Janice Sprague and her grandson, Nate Masters, cut the ribbon during the grand reopening of the CLC YMCA in Damariscotta on April 29, 2018. Sprague and her late husband, Neil, founded the recreation center that preceded the CLC YMCA. (LCN file photo)
Janice O’Brien Sprague, a co-founder of the Central Lincoln County Recreation Center, and longtime Lincoln Academy Alumni Council member, died on July 5 at The Lincoln Home in Newcastle after a long battle with breast cancer.
Sprague was born Nov. 10, 1935 to Hance “Jack” O’Brien and Clara Wiley at their house on Bristol Road. In 1942, the family moved to their permanent residence on Standpipe Road in Damariscotta where she grew up, attending the Castner School in Damariscotta and graduating from Lincoln Academy in 1954.
After high school, she worked at Nash Telephone Co. as a switchboard operator, during which time she met Neil C. Sprague while he was on leave from the Navy. They married on May 19, 1956. Together they had five children.
Being the youngest of three and her husband being one of nine, the Spragues entertained often between family and friends. According to the Spragues’ daughters, Lisa Masters, Lurie Sprague-Palino, and Amanda Sprague, the door was always open.
“She was such a nurturer,” Masters said. “She was always welcoming our friends over.”
Saturdays were date night, according to her daughters. Neil and Janice Sprague would go out dancing at local dance halls like Lakehurst or go to see friends.
“She had such an awesome friend network,” Masters said.
Neil Sprague owned Colby and Gale from 1961 to 1979, and both he and Janice Sprague believed in shopping locally and giving back to the community. This belief became a practice that made her a frequent customer of Rising Tide Co-op in Damariscotta to buy quality food and feed the many mouths that walked into their home.
“Breakfast was her big thing,” Masters said. “And she always made sure to shop locally.”
Sprague’s oldest and dearest friends from the Lincoln Academy class of 1954, recalled many afternoons where the two of them walked down Academy Hill after school.
“She’d have her arm around my neck and we’d be singing the whole way,” Wright said. “We were as tight as bark to a tree.”
According to Wright, she and Sprague met with friends for lunch every Thursday for the last 30 years. Their goal was to eat at every place in Lincoln County and they think they came close, but the point was more so to be together.
“We didn’t want life to pass us by and not be together,” Wright said. The luncheon group included Jean Eaton, Cynthia Allen, Natalie House, and, on occasion, Sprague’s grandson, Jacob Masters.
“I’d tag along sometimes because she was picking me up from practice or summer basketball camp at Lincoln,” Jacob Masters said, laughing. “She was always willing to give us a ride or pick us up so long as it was in Lincoln County.”
Sprague was an avid fan of her alma mater, involved in the alumni council but also an active member on the sidelines for her grandchildren’s sporting events that enjoyed the school’s storied rivalries.
“She loved to (go to) every game,” Lisa Masters said.
Sprague, during her time at LA, was voted Ms. Lincolnette, a titled bestowed upon those who have demonstrated a committed involvement with the school and embodied the school spirit. Sprague was part of the glee club, a Lincoln L Club member, a member of the girls basketball team, and served as a class officer.
“She was always a leader,” Wright said.
In the 1970s, Sprague and her husband recognized that the community needed a safe place for young people to go and do sports. They got their friends together and bought a building that would eventually become the Central Lincoln County YMCA.
Meagan Hamblett, chief executive officer of the Central Lincoln County YMCA from 2014-2020, worked with Sprague who was a board member of the Y for many years.
“Quiet, gentle, calming, it was difficult to be worried around her,” Hamblett said.
According to Hamblett, Sprague was always very concerned about families in need in the area and how the Y could get involved with helping them.
“She was always asking what (the Y) could do to help,” Hamblett said. “It really showed that she cared.”
During the CLC YMCA’s ceremonial groundbreaking for the first phase of its expansion project in 2017, it was announced the gym would be renamed the Janice and Neil Sprague Family Gymnasium to celebrate the family’s longtime contributions.
Sprague was a dedicated reader and was particularly concerned with health. According to Sprague’s daughters, she would clip articles if she thought something she read would be helpful to a loved one.
“She was all about helping,” Sprague-Palino said.
In 2005, shortly after her husband’s passing, Sprague was diagnosed with breast cancer. Sprague lived for another 18 years after the diagnoses and was able to watch her grandson Jacob Masters graduate from Lincoln Academy this June.
“She was strong minded,” Wright said.
Although Sprague’s influence is visible walking into the CLC YMCA and through the hallways at Lincoln Academy, it is her impact on the community’s people that may be her most important monument, according to her family.
“Legacy is not leaving something for people,” Lisa Masters said at Sprague’s memorial service on Tuesday, Aug. 1. “It’s leaving something in people.”
