Carol Rice (CR) chat with Esther Estes (EE), and Jean Cleveland Delamater (JD)C NOTE: This two-part oral history was recorded in three sessions. Most of the first session was lost due to operator (CR) error; a second recording was made to re-do lost material and a third recording was made to follow additional topics. The few statements retained from the first session about missteps during a dance performance at the Universalist Church. ; two short segments from that recording to the description described in this Part 1 that was a re-do or the original [in brackets]. The part two session includes Esther' niece, Jean Cleveland Delamater. The dates of the recordings: August 5, 2025, EE, CR, JD at the home of EE (most of this recording was lost) August 27, 2025, EE, CR, JD at the home of CR October 1, 2025, CC, CR at the home of EE (a re-do of the August 5 discussion) Photos with the following captions were provided: Esther Faye Cleveland, born February 1, 1937 1 year old Summer Street, Norway John and Esther Cleveland Summer Street, Norway Esther and her Dad with Pony named Tony Esther was 6 years old Summer Street, Norway Esther was 7 years old 1956 Norway High School (65th reunion), August 18, 2021 Herb and Esther Estes Esther Cleveland married George Dunn, and following his death married Hebert Estes. Information received after the interviews is indicated by a number in brackets, [#], and included at the end of the transcript of the recording. Part One CR: What is your full name? EE: Esther Faye Cleveland Estes. CR: And… what's your date of birth? EE: February 1, 1937. CR: And who were your parents? EE: James and Ethel Cleveland. CR: And what was Ethel Cleveland's maiden name? EE: Her maiden name was, Ethel Stanley. CR: And was she from… EE: and she was from Albany area. That's where she grew up. CR: And where were you born? EE: I was born in South Paris, in the… little house right now that is an Asian restaurant right next to...Maurice's. That used to be the only medical building they had at that time for anybody could go in who were not too serious. Ah.. Pregnant women and, and maybe somebody that had, the flu or something like that. Other than that, they would have to be shipped to Lewiston. [1] CR: So there were physicians there, as well? EE: Well, it was, whoever the doctors were in town, which would have been, like, Dr. Nelson, Dr. McCormick. Probably. And I don't know who else. I think over to South Paris there were doctors, but I wouldn't remember who the members were of them. But, who ran the place, was, Mrs. Howe. CR: Huh. whoever she was. EE: And that would have been, Marion, and… CR: Oh, Marion Howe. EE: Yeah. Yes, yeah, and yeah, and her… and apparently, she must have had a… a daughter that eventually must have done something over there to help her, but… but yes, she… she was the one that took everybody in and took care of them and so forth, but if they needed a doctor, it would be whoever was in town. Yep. I never heard of them ever having to bring anybody from the city. They would send them there instead, I think. CR: Probably true, yeah. And where did you live when you were growing up? EE: I was living on 8 Summer Street, Norway, Maine. And right across from us was the first hospital, which is now an apartment building. And, they, Dr. Nelson, Dr. Dixon and Dr. McCormick were the doctors that took care of people there. I, I had been a patient there when I was around 5 years old. I had…tonsils out. And the operating room was upstairs, but there was a lot of, new mothers that… that went there, and had, yes. I've even, talked to a few, probably the past, year, and said that, that, you know, that they had, they had been born there, or whatever, yeah, so… CR: When… what was the neighborhood like? EE: Oh, the neighborhood was good. It was a few, young people that were my age or a little older. That we all got together and played with. Anybody, older that was there was really nice to the children. There was a lady that lived next door to us. And I believe she was an aunt to Philip Stone. And her name was Anna Stone. And, she had a a boarding house where she had people coming in at noontime to eat there. And, she, cooked all the time, cooked things all the time, and popped… did popcorn for the kids in the neighborhood, yeah. She would go out on a porch to see if any kids were out there, because she would have cookies or something that she would want to, want to share with them. And so, yeah, she was a very nice lady. I used to do errands for her, when I was growing up. She might want to, me to have… go up and get her some canned things at Jackson's, or something like that, or a loaf of bread, or whatever. But, that's the kind of errands--hot paying bills, but just getting some groceries for her once in a while. CR: Well, she was busy cooking. EE: Yeah, so I knew her, you know, we… the whole family, we all knew her, and the whole… all in the neighborhood was… knew her, that she was really, really nice to everybody. CR: And were her lodgers people from the shoe shop? EE: Some of them were, some of them were ones who had a room and stayed that came from out of town, and had a room where they stayed, but they would eat at her place for meals. And they might have worked in the woods nearby, nearby, you know, worked in the woods. And, so yes, she had, you know, people, there were people from, like, that, that would go there, yep. And, because chances are the wife might have been working, too, you know, so that at noontime, especially, if they wanted to eat at noontime, you know, the men didn't want to get their own meal, so they'd go to Anna Stone's. And had a very wonderful meal there, you know. Everything homemade--homemade bread, homemade biscuits, you know, muffins. I mean, you could smell it in the summertime outside, because their place would be open, you know? And once in a while, she might call up and want me to go over, because she had something she wanted my mother to have, you know, that had to do with food, yeah. So, it was good. And then, Mabel Bell… lived next door to us, Mabel and Charlie, and Charles had a a…car business on Main Street in Norway. And, when I think about it, even Herb remembers it as when he was a little kid and came into town, he remembered about it. It was right…before, if you were going up that way from, from, Lower Main Street, coming up Main Street way, go past, Longley's Store and then, there's a little cafe place there now. But right there, there was a building that had great big…windows in it, and there would be cars in there for display! Yeah, so she… he had, like, apparently some type of garage out back of that building, yeah. CR: Yeah, I think the walking tour last year featured that building, and there was… and some… I think they found a picture of…cars looking out those windows. EE: Right, yeah, yeah, that's all he is. CR: Yeah, it drove it in. Think of it. EE: People now, I mean, kids would say, you kidding? You know, I mean, really. But, no, it was… that's the way it was. It was… it was a very old-fashioned town, and had wonderful trees that are all gone--that I have to admit, I miss that, because it was nice. Great big old trees. And, I don't know if they were… they might have been elm trees, and they had to come down. CRL Dutch elm trees got them. EE: Because we had one in front of our house on Summer Street, and that had to come down. Yeah. Yeah. So, they were nice trees. But no, it was an old, to me, it was an old-fashioned, town. A lot of older people ran those stores. And I mean, you go in now, and it's somebody from out of state. You know what I mean? CR:Yeah, EE: You don't, you know… so you go in and you… there's not that many that you know that well now on Main Street, and they're all very nice. I'm not saying that. They were very, very… they're very pleasant and nice, and… and you could go in and browse around and so forth. But it's, so changed. And a lot of empty places. CR: True. Yeah. So, who were the kids that you played with? EE: Who they were? CR: Yeah. EE: That was the Truman children, the Truman boys--that would have been Arlene Bell Truman's boys. [2] They lived up the street from us, just a couple of houses from where I grew up, and Robert Bell, who lived with his grandmother, Mabel. And, then there was another girl, and his… and her brother, and that was Nancy and Edward Snow, and they had… Their house is gone; it isn't there anymore. But they were right next door to Mabel and Charlie Bell's house. It was a small house, and and then later on, there was a new family that came that lived in the house on the other end of the street, which would be, like, Cottage Street area, and they lived in this house across from Diamond Match, when that used to be there, and now it's Community Concepts, I guess, or something. But they lived there, and their names were Melby, and they came from New Hampshire, I believe. And when I was growing up, I can remember how sad I was, and it took me a long time to get straightened out from crying about it, because the house burned, and two died in it. The teenage boy, the oldest one, the teenage boy, who had been playing with my brother the day before, and doing some work upstairs in my father's barn, like that and everything. And he, it was at… very late at night, and he could have jumped out the… window, which wouldn't have been that far down, it was second story, but it wasn't way, way up. He could have been, I think, okay, because the firemen were right there, and they wanted him to come over to the window and jump out, and they would get him. And he went and hid under his bed because he couldn't find his clothes to dress, and he wouldn't come out like that, with just shorts on. So ended up dying, and he was a teenager, and .. and then there was a little baby that died. The mother was so confused that she brought the… apparently brought the baby down when they were upstairs, brought the baby down, instead of going out that front door she went into the living room on the right and laid the baby down, for some reason, on the divan, on a couch. And the little baby, I am sure, died from the smoke, but they said that a photo frame came off the wall and hit that child in the head. And it was just a very little baby. Couldn't have been probably two, maybe two months old. CR: Ugh, EE: Yeah. so that was very… I was very, very sad about that. And they eventually moved from the area. And, I think one of… one… one girl may not have. She, she had a… they were twins, Margaret and Marjorie. And I never could understand they were twins, because one was very tall, and the other one was short. And they didn't… they didn't look that much to me. They didn't look that much alike to me. But anyway, they were twins. And, then there was another boy, too, who was fine, and he was around probably 7 years old, and his name was Charlie. And but I think they moved from the area, except this particular girl, who I think ended up living over in Waterford, and whoever she married, and whether they stayed together, I do not know. But they ran that restaurant over there for a while. CR: Oh, Melby's? EE: Yeah. Oh! Yeah. So, and I believe that's who it was. Huh. One of the twins, yeah. Can't say it was the oldest one, just because she's tall. CR: Yeah. EE: So anyway, but, so, you know, that's the way that went, but no, I… back when I was growing up, I think it was… peaceful, and…a lot of fun. I mean, we had good, good type of games to play outside. We didn't stay in the house all the time, like that. CR: Like what? Like hide and seek, or... EE: Yeah, right, yeah, and… and marbles, and jump rope. You know, things like that. And May Basket time, you don't even hear about that anymore. Herb and I talked about that this....you know, this year. And, when it came May. And I said, you know, Herb, you don't hear about that anymore. My daughter Susan, when she lived back here, she kept that alive. CR: Sweet. EE: Yeah, because, she and Bruce, I had them do things like that for the… just ones in the family. Yeah. Yeah. And, and nobody could really run.. my mother and things like that, you know, so they, you know, but they… they had fun. And then Helen, they used to give one to Helen and Betty, but I, like, just, you know, just ones in the family. And but no, that's gone. But that was a lot of fun, and it would be… a lot of the classmates, many of us, would get together and get our money together, and…and one of us would be, would make the May basket. One year might be me, or some… someone else would make one, and, chip in with the penny candy, which you could get stuff from from Verenis Market. [3] You can get a lot there, yeah. So we used to chip that in and do it, and there might be as many as 10 of us together that would do something. Yeah, but things were fun back then. And when I was a senior, there was a bunch of boys and boys in my class, and they went in back of Miss Tubbs, Miss Irene Tubbs' house. They knew… they knew her bedroom was out there, somehow. So it was very late at night, probably, well, like 10. It was dark at 10. They went out there and sang her, 'Good Night, Irene'. We were seniors at the time, when that happened. It was boys that did it, and she loved it. Yeah, she apparently opened up her window and, you know, thanked them for it, yeah. She let it be known the next day that she, you know, that she had music before she went to bed that night. And so, yeah. So, you know, nobody… Where's the fun going, you know? They think it's fun sitting around with the video. CR: I know, I know. EE: You know, it's too bad, yeah, but that's the way it is. But that's my saying, my daughter kept that alive with her children, too, with Brian and Sean, the oldest ones there. And when they were..when they were back here for a while to, to live for a while, she would tell them all about, you know, things, and told her, and let them know that this was something that Grammy and, you know, all of them grew up in. And so they thought that was fun, and they used to do that, yeah. But it's kind of gone now. In a way, maybe it isn't too safe. There are times, you know, this is what scares people. CR: Yeah. EE: You've got… if it was going to happen, you've got to have two or three with you. You really do, yeah. CR: I actually hung one a couple years ago. Because Elwyn Millett was really dying. And… it was for… it was May, and…there were things that I knew he would like to eat. EE: Yeah. CR: And so I called his daughter, Jean, and said, remember what a May basket is? She said, oh, yeah, I remember. Well, I'm gonna… I'm gonna bring one up, I'm just gonna put it on the porch, I'm not coming in. So it wasn't quite as dramatic as the… EE: Yeah. CR: But I didn't want to startle them. EE: Sure. CR: Because he was, you know, he was in a hospital bed. EE: Right. CR: And, but…she, she wrote a note that the cookies disappeared almost immediately. EE: I can imagine, yeah, yeah, and, I know, there were times my mother would make, have, some, homemade fudge. CR: Yes. EE: She would make homemade fudge, and we'd put in a few pieces. We wouldn't put into a lot, but we put in a few pieces of homemade fudge, and but no, it… you know, it was a fun time, and… and just like Fletcher's Candy Store. [4] Now, that place, I really, really miss that place, because they made their own, made candy canes. He made his own candy canes, and he'd have them hung on, you know, on that big window on a string across there, and he let me make some candy canes once. Yes, Shirley and I were very, very good friends. She passed away many years ago. She had cancer, a very bad, a very bad problem, and she lived in Florida, so I didn't get to see her, but I did write her a letter, which they said she loved it and got to laughing, because it had to do with her getting in… her and I getting in problems at her grandmother's house when her grandmother wasn't home. Well, Shirley, one… there were two small garages. And it was where the Norway Savings Bank is now, along that area, where her grandmother's house was. She had two small garages that were pretty close together. And Shirley decided she was gonna climb up on one of those… one of those garage ones, and… jump over to the other one. And I tried to tell her, no, I wish you wouldn't do this, you know? I said, you… you'll fall. You're gonna end up breaking a leg, or something. Well, she did anyway, and I don't… she somehow got up there. Well, she must have stepped on something, because there was no ladder, so it might have been anything--could have been a box or whatever, and…And it wasn't that… that bad for her to be able to get up there, but she did. Well, she went to go and jump over on the other side. And she was able to get the edge of the garage, but her feet went in front of her and broke a window. So, oh-oh, I said, Shirley That was the other garage. She broke the window. So, she said. Well, don't worry about it. She said, you just… you… you just better go home. And she said, and I'm not gonna tell anybody anything. And if my grandmother ever sees it, and finds out about it, which she probably will, I'll tell her that we saw Roger Dyer going through the yard. Roger died just about a year ago, too. He went… he was one of our classmates. She said, I'll just tell her that Roger Dyer did it. And we know we saw him going through the yard. And I thought, oh my God. So anyway, when I wrote her a letter in Florida, I asked her if she remembered, if she ever thinks about Roger Dyer, and what she found out. Then they said she got an awful kick out of the letter I sent her, so I'm glad I did that, yeah, you know. CR: So… Laughing is good. EE: Yeah, and you know, and… but we… we had, we had a lot of fun back then. I mean, when it came in the winter, the snow… the whole… the whole bunch of us used to go up by George's… by George's house and come down that hill. Yeah, well, my mother didn't want us to, because we were on a toboggan, and you can't…you can't handle them things. They'll go where they want to. Well, Jean Truman. Jean Truman, she's passed away. Jean Truman was with us. She got on that toboggan, and went down that hill, and ran right into a rock and broke a leg. So she landed out in the hospital…across, across from my house. And they had her downstairs so that we could go to the window and talk to her, and wave a hand to her, like that. Yeah. So, I mean, we didn't do that anymore. CR: I remember my mother telling about sliding down that hill. EE: Oh, yes, we did, and it was dangerous. It really was, and my… I mean, boy, we did it a lot, and I just didn't tell my mother. She would have been very, very strict about it. She wouldn't let me go out of the house, probably, after school. But no, so there was a whole bunch of… more boys than girls. There was only just a few girls on my street, yeah--didn't have too many. And, then the Browns, who lived on Dearing Street. Geneva Brown and her family, they were younger, so that we really never was, you know, we'd speak to them and talk to them, because they both, the boy and the girl, played instruments. So, yeah. And, so we knew them, because sometimes they might even be out on their steps; probably my, their mother couldn't stand them in the house using those horns. So… because I think the girl was… almost seemed like she was… I think she played the trombone. She was quite a big person, and so she could handle that, but I think the boy played the saxophone, and so… and, well. Bobby Bell, he used to, play the, trumpet. So he would come over once in a while and practice with my brother John, who played the saxophone. So Bobby, with his trumpet, and John with his saxophone, once in a while, they might play a couple of songs. My mother would want them to. She wanted to see how well they're doing, you know. And, John used to take his lessons from Mrs. Kilburn on Main Street, yep. And, her husband ran the barbershop, and upstairs was where she had her music place that she gave lessons. Yeah. CR: So, was there…a junior high band, or… EE: Oh, yeah, yes, yeah, they… it probably wasn't too great. I think that they're… they're pretty good now, because, you know, they… they… I think one thing that probably the music teacher is a little more strict about things. I mean, she… he wants it right, and he plans on them being there if they're supposed to be, things like this, and I… I think it makes the difference right there. And so, because I have heard that the junior high band, and it's not bad, really isn't and, but, some people would probably say, well, I think they're a little rusty, but they, you know, I mean, at the beginning, you know, by the end of the year, they're better, yeah. CR: Exactly. EE: So, yeah. But, of course, Mrs.... Miss Klain was our music teacher, and she used to go way up to North Norway, to that one year… one-room schoolhouse where my late husband used to go.; George Dunn used to go to the… that one-room schoolhouse way up in North Norway, and I think it would… and that would have been on the Dunn Road. That building would have been on the Dunn Road. And now…it was moved, remodeled into a house by my uncle, John Wesley Cleveland. Yeah, my father's brother, up on Crockett Ridge. Yep. He had that house, moved to a lot that he bought, and he remodeled it, and, made a nice home, yeah. So, but, no, Miss… Miss Klain was very good, and she was very strict. She, you know, the boys, lots of times weren't that interested in some of this music that she wanted them to, you know, wanted us to have and do in a recital, and she'd have the whole gang of us go up to the Opera House. And, everybody was supposed to behave themselves. She'd be after them all the way. She'd be after them all the way up. And there were times she'd get…pretty put out with some of the boys, and she would just let them know. Now you know: You're either here or you're not. And if you're not here, you're going back. Going right back down, and I'll make sure you got that. I thought, how? You don't have a phone. So anyway, but she… she was very, very good. She was, she was… had a place way up to the very top of that old building, which they've taken down, the old yellow building that I went to… started second grade with there, and it was way up to the very top that she had a small, music room. And, in the back, they had a fire… they had a fire escape, because they had to have an exit, because it was just like going up into an attic. That's what it was, like, yeah, I think it, you know, I think anybody would have called it an attic. And so she, and she made things interesting, and, she was… she was very, very good. She was very good to the kids, and when she had them, take some tests to see how their voices were, to see if they're gonna be in a chorus or whatever. She was… she was always very pleasant to them, yeah. Well, you know, and some of them that… who couldn't make it or whatever, she was still very, very nice to them. And she figured there might be something she could…do... that they could do to…so they'd still be involved, although they cannot sing well. So, yeah. And that would be me. I did not sing. I could dance a little bit, but I couldn't sing. So… CR: So, tell me about your siblings. You had… EE: Oh, a bunch. Oh, yeah, I did. My. The oldest one was Ruth. And, it was Ruth Cleveland Caler Moody. And she passed away back in 2007. She's been gone a long time. She was about…20 years older than me, when I was born. So, she acted almost like another mother for me, because my mother was not very well after I was born, and so, Ruth kind of stood in and, you know, watched out for me. And then the next one was Helen. Helen Cleveland Morse. And, she was, she was, very, very… small type of person. And, she was probably about 5 feet tall, which was like my mother. She was a short one in the family. And then the next one was Jim, my brother James. And then there was Ralph. Then there was Betty. Then there was John. And John lives over Ubin South Paris on Western Avenue--in his own home, still. He's 92. And, he has help, so he's able to stay there. And then, after John, there was a baby that passed away, and her name was Jolene. And then a few years after that old Esther came along...by surprise--wasn't looking for her. So, anyway, and so, as I say, I was born over to that house, little house in South Paris. At that time, there was probably 350 kids in this area that were born CR: Were your siblings born over there, too? EE: No, they were born at home. Everybody was born at home except me. CR: Wow. EE: Ruth was born over to South Paris at the old farm. That they owned at one time, over Waterford. And she was born there. But all the rest, as far as I know, were born on Summer Street. Yep. And the doctor was, in Norway, was Dr. Nelson. And, over there, it was, and I don't remember, but it wasn't Dr. Nelson; it was another doctor from that area, I believe, maybe from, like, I don't know. I don't believe Waterford, probably Harrison or something. I don't know, but whoever it was, my father and mother, knew who… knew him, yeah. So anyway, so she was… she was born in Waterford. But, and they, you know, they were all, like 2 or 3 years apart. John and I are 4 years apart from each other, yeah. But, most of them were, like, 2 or 3 years, you know. So there was a lot of them. And they all had…you know, chores to do, of course, like they're supposed to be. And I remember growing up, Helen made it understand to me that she, she was not gonna be a farmer. She didn't care about it. She wasn't gonna get interested, and she wasn't either. No. She wasn't either. And but Jim…and Ralph, well, John, I don't think John was so much of a farmer, but he and his late wife used to have a garden. Oh, that's a nice garden. But Jim and Ralph were the ones that liked to have you know, have a farm, and animals, and all this stuff. And but Helen said no. So I was like Helen. I said, no, thank you. And then what do I do? My late husband, George, was a farmer: I married a farmer. And I married another farmer--came from 14 kids. Yep. He is, he's the last one. Everybody's gone. Just Herb. CR: Wow. EE: Yeah. CR: And you couldn't get away from farming, but you didn't want to do it yourself. EE: Nope, and I mean, I… I had to work in the garden growing up and everything. And what John hated was when it came time for picking beans. And he would always say, by God, one of these days, I'm gonna take… I'm gonna solve them things, they won't… So they won't grow. But that's what we had to do when school was out in the summer John and I both knew that we was going to be having to work in the gardens, and that we, you know… CR: And that was in Waterford? EE: ...and in back of my father's house. CR: Oh, well, that's nice, you could have two gardens. EE: He had, oh yes, he had two. And then he used to lease… lease land from Anna, Anna Stone, because she had a lot of land, so he used to… leased land from her, and had a garden there, too. And I thought, well, you keep on going, you're gonna hit Elm Hill! But… so… but, you know, and it was good for anybody to… to grow up like that, because that doesn't happen. Nobody bothers. You know, every… all anybody wants to do now is to have a flower garden. And Herb and I used to have a good garden out here, but not as good as we had on Main Street, at that old blue house. Yeah, that was the best garden there ever was. We had sunflowers in the front that everybody loved, and they went to be 14 feet high. Yeah, I came back by some pictures of them with my sister, Ruth, and her husband in front of them that showed, you know, because they loved them, they thought they were great. Yeah. Yeah. But, we, we had a good garden there, but we… we had a garden out here, too. The last one did not do very well. We didn't have a very good summer, and I think, like, it was rain, rain, rain, rain, that one. Yeah, so that was encouraging. So we said, heck with that, we aren't gonna do that, we'll go to Smedberg's. We'll go to the garden there. CR: Yeah, exactly, yes.… Yeah, well, I'm still struggling along, but there will become a day when… EE: Yeah, Yeah... Well, say Herb a couple of weeks, Herb has a birthday coming right up in October. He'll be 85. Yeah. And, you know, so he, you know, a lot of stuff he'd like to do. The recent thing he did that, you know, gave him something to do out in his little workshop that he'd made out in the garage. He made himself a little workshop a few years ago. And it can be heated with a…gas heater, so that he can be out there if he wants, go out there in the summer, I mean, the winter, and do something he can... But he just made a new, a new bird feeder, and got that painted and out there, and the birds seemed to like it. And, he's made it a bright blue, and yellow, and bright red, you know, he likes bright colors, so he did that because the one that we had We had had.. for 32 years that was sent to us by my grandson, Brian Jeffries, in Oregon, Susan's boy, when he was 10 years old--yeah, he's 42. 10 years old, he was in Scouts. And this came in the mail, and it was just made out of pine, made out of pine. And I mean, you really… I mean, it's… we didn't want to stain it or paint it, we left it just the way it was, just rustic-looking. And over the years, Herb has repaired it, repaired it, repaired it. And finally, it just rotted right to pieces. Yeah. Couple of times, the squirrels...all the deer kind of fooled around with it, and yeah, and broke it, yeah. And because they kept eating the seeds out of it, the deer love to get into our feeders out here. Yeah, we never know if we're gonna get 2 or 6. Yeah, yeah, you can see them coming across the road. They come from the Norway Rehab up here, in back, yeah, and they come around Ed's [5] and come across the road, and, get into our feeders. And Herb, when Herb is… sometimes is… sometimes is fairly early. I mean, it might not be dark, dark. It might be just starting to get dark, and you can see them right out there, yeah. Sometimes they're really big ones, and sometimes they're cute little fawns, yeah. CR: They are cute, but then they grow up. EE: Oh, yeah, they do, yeah, they grow up and eat everything. Eat your shrubbery. Yeah, that's one thing Ed across the street was complaining about, because we feed them. CR: Exactly. EE: So they go over and eat his shrubs. Wow. CR: They'll eat his shrubs anyway. Yeah. They're miserable. EE: Yeah. CR: So, the… your siblings that you played with the most were the youngest ones. EE: I mean, no, I mean… Yeah, well, we've been… Well, John was 4 years older than me, so, well, when we did anything together, it would be… got together with the neighborhood and played baseball out in Anna Stone' Field. And, but other than that, you know, we, we, you know, unless we went together somewhere, we don't… someone in the family may have taken us, like, up to the Old Man of the Mountain, which was one of my favorite places to go. Always, I love going there, yeah. Yep, now that's gone. Yes. Jeez, CR: fell down. EE: Yeah, his face fell right off. CR: So, let's see… time is… let's see. Tell me about the house where you grew up. It's still there. EE: Oh, it's still there, and my niece Joanne has done a lot of remodeling in it, I believe. I haven't… I haven't seen, everything. I have seen… been in the kitchen, but I haven't been up to… I haven't seen everything. But it had… it had 3 bedrooms upstairs, but I think now… she did… she did some remodeling upstairs, so… to make another bedroom larger. So there's 2 bedrooms upstairs. And I believe she's put in a small bathroom up there, too. Downstairs, there's a good size, the kitchen has been remodeled, and the kitchen is pretty big, and off from there is the bathroom, and that's pretty good size, because she has a washer and dryer in there--a large washer and dryer. CR: Which you didn't have when you were growing up. EE: Yeah, no. No, I had an old-fashioned… washing machine out in the shed. And have to have a bucket of water, full of rinse. put the… well, yeah. Yep. And then that has to go through the ringer again. It just went on and on. Now, that's how I felt about it. This goes on. And my mother would worry all the time that somebody would go and try to touch those rollers, you know, get your hands in there, you know. So I thought, well, I'm not stupid. I know they would like to do the washing. But, no, and it has a dining room, and I don't think… I don't know if she uses that dining room as a dining room or not, but there's a living room, and then there is a room off the dining room that is small, that used to be a bedroom, and now she uses it for an office. And then, off the kitchen, there's a huge… porch; it is all glassed in and heated, and very nice out there. And, course it has a big garage, big barn, big barn, and it's got, you know, a lot of room upstairs of the barn, too, for storage and all that stuff. My father used to keep hay up there, of course. And so, you know, it's a big, a big place. Joanne apparently plans to stay there for as long as she figures that she could handle it. It's got a lot of land, so she really has to have a lot done for her, as far as mowing and all this stuff, because there's a big field out back. CR: So how… EE: A big lawn, and then a big field goes way out back. CR: How did you all manage with only 3 bedrooms? EE: Well. I was well.... I, when I was little, before I went to school, the biggest bedroom is on the front of the house. It looks right to the street. That's the biggest bedroom. And… I used to, before I went to school, I slept in the middle between John and Betty, until I was, get my own… my own room. After… well, after Betty got out of high school, they got out of high school, soon after that, she and Richard got married. So… And the rest were in the service, or… and were married too, like Ralph and, you know, and Jim. And, so it was just John and I. And so, I had the very small bedroom on the back of the house. It was a small bedroom. And, they had a lot of trouble with me because I walked in my sleep. I was always walking in my sleep. And, when I was, when Harlan, Helen's late husband, when Harlan Morse was in the service, Helen stored all of their stuff from their apartment over to my grandmother's house, and stayed with my parents. And so she was upstairs in one of the bedrooms, and she'd hear me. She'd have to come and see what's going on, because I would go and open up the window! I never, never remember anything. And then they put a wind… then they put a chair that would be like this in front of the door, tipped it over in front of the door so that I wouldn't be going out there. I just moved the chair. I was smart enough to move the chair, walk downstairs in the dark. Can you imagine now, you know, no rail, just walking down the stairs, in the dark, going out through the living room, dining room, into the kitchen. And one night, my mother was up washing the floor, she hadn't gone to bed yet, and she was up washing the kitchen floor, because that was her chance, so nobody was around. And so it must have been… I mean, I would have gone to bed probably at 8 o'clock, so that might have been 10 o'clock, I don't know. But…I went right through the… was gonna go right out through the kitchen to the barn, and my mother said: Esther, where do you think you're going? And I would answer her, and I said: what's it to you? I'm like, yeah, what's it to you? And she says: you turn around, little lady, and you go right back upstairs to bed. And I did. The next morning, wouldn't remember a thing. No, I was awful about, that way, walking in my sleep. So when I was a senior, and the class trip came up to go to Washington, D.C. My mother was very still worried about things like that, where it's a stranger place. So she called up and talked to Guy Rowe at the school, and, because he was going to be on the bus, too, for one thing. He was going to be one of them that go. And she said. My… she said, I… she told who she was, and my daughter will be going on the trip, and she said, I…am worried a little bit, because in the past, she has gone, you know, walking in her sleep, and so she said, I… I am a little worried about that. And she said, the other problem that I am concerned with is they have been keeping her checked because of her appendicitis. So he said, well, don't you worry about it. I'll keep track of her. Which he did! He… he even came and sat in a chair… sat in a seat beside me for a while on the bus there, and talked ... like that. And my mama was worried about that. It never happened or anything, but the next year, I did have my appendix out. So, you know, but, no, that was, and one time I went in...walked in my sleep... went in John's room, And… No. I kept bouncing, bouncing on the bed, and John woke up. He knew what was going on. He knew that I was going through this, and he calls, he calls, hollers to Mama, hollers to Mama, come and get this. And she… she's… she's in my room, bouncing on my bed! So my Mother had to come out and get me to bed. And I never knew a thing about it. I thought it was funny when I knew about it. I thought, good, I plagued him. You know, so… Yeah, but, you know, so things like that, but, you know, that is a very big house, and, as I say, I think Joanne…I think Joanne will stay there, for as long as she feels she can take care of it, and then it will be for sale. Yeah. But I mean, she will be 76 in December. Yep. Yep. CR: None of us are getting any younger. EE: No, no, I know, I hate it. I'm 88, I hate it. February, I'll be 89, that's not too far off. CR:It's true. Seems to me the day's just go by. EE: I keep trying to keep busy doing stuff, because you've got to, and otherwise you find yourself if the arthritis is worse than ever if you don't move around. CR: That's right. EE: Because I have problems with that, that's for sure. And, but no, I, no, I get… I get 3 meals a day, at least 360 days out of the year. Herbie and I hardly ever go out to eat, because I don't really like that food, if you want to know the truth. Yeah, I really don't. There's always something I don't care for. And but, well, if they wanted to give me, if they had any decent…macaroni and cheese, I'd eat that at a time. I like that. But, no, so I just… I just keep busy. There are things out in the garage that are on the, shelves out there that really need to get rid of, and there's some… You take it as discouraging to look at it. Yeah, too much, Christmas decorations that oughta be, you know… and this is why I wish my daughter was closer by, because she could at least share them with all the kids. Yeah. She had 5 children, so they're all grown up. All married, all got their own houses, lucky. CR: It's good. EE: They've all been to college, due to her, not her, not her, ex-husband, but due to her. And, you know, so, but I don't know. I, I, you feel like you want somebody to have them that would appreciate them, because some of them are old. Yeah. Yeah. And they're in good condition, you know. And there's only certain ones that I put on the tree now, because it's too hard to un…take care of everything, really, after Christmas, it's too hard, I'm too tired. You know, and then, you know, so I… I try to watch what I put on there, especially the… anything the grandchildren and my children have made, I make sure I put it on there. Yeah, like that, yeah. But, no. So, it's... CR: We do accumulate a lot of things. EE: Yeah, I… what was that? CR: We do accumulate a lot of… EE: Oh, my God, yes, yeah, yes. Well, the other day, let's say, a week ago, my, stepdaughter, was, was over, and, Debbie, and, Herb's, boy's wife. And, I was so glad that she… that she came over, because I had something I wanted to find out if she would be able to use. A nice… it was brand new, I never used it, because I had two just like it. I had two--two of the same size, just like it. One of them was a milk glass, and the other one was a clear Pyrex. And this one was a smoky type of…dish, and it, set into a little basket. It was cute. And I always kept it in a… I always kept it covered in a plastic bag, and put it under this cupboard. And I thought, sometime, when Debbie comes over, I'm gonna see if this would be of use to her. She was tickled to death to have it. She said, yes, I could use that. I said…and I thought, well, there's gonna be some other things I'm gonna ask her about. I've got a Corelle one, too, so yeah, but anyway, you know, and I got a cake pan that, you know, it's got the…stainless steel cover on it, and a big glass dish that it sits on, so if you have a, you know, birthday or something… I mean, I used it through the years, but it was just, like new. And it was a wedding gift back in 1959, but it looks just like new, as shiny as can be, and I put it under the cupboard, because I got sick of keeping it down and washing it off from the dust. So, yeah, I used to keep it on top of my other refrigerator, but I had to buy a new refrigerator. The last one bit the dust; it was 20 years old, so it was well-timed. This one cost us $700. You know that's ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah, but, so anyway, so Debbie had come over because she just got a new, little dog...because...Steve's dog, they had, another, they had another large dog, like Steve's dog. It was a cream color Lab mix, Lilly. And, she was getting quite old, and she'd been sick, and Steve had taken her, and…and spent a lot of money on medicine to keep her going, keep her going. She finally passed away. And they felt very bad about it, and their dog--Lab, Huckleberry, the black Lab--he likes us very much. He's… I call him my dog. And, yeah, he's… he's awful good when he comes here. He minds, he's very, very good. He does exactly what you tell him to. Well, he missed Lilly very bad. He went… they could tell, but the way he was acting that he missed her, because they were together all the time. So, Debbie thought that I think they need another small dog to keep him happy. And it did. It made a big difference for Huckleberry, yeah. So she brought him over a week ago, so that I could see him. His name is Tucker. Tucker. And he's cute, yeah. And he's a pretty medium color brown, and this part of his face is black. He's pretty; he's cute. So, anyway, I told Debbie, I'm glad you came over. I said, please come again, because I think I got more stuff to give you. But I've got things up here that, came from… my Mother… some of her sisters, my grandmother Cleveland, my father's mother, and, that, I want Susan to have, you know, that's different. And, I really…I don't want them to go to someone else. I want Susan to have them. And, so… and there's a… and there's a certain thing that I'm gonna let Bruce have. And it's this old man, I've had him for years, my mother had him and gave it to me. And he… he smokes…has a thing that you can… like a cigarette...that isn't what it is, but it looks like a cigarette, and you put it in his mouth. And get it going, and he blows rings. Smoke rings! He smokes… he blows smoke rings. He smokes ...all about this doll and all that stuff, the old man, and Bruce… Bruce always liked it that. I told Bruce, I want… definitely, that's for him to play around, but… but… Yeah, so I have, you know, I have a few things like that that I would want Susan, that I… that she… she knows that she would like. There's, one particular, plate, they called it a ribbon… they call it a ribbon plate. It was a… it's a milk glass. It's got a flower design in the middle of it. But it has, you know, lace-like, lace holes around the top of it that you, apparently… and I guess they used to...do that for weddings or something, apparently. But it was one that my mother's sister...given to me by my Aunt Mabel. And, So I've had it for years and years, and Susan always said that she would like to have that, but I've got other things that I would want her… want her to have anyway, and so… CR: Great. EE: Time goes on, that's it. Yeah. Yeah. CR: So, we don't have… well, we've actually…been talking for quite a while, but...any funny memories from primary school? EE: What? CR: Any… when you were in primary school. You went to… oh, EE: I went to the school up beyond the… Advertiser. Yep, yep. That's where I went to school, yeah. And they didn't have a desk, it was long tables. Yeah, that you… and the chairs that you sat at. Yeah, was… they… they weren't little desks, like you… when you went to the… down to the, second grade, or something, and that's when, first time, you got to have a desk. And, and I don't know about the other little primary schools, like, oh, the one that used to be on Tucker Street. Yeah, Miss Abbott used to teach school there, and I don't, I don't know if they had desks or not. They may have. But that one did not. That had just, tables for the kindergarten and first grade. CR: Did you get in any trouble there? EE: No, I never got into any… no, I never got into any problems. I probably should have, but… no, nothing I can think of. I'm trying to think what went on. Well, we had a lot of, on holidays, they would do things that they hoped the parents would come, the entertainment, you know, like that. And at Christmas, they would, find if someone would like to maybe sing something for a song, like Jingle Bells or something, or had a poem. And, and I remember I had a… had a poem that I… got up and recited. It was a short poem that I got up and recited. I was first grade. And but, you know, they… they had… then they had an old, big old wood stove, that heated; and they had a… a steel type of…thing around it so the kids wouldn't go near, you know, wouldn't be getting burned or something. But it , it was huge… it really was. To me, it looked like a really big stove. And there was quite a few children...that, that, went there, and they divided it up, that so many would go to that school, and so many went to the Tucker Street school. Well, to begin with they were going to make me go to the school on Tucker Street, when they started dividing all this up. My father went right to the school board. And it was, Charlie Cummings there. Charlie Cummings was one of the big deals at the time, a young man at that time. And my father went to let him know that no way was his kid was walking from Summer Street to Tucker Street, to school, when the school was right up the street. Yeah, when there was one right up there. And those don't need… because Bobby Bell went down now to Tucker Street, because his grandmother took him every day in the car. Ugh. See, otherwise, he wouldn't have been going. So he was the grade ahead of me because of that. So my father told, Charlie, that…then I guess she won't be going this year. So they made me stay home for a year, until I went right up here to the school on Main Street, because I could be there in a few minutes. And, so I guess Charlie got pretty riled up, anyway, and everything. My father just laughed about it. But anyway, he said, no, she's not going to. Well, Mabel Bell found out about it, so, she came over and told my father, she said: If you, if…if you feel that you want her to, you know, to not… to go to school this year, she said, I am taking Bob, and she said, I will… I would be glad to take Esther right along, too, if you… And my father said, no, there's no damn need of it, because, yeah, he said there's a school right up on Main Street, and there's no reason why that she can't go to school there. And no, because I'm not having her… in fact, Dr. Nelson had told my mother that would be too much for her, because she's too thin. He said she wouldn't be able to should never be able to handle it. And in the winter, that's what they worried about, was it in the wintertime. And they would have been, you stop and think about it, from Summer Street to Tucker Street. For a kid, you know. CR: Could be pretty windy. EE: Yeah, 5, 6 years old. Yeah, yes, yeah. So, I mean, it was a… it was a long, walk, even going from Summer Street, down on this end to second grade. You know, I mean, that was enough, but I… I, I liked it, I liked, where I was going, and, liked the teacher all right, and so forth, and… and, some of the same kids that I knew about, were going there, too. And, so that worked out alright. Then I had Tessa Thibodeau for 3rd grade. And I… I thought a lot of her. I liked her. She… she made everything… she made everybody knew how to read time on the clock. A lot of them did not. CR: Really? EE: Yeah, and she… they had a big round. Yeah, and she made everybody before, and she made it… she made it clear that everybody is gonna… gonna be able to… be able to…know what time it is before this school is out this year. Yep, and she did. She worked right with kids. And the only one I worried… the only thing I remember about her…at school, and he's… he's gone, too. Ned Truman. He went and he was in grammar school with me. And, I don't know what he did that day, but something, I don't know. I don't… I didn't think he was sassy, but maybe… maybe he did. I don't know. That wasn't like Ed to me. But anyway, he was naughty in some way. She went right up to the hall, right up the corridor, and got ahold of him, right by the shirt, and took him right down to the front of the class. Took her chair… took the chair away from her desk, set it in the middle of the stove… of the… of the floor, made him… made him lay over her lap and she had a ruler. Yeah, and she spanked him. That was back when they could apparently get away with it. They couldn't now. So anyway, yeah, she spanked him. In fact, we laughed because the ruler broke. I think it was a yard stick, or whatever it was, but it broke. It was broke, it broke, and he laughed, too. But we all laughed. That made him mad, made her mad, so she made us stay after school. We didn't do nothing but laugh. So she made us say after school, I never forgot that. Yep. And, no, but she… she was a very, strict teacher, but she was… I always liked her, she was very nice. And, when, my late husband and I were married, we were married in the Methodist Church down in Mechanic Falls, and… she came to our wedding. Dot Thurston brought her, because I was working at the bank at the time, with Dot Thurston, and, and, so she said, that I… I told Dot that I… that I… I was very surprised that Tessa Thibodeau said she'd love to come to the wedding. And so Dot said, I will give her a ride. I said, well, that's very nice of you, thank you. So, you know, so she came to our… she came to our wedding, and that was unusual--have your teacher… But anyway, I always liked her, yeah, and… CR: You told one story about being up at the Opera House. EE: Oh, yeah? CR: You got all tangled up. In streamers or something. EE: Oh, no. Oh. At the Universalist Church downstairs at their stage. We were in a dance recital. And I don't know… we apparently were invited there by the… whoever the minister was, or somebody. They were having entertainment. So they invited our dance class. And, so there would be, Janice Goodwin and one that went to school with me, that we all were together in that dance class. And, it was a ballet. It was a ballet. I was a ballet theme at that time. And… the dance teacher came from…the city. We didn't have one in town. They came any time… any dance teacher I had. They had two different kinds, and they both were from Lewiston. One was like this, and the other one was… one was like a model. She was very, very pretty. Yeah, very pretty. And… but they both were good. Even the… even the one that was chubby was very, very nice. Her name was… ...Mrs. Cooper, yeah. And she used to dance, too. And… and she was… what gotcha--she was… acted very light on her feet, too. So anyway, we had this recital at the Universalist Church that evening, and we were doing our own performance, and in the back of us, there was streamers, like…I don't think it was… it might have been crepe paper, but they were streamers that they made in different colors, you know, so they would have something for a background. That was it. They didn't have a curtain or anything like that. So anyway, we were doing that. We were doing that dance. Ugh. I was beside Janice at the time, Janice felt bad, because that… that happened to me, [from first session about the streamers EE:I went back further than I should] and my foot got in the streamers. Betty was up back. Laughing! My sister, leave it to her. Anyway, she got the biggest kick out of it, because I was trying to get untangled… [from first session about the streamers EE: and I think she almost peed her pants, because she got to laugh at what was going on. Oh, my God, if that weren't embarrassing.] And I… I almost think maybe the dance teacher, which was, Mrs. Miller, I think it was…I think she came from the side of the stage there, to come out to straighten it out, and just, you know, and just make believe nothing ever happened. You know, make believe nothing ever happened. She always used to tell us that if anything should ever happen, like if somebody fell down or whatever, just don't let it bother you, just keep going. So we....kept going. Janice was still snickering. Oh, God, we thought about that one time when I went to a reunion. Janice… Janice said: I hope you, I hope you don't get tangled up from any streamers. Always remembered it. CR: Well, good. Looks like… You have returned. (to Herb) Yay! Yeah. Yep. Well, I guess we need to wrap this up. Okay, well, because it's, you know, usually try to talk… see, we've talked for over an hour. Yeah. This is good. Okay, good. Yeah. So in… well, let's see, let's… Additional notes [1] Esther was the only away from home. Her mother had been ill and there was a big snowstorm. Dr. Nelson insisted that her mother go to South Paris. Her mother was there for a couple of weeks and Esther did not arrive at Summer Street for six weeks. That health care facility was started by Bessey McAllister and her husband Nason. [2] Arlene's husband was Gerald Truman. [3] The mother lived upstairs and did not speak English. Two brothers worked in the store and were very nice to all the young people. The sister had a little dress shop upstairs, with clothes from New York and Boston. [4] There were two Fletcher daughters, Sandra and Shirley. The grandmother eventually moved from the house to an apartment over the store. [5] Staples