town would not be what it is without any one of them.

And so, that’s the vantage point from where the Blue Hill team members stand–up there on the hill looking at the town as it winds its way through history. “Who are we–we who call ourselves residents of Blue Hill?” and “How did we come to where we are today?” are two of their guiding questions. They are eager to unearth the answers–not only for themselves, but for the students at four area schools that will participate in the project.

Together, they are likely to offer up a virtual landscape just as rich and colorful as Reverand Fisher’s painted version–but one that, perhaps, reveals as much behind-the-scenes as it does on the surface.

Timing is (Just About) Everything in Lincoln

Members of the crowd in Lincoln

During Lincoln’s Community Conversation Tuesday night–the first of the eight MCHP teams to host a public announcement of the project–Beth ByersSmall, Mattanawcook Junior High School’s technology teacher (and team member), speculated on the reason for the high turnout of nearly 100 people.

“I wonder if timing has anything to do with it,” she said, remarking on the wisdom of a 6:30 PM start. “We begin a lot of school events at 6:00 PM and don’t often have this many people. Maybe that half-hour made the difference in people getting here.”

While it’s impossible to know if a mere 30 minutes turned what might have been a small group into a crowd representative of the community at large, Beth’s comment hit home. For this team, “timing is everything” might well serve as a project motto.

Members of the Lincoln Team at Orientation

Consider how Lincoln ended up in the MCHP this year: The team originally applied for the 2008-2009 year but was not selected. Undaunted, team leader Heidi Harris and Lincoln Historical Society president Jeannette King forged ahead, applying for and receiving a modest grant to run a much smaller service-learning project. Students learned how to handle historic documents, came to understand the intrinsic value of primary sources, and digitized items for the historical society. Team members established strong intergenerational relationships that bridged school and community.

When it came time to apply for MCHP again last spring, the Lincoln folks had a strong case to make. They had become familiar with the technology, well-versed in their local historical collections, and a cohesive unit. They had shown their mettle as a team. Everything clicked. The application and phone interview clearly evoked the team members’ determination, heart, and belief in the value of service learning–and they were in.

Timing has been on this group’s side in other respects, too. The 7th and 8th grade teaching teams at Mattanawcook–both Social Studies and English/Language Arts instructors–operate like well-oiled machines. Many of the teachers have worked together for several years. They clearly like each other and have fun together, understand how their teaching styles and curricula interweave, and speak as one when acknowledging the value of their local history. It’s as if they move in perfect concert, with team leader Heidi Harris tapping out a steady beat for the others to follow.

Even the timing of meetings seems to work well. Lincoln’s team meeting falls smack dab in the middle of the month. This meant that the first official get-together in mid-August came as teachers were just beginning to get their heads back around academics, but not so close to the start of school that they were consumed by last-minute preparations.

The second official meeting was on Tuesday afternoon–prior to the public event–and lasted a mere hour. The reasons? A straightforward agenda, efficient facilitation by Heidi, and succinct contributions by team members. Oh–and because the team had met a week before to keep moving things along… and because a number of things have already been accomplished, such as narrowing down the exhibit topics. Heidi actually apologized that she was through her agenda in half the time allotted. “Not at all!” I assured her. “When you’re done, you’re done.”

Community members peruse and add to exhibit topic posters

Besides, there was that matter of needing to be back on school grounds a couple of hours later for the community event. They had publicized it every which way and were hoping for up to 50–that would be a fantastic turn-out. There was a spread of chocolate chip cookies and punch enough for that number. The “topic” posters were hanging on the wall for audience feedback. Alyssa Federico was ready with a basket to collect the slips of paper on which people with historical items to share would write their contact information. Heidi had planned on an interactive show-and-tell using the photograph of Main Street the team had uploaded to Maine Memory Network during MCHP Orientation. Jeannette King thought maybe five Historical Society members would come, but she wasn’t sure.

By 6:15, just a few souls milled around the gym. Some were students who looked like they’d just headed in from soccer practice. But what a difference 15 minutes makes. One hundred folding chairs had been set out for the event–wishful thinking, some may have felt–and by that magic start time of 6:30, very few of them were empty. Students had come in droves, many with parents for a real family affair. The Historical Society didn’t have just five members–they had 15. Mill workers were well-represented. The place was packed.

Halfway through, when Heidi invited audience members to get up from their seats to write down their ideas on the posters, groups of people congregated in every corner of the gym to talk about the project. I wandered around, listening to the excited buzz and watching young and old take up a marker and jot down their thoughts. This right here is the definition of community, I thought: Getting together for a common purpose. Expressing pride in one’s heritage. Feeling engaged in the process.

When this many people in a relatively small place (population: 5,000+) and a somewhat isolated location (an hour north of Bangor) come out for an announcement about a history project, one does tend to look for purely logical reasons, such as good timing. I think, however, there is another major factor at work here in both the MCHP group itself and the town at large: Team Spirit.

Biddeford’s Neighborhoods

Biddeford Team at Orientation

It was clear to the Biddeford team from the get-go (that would be way back when the MCHP application process began) that the city’s diversity should be the focus of its work this year.

Diversity, however, can mean different things to different people. Plus, it has become such a trendy term in our society that it risks losing its value and sounding overly academic. So right away, team members landed upon a much more engaging image: Neighborhoods.

Biddeford Pool, Hills Beach, The Shipyard, Little Canada… these are some of the place names that capture the city’s colorful history as a community that drew different groups of people to work in its many industries–the mills and shipyards, in particular–and play along its Atlantic coastline and 15 miles of Saco River frontage.

Over time, these and other Biddeford neighborhoods have celebrated the ethnic and cultural heritages of the French, Greeks, Italians, Irish, Chinese, ethnic Albanians and more, as well as significant populations of Jews and Muslims.

What riches to explore. Think of the various traditions and rites of passage, the festivals and food, the places of worship, the interaction within and between groups, the connection of particular groups to the rise and fall of various industries. The potential exists for every neighborhood to have its own local history website! It’s just a matter of digging a little harder in some cases since the historical record hasn’t always been kind to minority groups.

This array of experience happens to fall nicely in line with the group of students at Biddeford High School that will be working on the project under the direction of team leader Denise Doherty. Denise teaches Project Aspire. Like the various populations throughout Biddeford’s history, the kids in her class are also from a variety of backgrounds, also have potential waiting to be unearthed, and also have found themselves on the margins at one time or another.

The MCHP is their opportunity to own the narrative for a change–to pick and choose the stories they want to tell, the ones that resonate with their own lives. To build, in fact, their own virtual neighborhood with the able assistance of the McArthur Public Library and Biddeford Historical Society staff and collections behind them.

The result is sure to be as colorful, complex, and wide-ranging as the city itself–and I, for one, cannot wait to visit.

Scarborough’s Organizing Principles

Scarborough Team at Orientation

In the spirit of “you learn something new every day,” I picked up a lovely little detail at the Scarborough team meeting this past Wednesday.

Quick question: Who knows what “bog shoes” are? I didn’t. But there are some in the possession of the Scarborough Historical Society, and they very well may become one of the artifacts scanned and uploaded to Maine Memory this year.

Okay, okay, here’s the answer: Horses wore the wooden boards affixed to their hooves to avoid sinking into the marsh. Right there, in that one simple word — “marsh” — is captured much of what Scarborough’s MCHP project will evolve around. (Learn more about bog shoes and other marsh-related tools, plus a dash of Scarborough history, in this Portland Press Herald article from August.)

In fact, if you know anything about Scarborough, you know it’s a community that did evolve around its geography. You can’t really ignore a 2,700 acre salt marsh. (Which, by the way, is the largest in Maine.) It has affected everything–population movement in, out of, and back into the area; agriculture; industries like clamming; the development of distinct villages. You might say it acted as an organizing principle for the community.

That’s not the only organizing principle from which the Scarborough team benefits. You all know by now that there’s a lot to the MCHP that must be carefully planned out and worked through. It’s not unlike a… er… “marsh” — a massive thing of great potential and beauty that must be waded into with equal amounts of boldness and care. This tight and friendly Scarborough team is clearly up to the task.

Led by crackerjack coordinator Celeste Shinay who — pardon the extension of my metaphor — leaves no marsh grass unparted, the team members have long been working together. Most recently, they were part of larger team that planned for the community’s major 350th anniversary last year, which included the publication of a gorgeous coffee table book on Scarborough’s history.

I’m going to modify an old saying about creative pursuits, or any task worth accomplishing–they are “10 percent inspiration, 90 percent organization.” If early indications are correct, this team has well more of both.

A Vision in Hallowell

Hallowell Team at Orientation

Although the suggestion of heading down to the The Liberal Cup after last night’s second team meeting in Hallowell was only half-serious, it would have been a fitting way to toast the work that the team has done thus far. (Not to mention quenching one’s thirst!) Having earlier played around with the thematic phrase “solid foundations, lasting legacies” to describe its MCHP work, the Hallowell team last night adopted a formal vision statement. What’s the team’s goal for this year? “To inquire [about], connect, collaborate [on], build, and communicate the stories that make Hallowell’s culture what it is today.”

Don’t you love those verbs? All strong and active, they resonate with the various activities of the MCHP in significant ways. But the end of the statement is as important as–if not more so–than the beginning. While history is a record of human activity in the past, it often fails to engage people if the record leaves out the impact on our contemporary lives. The Hallowell team’s vision statement clearly acknowledges this connection. Of the many topics they are considering focusing on–manufacturing and industry, medicine, historical homes, various disasters–all will be examined with an eye on the present as much as the past.

Later in the meeting, though, we spent a good deal of time with both eyes squarely trained on the past. Thanks to team leader Bob McIntire, the group collectively oohed and aahed over a slideshow of 50 or so previously scanned photographs and other historical items of relevance to the planned topics for the MCHP. Panoramic views of the cityscape along the river. “Oint-ease” medicine labels. Regal-looking Granite Works sculptures. Dr. Hubbard’s surgical instruments and circulation chart. All pretty cool stuff. If pictures are worth 1,000 words, Hallowell’s only problem will come during the editing-down stage!

Seriously, though, there’s so much great history in Hallowell–a little city that was big, big, BIG on innovation–that team members feel like parents choosing which of their children to feature and which to stick in the background. There’s no shortage of general history for the narrative and a veritable landslide of fine details for the exhibits. Team member Gerry Mahoney gleefully told me about a treasure-trove unearthed in the library basement from 1826–all the original writings, bound neatly in small boxes, from a group of Hallowell teens (though already apprenticed out and earning their keep) who held their own salon/debating society weekly for four years. Essays, poems, plays, arguments–all dutifully recorded expressions of the world as they saw it.

Team members will show-and-tell more about their plans at the community conversation event on September 28 at City Hall Auditorium, starting at 6:30 PM. After a general introduction to the project, the MMN demo by MHS staff, and an open conversation about community resources, team members plan to staff interactive learning stations where attendees can speak one-on-one with team members about specific parts of the project. For a community that’s long been interested in its heritage, it’s sure to be a good time.

Guilford’s Sense of Community

Guilford Team at Orientation

I was in Guilford for its Maine Community Heritage Project team’s second (already!) meeting on Wednesday night, September 2. What a gorgeous drive up Route 23 that day–the sun glinting off Dexter’s Wassookeag Lake and the stained glass windows of Sangerville’s Unitarian Universalist Church, the trees still lush and deep green, the sky nearly cloudless and postcard blue.

And upon arrival, being greeted by team leader Cindy Woodworth’s cheeriness, and the matching open-air-i-ness of Guilford’s charming Historical Society, sunlight streaming in the back door, the quiet whirr of the ceiling fan overhead. Not to mention all those marvelous treasures laid out inside! (Some favorites: the long, long, long handmade toboggan greeting visitors by the door, the Legion Hall drum hanging on the wall, the case of military uniforms going back to the Civil War).

I grew up in the interior of Maine (in Pittsfield) and I especially love its winding back roads and tucked-away small towns at this time of year. Summer is fast drawing to a close (if you ask the schoolkids, it’s over!) and an autumn crispness is creeping, Halloween-like, into the air (it wakes us in the chilly mornings with a great big “Boo!”). It’s bittersweet, I know. “Late Corn Best Corn” read a sign at a roadside stand in Corinna. Oh no! I thought. I have to get some before it’s gone!

On the other hand, think of the bounty yet to come: apple-picking (my favorite childhood orchard was Rowe’s in Newport), cider, cornfield mazes, pumpkins, jumping in leaves, harvest fairs. Guilford’s, in fact, is on Saturday, October 3 — and will serve as, among other things, its MCHP community event. In case you’re curious about the “other things,” they are many:  A community lunch full of homemade soups and chowders and salads and breads (if you’ve never been to a central Maine potluck, what are you waiting for?), an open house at the Historical Society, kids’ games, pumpkin decorating, a “Flea-n-tique” market, and more–all capped off by an evening cemetery tour!

These kinds of event are unique to small towns. Miles from the big cities, small towns admittedly have less of some things. But they often have a darn lot of what counts and what is sometimes sorely missing in other places–a thriving sense of community. It’s in the air in Guilford as it is in many of these tucked-away pockets across the state. Maybe they’ve struggled mightily at one or another period in their history, maybe they don’t get as much attention as the big guys (except, in Guilford’s case, when they manage to keep the manufacturing sector going strong against all odds, and when they get to pilot what has now become a nationally-known laptop program!), but what’s kept the town together and proud and carrying on is its rock-solid people. They love the place and will do anything for it.

Take, for instance, the existence of the Historical Society. There wouldn’t be one in Guilford if not for the efforts of a small band of residents who believed in sharing the story of their town and created the organization in 1983. For the past 17 years, MCHP team members (and husband-and-wife team) Sieferd, or “Stub,” and Nena Schultz have been the driving forces behind its vitality. You can’t buy that kind of dedication; it’s either there or it isn’t. And in Guilford, it’s there. I’m pretty sure it grows in the soil.

I’m really looking forward to seeing that tangible sense of community translated into the virtual world of a local history website. Planned exhibits include Guilford’s industrial history and sense of entrepreneurism; the fun, friendship, and festivity of its fairs and celebrations; how natural disasters have galvanized the town into action throughout its history; how it has supported its school budgets pretty much from day one.

Notice a recurring theme? Townspeople coming together to care for a place and each other. Now, that’s a heritage to be proud of.