Martha Scudder at her home in Damariscotta, Oak Gables, where she has lived and worked since 1983. Scudder ran a nursery there for 25 years alongside the bed-and-breakfast still open today. (Johnathan Riley photo)
It’s not possible to remember everything — that’s what sticky notes and old friends are for — but on memory’s crowded bulletin board, those early memories can get covered up.
Martha Scudder, operator of Oak Gables Bed and Breakfast and a longtime nursery owner, has been working with children and been a part of those early memories for most of her life.
“Who thought I could make it work?” Scudder said. “I was 48 when I moved and started the nursery. I was sent a brochure by Sotheby’s, four pages in color, and I told myself, ‘That looks very promising — I could have a nursery on the ground floor.’”
Scudder moved to Damariscotta in January 1983 to take care of her mother, Rebecca Preston. Preston held the Boston Post cane, given to Lincoln County’s oldest resident, before her death at 107 years old.
By that September, Scudder had started a nursery and a bed-and-breakfast. She said she had to hit the ground running with her businesses, citing the taxes on the property were not shrinking any time soon.
In the mid 2000s, she stepped away from the nursery to focus on the bed-and-breakfast, which she still runs today.
Scudder was raised in Oak Park, Ill., outside of Chicago. She said there was no connection between her businesses being called Oak Gables and where she grew up; the previous owners, the Freeman family, had given the place the name it holds today. The Freemans also owned what became Round Top Farm in Damariscotta.
While Scudder ran the nursery on the ground floor of the main building, she was also running the bed-and-breakfast upstairs and in another house on the property.
“I would cook the guests their breakfast and then run down and join the kids afterwards,” Scudder said. She had helpers working with the children until she finished cooking.
“I’ve always liked little kids. I think they’re awful cute,” she said.
Scudder said that while both businesses kept her busy, she felt lucky to have had wonderful kids and parents.
“There wasn’t a bad one in the whole bunch,” she said. “I was fortunate to have nice parents who believed in me.”
Scudder got her start teaching kindergarten in Tucson, Ariz, where she attended and graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in education.
Her first opportunity to teach after college was in the same classroom where she did her practice teaching. Scudder said she took great joy in being involved with the community and working with the families; she said she has always wanted to help any way she could.
“I would go around the community to go talk to the families of my students, if they were having trouble, and one time I got the school’s permission to take everyone to the circus,” Scudder said, chuckling.
Remembering her first day of teaching, she grew wide-eyed and said they could not fit another desk into the crowded room.
“I walked into the classroom and I had 42 kids in there. Most of them didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak much Spanish. It was really a trip. But, I said to myself that ‘I’m going to make this work,’ and I did, and it was rewarding,” she said.
Scudder taught in Arizona for three years after graduating from college. She said that the school in Arizona held a party for her when she decided to leave for California, where she taught for the next 18 years.
“Being young, I thought I should see other places and whatnot, I went to Manhattan Beach in California where I got another job teaching children,” Scudder said.
Scudder in that time got married and then divorced. In the wake of the divorce, she said she was determined to make something of herself.
“Maybe I should move out east, so that I can still enjoy my parents while I have them,” Scudder said. “And then I thought, ‘well, while I’m out here, I bet I could start my own nursery school.’”
Scudder said she was “stunned” when she was able to buy the Oak Gables estate. She knew when she saw the brochure for the place that it was the perfect site for her bed-and-breakfast and nursery.
Lessons in early education vary in approach and style, but Scudder felt there were a couple of primary takeaways for the kids.
“I thought it was important to learn to respect one another: they may have differences, but they should be able to treat one another with respect,” she said.
Even when a child had a problem and was behaving poorly, Scudder said she thought that they had just forgot their manners for a moment.
“It’s not that (the manners) weren’t there. They just forgot. I never wanted the kids to think that they were bad,” Scudder said. “It was a joy to see them learn to live together, and to play together.”
Scudder emphasized the importance of the feeling of belonging, and said that when she got to the Midcoast, she felt like she belonged right away. She said that having good manners and being genuine about those manners can help create meaningful connections.
“If you have good manners, people might enjoy being around you more. Not fake manners either,” Scudder said. “Real, sincere manners, caring and having respect for those around you, it’s going to make your life easier.”
When it came to teaching, “I tried not to always get after them,” she said. “I wanted them to have a good feeling about themselves. If I was always scolding, I was going to get that back. I loved all the kids. Some needed more effort than others, but they were all good.”
Scudder, while known for her work with children and the bed-and-breakfast, possesses a lesser-known notoriety as a decorated table tennis player.
“I am not a fancy player, but I am a stubborn one,” she said.
Scudder started playing table tennis in elementary school in the basement of her childhood church. She doesn’t remember how well she did, but said she got a few trophies.
According to the Maine Table Tennis website, Scudder placed second in its 1996 tournament in the women’s division and is a top 75 table tennis player in the state of Maine for both men and women. Her last ranked match was in 2004.
The boathouse on the Oak Gables property contains a tournament quality ping-pong table.
“Love goes a long way,” she said of the lessons she learned from a lifetime of working with children. “I do miss those days. They were something special.”
“I tried not to have any of my classrooms or the nursery so structured that the kids weren’t able to make any mistakes,” Scudder said. “That’s part of life; you’re going to make mistakes now and then.”
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