VANCEBORO DAZE
Many things come back to me as I remember my life in Vanceboro. My brother and I were born in a home built by my great grandparents on a street just past the road to Lambert Lake. Ì could look out of our windows and see miles of trees and Vance Mountain in the distance.
Our neighbors were the Beers family beside us and the Pine family across the street. The Rayes lived behind us. The Tracys lived on the other side of the Beers family. In a house on our property lived Dutchy Ross. He was the town shoemaker. He came into our house at 5 am every day to start the fire for my great aunts whom we lived with. Jim and I spent a lot of time in his house as it smelled like new shoe leather, and he used to tell us great stories. He was always like an uncle to us. We lived with Maggie Hanifen Dooley and Joanie Hanifen, my father’s aunts. I was named after both of them. My father was Clair Hanifen and my mother, Lillian Brennan Hanifen. My mother was born in McAdam so Jim and I also spent a lot of time with our grandparents and aunts and uncles in McAdam. Aunt Maggie was one of the town’s midwifes. She delivered both Jim and me. A few months before I was born she delivered one of our next door neighbors. Because he was born on Christmas Eve she named him Hollis-“Holly”- Beers. In later years Holly used to mention her and that she was the one to blame for his name.
I remember one thing about Vanceboro that I don’t think there are many people left that remember this. The spinster Cobb sisters and their brother Alfie lived just up from the railroad station. I think someone mentioned on Facebook that this house was purchased by Beaver Sibley in later years. The Cobb sisters ran a very nice gift shop with beautiful glass objects. I don’t think I was ever allowed to go in there without my mother. Their brother Alfie had a deformed back but he used to push a wheelbarrow. He would go down to the train station every day and they would put the mail as it came in on his wheelbarrow and he would deliver it to the post office. Nights the mail would be brought to the train station by the DINKY as the daily train that went back and forth from Bangor used to be called. Around 7 or 8 pm everyone would congregate at the post office to wait for Alfie to bring the mail from the station. This became a meeting place for me and my first love Lindy Kaine. He used to walk me home from the post office every night. I remember him always singing to me on the way home, trying to impress me. I guess. He always used to sing cowboy songs. The one I remember was The Wreck of the old 97 … isn’t that romantic.
In later years on Sundays my girlfriends and I used to walk all over town. My girlfriends were Velma Taylor, Martha Lounder, Cissie Crandlemire and Clarice Boone. We would stop at Jane Robinson’s house for an ice cream bar or cone. Jane ran a small store down by the railroad tracks where she also had a soda fountain. She had a large freezer on her porch of her home and she always kept ice cream in it for all of us. Of course we paid for it. And once in a while a few boys would join us.
I remember the wonderful days at Vanceboro High. Mr. Wescott was the principal and Amie McIver was one of our teachers. And the dance nights at the Hall across from the school and trying to get the boys to dance with us. Then walking home with someone ANYONE, and if it was winter sometimes there would be an ice storm and all the trees would be glistening on the way home. It would be magical. Or a certain time of year we could stop on the hill just past the Cobb house and watch the northern lights giving fantastic shows.
I don’t really have any bad memories of Vanceboro except when the little Cropley girl drowned.
And when the Crandlemire house burned to the ground and Jerry Crandlemire outside screaming at the firemen to save his house. The fire wagon at that time was drawn by two big horses. I imagine that the driver was Frank Smith Sr. Another memory is that in high school our teacher, Mr. Barrett, from Boston, told us all to look out the window as we would see something that we would never see again. It was a hearse drawn by two horses. He advised that the hearse contained Frank Smith Sr. and that Frank had always driven the hearse and as a courtesy to him it would never be used again.
We did lose two wonderful young men in World War 2. One was a Nason from the other side of town and I don’t remember his first name.* I think he was a cousin of Paul and Gary Nason.
The other was Foddy -Forrest- Tracy who lived two doors from us. He was just a year or two older than me so he was a devastating loss to our neighborhood.
I have always said that summer was the Fourth of July in Vanceboro or all of Maine. But our summers were really wonderful. I remember a lot of snow for some winters but we went sliding and skiing and used our taboggans and also ice skates. I used to say that Lindy taught me how to ice skate but his response was, I taught all the girls in Vanceboro how to skate.
All in all, Vanceboro was a wonderful town in which to grow up.
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*Paul Nason; Vanceboro lost a third as well — Frederick (Freddy) S. Mills, for whom the Legion Post was named.
