The Construction Saints of Washington County

We have encountered some remarkable people in our efforts to recreate my grandmother's house in easternmost Maine.  There are still a few people around who remember her, and that is fun.  Then there are others who remember relatives I never knew, and that is also fun.

Then there are the people who think we are quite probably certifiable. First of all, there are the legal and civic issues that need attention and care. From the lawsuit by an abutting landowner against the town for issuing us a building permit to the tribal people who have dug clams on our beach for generations, some people are not as enthusiastic about our little venture as we might like.

The second issue that suggests we might not be playing with full decks is the water table.  It's high.  That means that we have had to do a lot of ditching and draining to keep water from seeping into the structure. People have commented. However, as a glass-half-full person, I am beginning to enjoy thinking about different water-loving plants we can put in the ditches.

The remarkable people, however, are the local contractors and experts who have jumped in to help with the project.  Although we are paying them, they also seem to take genuine pleasure in helping out the crazy folks from away.

The hero of the project is John the carpenter. John likes to do things the old fashioned way and is highly knowledgeable about historic New England building methods.  If he was not able to salvage building elements during deconstruction, he has recreated them. That includes window trim and baseboards, both of which fell apart when he tried to remove them from the old house.  No problem--he just remade them. He knows the best lumber yards in the area and is quite scornful of the big box building stores.

Under his supervision, we purchased quarter sawn white spruce clapboards from a mill in western Maine still making them as they were made in the 19th century.  I was thrilled when I was able to introduce him to a guy who makes cedar shingles in a one-man mill that is more than 100 years old. He is going back next week to pick up our order, which will grace the water side of the house.

The ever-thrifty Mainers of the past would put the fancy siding, i.e. the painted or stained clapboards, on the public face of the house, and put the lesser quality siding, cedar shingles, on the back, where no one would see them.  The fact that cedar is even more durable than white spruce, especially in sea-side structures, makes that strategy a good one.

Of course there is the couple who sold us the land; the man is also a site designer.  He is still trying to get the water away from the house, and does not charge us what he should.  That is fine with me, of course.

Then there is the heavy equipment guy, who has done a lot of work for us and is one of the people who remembers some of my relatives. He is an artist of the bulldozer and front loader, picking up boulders like someone picking up a piece of tofu with chopsticks. He built the road, the driveway, the septic system, the slab on which the house rests, and is still working on the ditches and drains.

Next up are the plumber and electrician, who both appear to live by the motto, "We'll get 'er done." Because they are good, they are in high demand and require periodic reminders that we exist.  Making excuses to email, call or visit results in the feeling that they were just thinking about our project and were on the verge of calling us.  That's a skill.

Then there is the general contractor who has saved our bacon several times. He has a big crew of incredibly handsome sons and relatives and is a great problem solver. He is also in demand; Our attorney once commented that he now understood why his front porch was not getting repaired--the contractor was working for us!

Then there is another heavy equipment operator who deconstructed the original house.  He was recommended to us as the right guy for the job because he "liked to knock things down." And he did, with attention to our need to salvage as much as possible from the structure.

There are many others--the aforementioned attorney and the woman who runs a nearby Air B & B and has put us up numerous times during construction.  She has provided invaluable contractor recommendations. There is the town clerk of Perry, always efficient and knowledgeable about what we need to do. The fact that she reminds me of my grandmother, from her tightly permed iron-gray hair to her beautiful Washington County accent, is an added bonus. Then there is Roy, who remembers my grandmother and cleaned out her house for the “Junkin' for Jesus” auction (really) at the town's Congregational church before we started disassembling the structure.

While we hope the results of our efforts will be lovely, the process has been remarkable, too.  It's not just a building project, it's a labor of love and a trip down memory lane, made memorable by the Washington County folks who have helped along the way.

The Little Red Book

One of the nice things about working part-time is that I have the ability to read. And I have been doing so, reading the New York Times, the Washington Post, Slate.com, the Guardian, and anything else that comes in through my Facebook feed.  I have great FB friends who share things that speak to my interests and prejudices.  But I can’t keep doing this.  It feeds my anxiety and fears for my children, my country, and this beautiful world.  I am going to stop reading and start writing, at least for this afternoon.  We shall see about tomorrow.

Today’s topic is my mother. She died more than three years ago at age 93.  She was a quiet woman, always observing but rarely commenting. She was reserved and undemonstrative, but that’s not too unusual in a New England lady of her vintage. Underneath her unassuming manner, however, was a fierce love of family that showed itself in many ways.

For example, she was terrified of flying. She only flew to visit Wisconsin from Massachusetts when her grandchildren were born, otherwise taking the train, a strategy that resulted in much longer and equally frightening journeys.  Not surprisingly, she hated traveling in general, but drove with my father throughout New England and Atlantic Canada in hot pursuit of genealogical clues. She visited her hated stepmother in the nursing home every day because she had promised her father that she would. She was a woman who only left her comfort zone when it really mattered—for family.

Another angle into her psyche is her address book. She never created an online address book, but instead had a red leatherette 5 x 5 binder that must have dated from the 1970s.  I know this because it contained my 1976 New York City address, scratched out and replaced with subsequent locations that chronicled my travels from New York to Rochester to Poughkeepsie to Virginia to Wisconsin to Minnesota.  She treated her grandsons the same way.  She couldn’t keep up with one of them and sent his birthday checks to me instead for distribution.

Because she lived to the ripe old age of 93, many of her friends and family died before her. That created more cross-outs.  Sometimes she listed the death date, but usually the poor departed was simply excised from the land of the living by a big X in the red book.

What fascinates me most about the address book was her explanation for why a person was listed at all.  “George’s College Friend,” “George’s Best Man,” “George’s Secretary,”  “G’s Brown Univ Friend,” reflected her adoption of my father’s life when she married him in 1943.

She became even more descriptive when it came to her own extended family, which was vast—her father was one of 12 children, all of whom lived to adulthood.  I didn’t know very many of them but her notes in the address book explain their inclusion.  I seldom need to ask myself why she listed someone-- her notes tell all.

Take, for example, Jeff and Cindy Andrews of Cumberland, Maine. Mother describes them as members of the “Price fam. Via Strang desc. Of James³ Price.^”   There is the beautifully named Rev. Quentin and Carolyn Peacock of Rindge, New Hampshire, who, the notes tell me, was the “da. Of cousin Grace Moor.”  Robert and Jennifer Price of Lexington, Massachusetts, are simply identified as “3^rd cousin.”  How they were third cousins was not clear.  Did she not know, or was it so obvious to her that she did not feel the need to elaborate? However, most were like Jack and Alice Morelle of Moncton, New Brunswick, who were described as “Price cousin g.da. of D.S. Price’s oldest sister.” I think that means that one of them was a second cousin once removed.  She would have known.

There are a couple of references to unpleasant situations.  For example, Terry & Holly Sadler are described as “Alice’s grandniece Joan Price Erskine’s da.” What follows is the underlined word, “Divorced.”  The entry for Marion Chapman, listed as a “Simmons College friend,” has the ominous underlined note, “Christmas card returned.”

Then there was Mrs. Russell Bryant^.  The listing reveals much about mother’s Victorian mores.  It reads, “07 Mr. and Mrs. Russell Bryant (Mary)…Cape Porpoise, Maine. Mary (Zecchini) worked in Portland Public Lib. with me.” From this we can assume that Mr. Bryant died in 2007 and the friendship was of long standing—Mother worked in the Portland Public Lib. in 1944-45, when my father was serving in Italy and she lived with her parents. She clearly believed and operated by the notion that when a woman married, she became her husband, not only losing her family name but also exchanging her given name for “Mrs.” My mother made sure, however, that we did know Mary’s full name independent of Mr. Bryant—a radical step that she took in later years. Perhaps she was influenced by changing times and her daughter’s retention of her family name after marriage.  Who knows?

There are a few entries that require some guesswork. “Wishart, Burt & Bertha,” were probably cousins because they had a New Brunswick address. People listed as being in Worcester, Massachusetts, were most likely residents of the retirement community where my parents lived. But who was Margaret J. Parks of West Des Moines, Iowa? I have no idea.

Toward the end of her life, her beautiful handwriting deteriorated. One can see the effort it took for her to make sure that she (and I) understood the connections among the people she knew.  Was she anticipating a decline in her faculties that would require prompts that would allow her to remember why someone appeared in her little red book?   Who knows? As a proper New England lady, she wasn’t telling.