Eileen Higgins’ co-workers at the Southport Central School includes her youngest daughter, grade 4-6 teacher Julie Browne. Browne’s son, Phelan, one of Higgins’ 12 grandchildren, is enrolled in kindergarten. (Photo courtesy Eileen Higgins)
Boothbay resident Eileen Higgins is living proof of the old adage, “Do something you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.”
Higgins has certainly worked hard in her life, but she loves the job she has held for the last 25 years, during which she has become an indispensible part of Southport Central School operations. Starting out as a substitute teacher, Higgins quickly became a long-term substitute, and then joined the staff as a secretary.
Today, she officially serves as the school’s administrative assistant, keyboarding teacher, and technology coordinator, but really, she helps out whenever and wherever help is needed.
“I do everything,” Higgins said. “I do all the ordering. I pay all the bills. I do whatever needs to be done. I’ve subbed in every class. I’ve taught art. I taught art for like, six months. I do nursing. I do everything, cooking, whatever.”
Beginning this year, five days a week Higgins arrives at school before 7 a.m. to prepare fresh breakfast options for the school’s 21 students. Around 7:20 a.m. she is usually joined the school’s first-year principal, Shawn Gallagher. The emphasis on fresh food and a decent breakfast is part of Gallagher’s initiative to improve student learning by improving student diet.
“I think it’s definitely making a difference,” Higgins said. “We make fruit smoothies and eggs and bacon to order. It’s awesome and they love it. They look forward to it now, and they can eat as much as they want.”
The personal touch is just part of why Higgins loves working at the school. She has high praise for her co-workers and the community that supports the school. Higgins’ co-workers include her youngest daughter, Southport grade 4-6 teacher Julie Browne. One of Higgins’ 12 grandchildren, Browne’s son Phelan, is enrolled in kindergarten at the school.
“Really, I can’t imagine not working here,” Higgins said. “It doesn’t really seem like a job. It just seems like something I really enjoy doing and having my daughter here, my grandson here, and then everybody I work with; it’s like they’re my friends.”
Higgins said it was Browne entering kindergarten that gave her the impetuous to start her own education career. While she has been at Southport more or less full time since 2000, she actually started at the school four years earlier as a substitute teacher.
“When she started kindergarten in Boothbay, I decided that I would start subbing,” Higgins said. “So I got called to sub over here, and I ended up subbing for four years. We had one teacher who broke his leg, so I was here for three months, and then I was just here all the time. So finally they just said, ‘Well, our administrative assistant and teacher of keyboarding is leaving if you’re interested’ and I go ‘No I couldn’t do that. I went to school for art.’”
Higgins said she was reluctant to accept the combined position as she didn’t actually know how to type at the time, she said. Never one to be deterred by a challenge, Higgins taught herself to type well enough to be able to teach the subject to others, working herself up to a respectable 48 words per minute.
Whenever they can, the Higgins family likes to travel and they have made repeated visits to Europe and South and Central America in recent years. Here half the Higgins family is shown resting on the Matthias Fountain during a visit to Budapest, Hungary in July 2024. From left: Phelan Browne, Ezra Chancy, Quincy Browne holding Elmer Browne, Judah Bohanner, Donald and Eileen Higgins, Jason and Eszter Higgins, and Julie Browne. (Photo courtesy Eileen Higgins)
“I taught myself how to type and I said, ‘All right, I’ll try it,’” she said. “I took over the job, and I have been here ever since. I teach the kids how to type on a computer and they love it. It’s just so much fun. Grades two through six, I teach them how to do it, and they’re excited, and they love it so much. It’s just very rewarding.”
Later, Higgins tackled her role as the school’s technology coordinator much the same way she approached typing: by jumping in and learning all she could as fast as she could. She credited the late David Landry, who worked as technology coordinator in Boothbay schools for his guidance during her early years.
“I’m not a certified teacher,” she said. “I just taught myself, and I took some online classes. (Landry) showed me all the ropes and I just kind of picked it up and flew with it, and here I am.”
During her own school days in Boothbay, Higgins said she thought she wanted to live in California and could hardly wait to leave her hometown behind. Graduating from Boothbay Region High School in 1976, she obtained an associate degree in interior design from Mount Ida Junior College in Newton, Mass. in 1978. Almost immediately after, she decamped for San Diego, Calif. where she got a job as a designer with a men’s clothing company and shared an apartment with three other young women.
Among her reasons for moving to San Diego was the desire to be closer to the man she would eventually marry, Donald Higgins. Eileen and Donald went to high school together in Boothbay, where he was two years ahead of her. After he graduated, Donald enlisted in the Navy and the couple dated for about a year before he left for boot camp. While Donald was in the service, the two wrote letters back and forth.
Donald was stationed in San Diego but transferred to Seattle, Wash. while Eileen was in the process of moving to San Diego. Whenever he could, Donald made several trips south to see Eileen in San Diego. Once he completed his tour of duty, he immediately returned to the city.
“He got out of the service and we reconnected after that,” Eileen Higgins said. “Yeah, we wrote back and forth, but it wasn’t serious, because I’m like, ‘We’ll see’ … I was really young, so I was like, ‘I’m going to have fun.’ Then when he came back, I realized, yeah, he’s the one. After you date a few you know this guy is way better.”
By the time Donald Higgins showed up in civilian clothes, Eileen Higgins was done with city living and she had learned her brother had been diagnosed with cancer. Both circumstances prompted her return to Maine in late 1978. Traveling across the country in December, with little money and a car with no heat they would later sell for $50, was proof positive their love was meant to be, Eileen Higgins said.
“When we got home, we had $8 to split between us,” she said. “We had no debit cards or credit cards, so if we had not had enough money, we would have had to get a job.”
Southport Central School administrative assistant Eileen Higgins laughs when she’s asked about her plans to retirement. Higgins has worked at the school in various capacities for over 25 years. “Really, I can’t imagine not working here,” she said. (Sherwood Olin photo)
Higgins’ brother passed away at the age of 31 in May 1979.
The couple married a few months later in August. They would go on to have four children, Crystal, Jason, Matthew, and Julie. While the children were young, the Higginses split child care duties according to their work schedules.
“We couldn’t afford day care,” Higgins said. “My husband worked all day and I worked at night, so we just kind of did that for years and years. I waitressed in all kinds of different places, but I did it at night so that I could be with my kids during the day. Then I babysat kids in the summertime. I had as many as 12 kids that I took care of. It was crazy, and he did what he had to do of course.”
Long after her children were grown, Higgins continued working as a server in local restaurants.
“I worked at Brown’s Restaurant for 25 summers,” she said. “I worked here all day, and then I did that at night from May until October. I did that for 25 years.”
The Higginses’ daughters both became teachers and both live in Lincoln County today. Their sons both became Navy SEALs and both now live in California where Jason is an entrepreneur and Matthew works in cybersecurity.
Courtesy of their sons’ achievements, Eileen and Donald Higgins have the rare distinction of being the parents of two siblings who became Navy SEALs.
“There aren’t very many,” Eileen Higgins said. “We went to the second graduation and they told us that there might be eight or 10 ever actually; brothers that did it together.”
The older son, Jason Higgins, wanted to be a SEAL from the time he was in fifth grade, according to his mother. He grew up watching television shows about the SEALs and reading everything he could find about the Navy’s special operations force. In high school he trained religiously, building a SEAL-inspired obstacle course in the family’s backyard, and running for miles while wearing a backpack filled with rocks and carrying a palette over his head.
“He said he was determined he was going to do it,” Eileen Higgins said. “After high school, he went in early, and he got accepted into the Navy SEAL program. Then he was in a class of 270 and 18 graduated. He was one of them.”
Southport Central School Principal Shawn Gallagher and administrative assistant Eileen Higgins come in early every school day to prepare a fresh, healthy breakfast for the school’s student body. The effort is part Gallagher’s drive to increase student performance by improving student diet. (Sherwood Olin photo)
Watching his brother go through the training program and succeed, Matthew Higgins was inspired enough to turn down a baseball scholarship from Bowdoin College and join the Navy himself.
“He said ‘Mom, I don’t really know what I want to be, so I think I want to do this,’” Eileen Higgins said.
Matthew Higgins broke his hip in three places during his first attempt at passing the famously difficult Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL course, but he ranked first in his class at the time he was forced to withdraw. After rehabilitating for eight months, he was given a second chance at the program and succeeded.
Although the Eileen and Donald Higgins were and are very proud parents, both lived with the constant worry of their children being in harm’s way. Jason and Matthew Higgins both saw combat in Afghanistan and Syria during the Global War on Terror and both mustered out after 14 years and 12 years active duty respectively.
“It’s funny because I lived (in San Diego) for a year, and I used to lay on the Coronado beach and see all the Navy SEALs go by,” Eileen Higgins said. “Who knew all those years later, two of those would be my kids.”
Although she has reached retirement age herself, Eileen Higgins said she has no plans to retire any time soon. She still has a long way to go, she said, before she matches the record setting 58-year tenure of former school cook Ramona Gaudette “I love it here. I really do,” she said. “It’s just a great place, and I love all the kids, and I look forward to it every day.”
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