Well we both sometimes reply, I went to school with this man’s daughter or son. We find after we graduated from L.A. we all went in different directions, some going on to college, some going into the armed forces, and some finding a job of their liking. Then like most young women and men, we found a mate and got married and started a family.
Then we were both involved in so many activities with the children that the years just flew by and soon they were out of school and married and started a family and we soon became grandparents. Some of our schoolmates are even great-grandparents.
Many of our schoolmates have reached retirement age and have come back to this area to enjoy good fresh Maine air and the beautiful Maine coast and countryside with all our beautiful lakes and rivers and good, clean, fresh water.
Many come back and enjoy spending many wonderful hours on our lakes, small ponds, and rivers and streams in their boats, canoes, and kayaks here in Lincoln County. We even see men and women paddling their sea kayaks along the Maine coastline. Such is the way of life here in the summer time in our area.
This past week we had two different people stop by our shop and give us old photos of some of their family members when they were young and growing up here in Damariscotta.
One man said his father worked at the dairy and drove a milk truck for Round Top Farms and he went on to tell us he worked for my father-in-law, Winfield Cooper, in the dairy barn on weekends while going to Lincoln Academy in the late 1950s. He said how much he enjoyed all the farm help and the money he made on weekends helped him have some spending money when going to school. Now he has come back to retire here in this area.
We both looked at the old photo and picked out some of the men and women and young children in these pictures. His father was Guy Lane and this photo was taken on the evening of April 3, 1956 when Guy became head of the Knights of Pythias Temple here in Damariscotta.
The men pictured in this photo left to right, front row, were Ralph Sprague, George Campbell, Guy Lane, Austin Dodge, Harry Dinsmore; back row, left to right, Freeman Geyer, Frank Munsey, Harold McFarland, George Chamberlain, and Nelson Trask.
The next photo was given to us by Nancy West Ames and shows all the women of the Lincoln Lodge Knights of Pythias, Lincoln Temple, Pythian Sisters, and their young flower girls in the front row. These young flower girls are now grandmothers and great-grandmothers. My how the years pass by and families grow since we both were young children in school.
My wife and I often have the pleasure to share a cup of coffee and talk over old times with some of these young flower girls at the Waltz Pharmacy coffee, soda, and ice cream bar. Likewise my wife and I went to school with some of these older women’s daughters and sons at grammar school as well as at Lincoln Academy back in the late 1940s and the ’50s.
We both are pleased to share some old photos and past history of the local area people and all the different organizations they belonged to as well as their husbands.
We both have often said that over the years Newcastle and Damariscotta has had so many wonderful organizations that both men and women could belong to and also help the area community through different projects.
