Elaine Robbins sits in front of her home in Waldoboro. Robbins, a longtime educator who taught students ranging in age from kindergarten to adults throughout her career, is an avid knitter who sells about 100 pairs of mittens yearly from her front porch. (Molly Rains photo)
Elaine Robbins means many different things to many different people across Lincoln County, where she moved about 70 years ago as a young woman.
While some residents may know Robbins as their adored former kindergarten teacher, others know her as a respected adult educator who worked for two decades at the Knox County Jail. Others who may not know Robbins personally but who have stopped at her self-serve mitten station on Friendship Road keep their hands warm all winter long with the avid knitter’s handmade mittens, which she produces at a break-neck pace of 100 pairs each year.
Born Elaine Chandler, she grew up an only child in Reading, Mass. Her father, an electrical engineer, encouraged her to develop her interest and skill in mathematics, tutoring her in algebra himself.
While in Reading, at age 10, Robbins met Joseph Robbins, whom she would eventually marry. Though the two attended the same schools as children, Robbins said, they were never lucky enough to have the same teacher.
After graduating from high school, Robbins attended Tufts University, in Medford, Mass., where she studied physics. The path was not an easy one — though not due to the subject matter. Rather, Robbins recalled the difficulties of attending a university where a minority of students were women.
A large number of students that year were GIs returning from World War II. Female students, Robbins said, were viewed by some within the university community as undeserving and unwanted.
“One day, my advisor looked at me and said, ‘You don’t belong here. You’re taking up a man’s spot,’” she said.
Robbins said that, though similar experiences would follow at other times in her life, she felt women’s status in the workplace and beyond had improved since the 1940s.
Robbins and Joseph Robbins married in 1950 and together moved to Union. However, immediately after their wedding, a development overseas threatened their peaceful life as a couple.
“We woke up, on the first day we were married, to the Korean War,” Robbins said.
Joseph Robbins had been slightly too young to be drafted for World War II, Robbins said. When news of the Korean War broke, the young couple felt a sense of foreboding that it would dramatically impact their lives. Though two years passed first, Joseph Robbins was eventually drafted into the Army and became a veteran of the Korean War.
Only a few years into their marriage, the young couple relocated to the Republic of Panama for Joseph Robbins’ work.
While living in Panama, Robbins said, she began to feel lonely and isolated during days spent home alone. Then, one solution came to mind.
“I said, I’d really like a parrot. I could teach him to talk, at least,” she said.
While the pair did not get a parrot, the idea inspired them to get another pet: a monkey named Pedro.
“That kept me busy,” Robbins said.
Pedro escaped his cage daily, taking advantage of his moments of freedom to rummage through cupboards and make a ruckus banging kitchen pots and pans together. He was also fond of swinging to and fro on the cords of the blinds in the Robbins’ windows.
“I was terrified that he’d fall out the window,” Robbins said.
Eventually, overwhelmed by Pedro’s energy, the couple gave him to a family with young children, where Robbins said he befriended their family dog and seemed happy.
Returning to Maine after two years, the couple moved in above a vacant country store in Union, but they shared a grander vision for their life.
“We had both been only children, so we wanted a farm and a whole mess of kids,” Robbins said.
It didn’t take long before the farm became a reality. On a lunch break from Sylvania one day, Joseph Robbins toured the Friendship Road house Elaine Robbins still inhabits.
The home is one of the oldest buildings in Waldoboro, tracing back to early settlers, Robbins said. By a strange twist of fate, Robbins would discover later that she shares ancestry with one of the original occupants.
When the couple purchased the property, it came with 10 outbuildings, pastureland stretching down to the Medomak River, two barns, six laying hens, and two cats, Robbins said. In time, the couple added other livestock, including pigs and, eventually, 35 sheep, of which Robbins was especially fond.
While living on the farm, the couple also had five children, whom Robbins stayed home to care for.
During this time, Robbins, who still loved math, tutored local students in algebra in addition to her day-to-day tasks of raising a family, bottle-feeding lambs, and wrangling pigs, among other random excitement that came along with having the farm.
On top of all this, Robbins was interested in taking on more teaching responsibilities. With no kindergarten in town for her children to attend, Robbins decided to open one herself out of her own home.
“I taught 16 kids three mornings a week for 17 years,” Robbins said. “That’s a lot of kids. My only regret is that I didn’t keep a list of their names.”
Robbins said she had “a wonderful time” instructing the children and still gets recognized by her former kindergarten students, which she finds delightful despite seldom immediately recognizing her students as adults.
Eventually, a public kindergarten opened in Waldoboro, and Robbins no longer saw a need to run her own. Though she initially hoped to continue teaching at the new program, Robbins and Joseph Robbins soon learned they were having another child.
Robbins did return to teaching, however, instructing the children of migrant workers at Miller School through a state outreach program. Robbins held this role for 10 years, from 1978 to 1988, she said, and saw the program grow in Waldoboro from one to four teachers.
“It was a great program,” she said, in which students from migrant families – some of whom dug clams or raked blueberries seasonally, moving along the coast – received educational support.
In 1989, Robbins became the manager of an educational toy shop in Rockland, a role she held between about 1989 to 1992. Eventually, she wanted to return to education, and took a position teaching adult education at the Knox County Jail in 1993.
At the jail, Robbins instructed inmates in courses necessary for them to earn a GED, as well as other topics like computer literacy. She also was in charge of the library, a job Robbins greatly enjoyed.
“We grew the collection from 200 to 5,000 books,” she said.
Robbins called her work at the Knox County Jail “the best job (she) ever had.”
The work was very different day to day and year to year, Robbins said, and it was rewarding to see students succeed and change their lives. Teaching adult education could mean anything from instructing algebra to teaching people to read and write, she said.
“A man came in crying one day. He said, ‘I just wrote my wife a letter,’ and he was so thrilled,” she said. “It was things like that that kept me teaching there.”
Robbins retired from the role in 2012, age 84, having held the position for nearly 21 years.
Though Robbins has been retired for 12 years, she hasn’t slowed down. For the past four years, Robbins has knitted as many as 100 pairs of mittens every year, selling them from a self-serve table on her front porch for $5 a pair.
Selling the handmade mittens for a low price is important to Robbins, who said she wants them to be accessible to all. Having raised five children herself, Robbins said, she knows how difficult it can be to keep tiny hands warm on a budget.
Robbins’ business model has been well-received, and demand for her mittens has been high.
“The first year, I couldn’t knit them fast enough,” she said. Robbins knits at a lightning pace, producing two pairs of mittens each week. Her dedication and love of knitting was passed down to her from her mother, who Robbins said knit 80 pairs of mittens each year to be given away.
In her free time, Robbins spends time with her family, including her five children, nine grand children, and six great-grand children.
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