<\/p>\n
Nothing serves better than old diaries to tell us how Maine people lived in the generations gone by. Such a diary is one kept in 1879 and 1880 by Ardella Prince of Buckfield. Ardella was a maiden lady who had the reputation of being in great demand as teacher and governess to children in wealthy families. She was the daughter of Buckfield’s prominent citizen, Noah Prince, and the sister of Charles Prince, who was the father of one of Waterville’s most prominent women of the past half century, the late Mrs. Albert Drummond. As Josephine Prince, Mrs. Drummond had come to Waterville to attend Coburn Classical Institute in the 1880’s. Here she met Mr. Drummond, son of banker Everett Drummond and a graduate of Colby in 1888. When Mrs. Drummond’s aunt wrote the diary we refer to, Josephine was a young girl in the Buckfield schools, but already she was the belle of the family.<\/p>\n
Ardella Prince had two major interests as the New Year dawned in 1879. One was the Buckfield Baptist Church. The other was the Reform Club, an organization supporting temperance and other good causes. On January 8 she wrote: “Concert at Baptist Church last night was followed by supper at Reform Hall. This morning I went to the Hall to help wash dishes.”<\/p>\n
On January 10 came the first reference to the future Mrs. Drummond: “Received a beautifully written letter from my little niece, Josie Prince, who with the rest of the family is at Augusta, Georgia.”<\/p>\n
That reference to far away Georgia calls for explanation. Josephine’s father, Charles Prince, had been captain of Company C in the 23rd Maine during the Civil War. In 1866 he became cashier of the Freeman’s Bank in Augusta, Georgia, and there he remained until his return to Buckfield in 1882. So, when Ardella Prince wrote her diary, her brother Charles, with his wife and four children, including Josephine, was living in Georgia.<\/p>\n
In March the diary tells us about Ardella’s teaching interests: “Letter from Mrs. Kimball, asking me to spend the summer with her at Waterford and assist her in building her two masculine twigs in the right direction.” The fact that Mrs. Kimball is not identified and that the two boys are referred to in humorous tone reveals that Ardella had previously been in Mrs. Kimball’s employ, probably only as the Kimball family came to Waterford for the summer. The diary later identifies their permanent home as Brooklyn, New York.<\/p>\n
Ardella was always entertaining relatives in her Buckfield home. Very often she had with her her niece and nephew, Shirley and Harold Hall. On April 12 she wrote: “Shirley and Harold came on the first train. They have grown taller and have made good progress intellectually. They have read a good deal. In their studies they have been through Wentworth’s Geography, Greenleaf’s Elementary Arithmetic. They have their studies at home with their mother and father’s assistance. They do not attend school.”<\/p>\n
While the two children were with Ardella, she diligently tutored them, but not always successfully. On April 23rd she wrote: “Harold got frightened by a quarrel between Miss Hall and Mrs. Whiting, that he cried and could not recite.”<\/p>\n
In Buckfield Ardella lived with her widowed mother, but one or the other of them was frequently away. In May, 1879 it was the mother: “Mother has gone with Shirley and Harold to Lockes Mills.” In oth,er words she was taking the children to their parents — Dr. Orrin Hall and his wife, Mary Prince Hall.<\/p>\n
Ardella was proud of the children’s intellectual progress, and at this point in her diary, after recording their departure for home, she devoted an entire page to a dialogue between Shirley and Harold: “Shirley – I wonder if we have the true religion. I feel some doubt about it. Harold – Why? Shirley – Because in the olden times they had a religion they thought was the true one. Then other religions arose and proved it false. Then after a long time Christ came and our religion was thought to be the true one. So perhaps, after a long time, another religion may arise that will prove to be the right one after all. Harold – Well, I haven’t any such doubts. Just look at the proofs in the Bible. Shirley- What proofs? Harold- The Bible tells about men who talked with God. If they talked with Him, I don’t think they could be mistaken about the true religion.”<\/p>\n
Evidently Ardella thought that dialogue made the children sound unduly precocious, so she appended a sort of apology: “I hope nobody who chances to read this will picture two little prigs, always doubled up over a book and old before their time. Two happier, merrier children would be hard to find.”<\/p>\n
The diary item immediately following the children’s dialogue again refers to the quarrelsome Miss Hall: “Went to Ladies Aid. Miss Hall again made herself odious by requesting the president, Mrs. Tilton, to leave the chair, whereupon Mrs. Ripley moved that our president be sustained and protected from further insult. After the meeting Mrs. Brigham and I apparently convinced Miss Hall that she had better not make any further trouble at our meetings.”<\/p>\n
Ardella was proud of her friendship with Buckfield’s most famous son, John D. Long. In 1879 Long was Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts, would soon be its Governor, and in 1896 would become President McKinley’s Secretary of the Navy. It was Long who in 1898 sent to Admiral Dewey the famous message to run the batteries at Manila Bay and attack the Spanish fleet.<\/p>\n
Ardella’s first diary reference to John D. Long was dated June 15, 1879: “Wrote to John D. Long. congratulating him on the favorable notices of his translation of the Aeneid.”<\/p>\n
Now it happens that I too knew John D. Long, but it was 35 years later than Ardella’s diary. In 1914 I was teaching at Hebron Academy, where Mr. Long was an honored member of the trustees. One afternoon during the Commencement season at Hebron Mr. Long and I were seated on the old rock pile at one end of the athletic field. I asked Mr. Long if it were true that he made his translation of the Aeneid right at the time when he was busy as the state’s lieutenant governor. Mr. Long said indeed it was true, and what was more, he did most of the translating while presiding over the Massachusetts Senate. He said the long-winded, often uninteresting debates gave him plenty of time to do the translating, and he added: “You’ve no idea how wonderfully relaxing it was.”<\/p>\n
Ardella Prince had evidently heard much the same story. She wrote: “Letter from John D. Long says that he began his translation of the Aeneid as a recreation and became fascinated with it. I am very proud that in his busy life he should have made such a work the recreation of a year.”<\/p>\n
On July 5 Ardella set out for Waterford to be governess to the two Kimball boys. The next day she recorded simply: “Commenced to teach Harry and Fred Kimball, aged 7 and 8.” Ardella was then 44 years old. We know that because she says July 10 was her 44th birthday, and friends were in for the evening.<\/p>\n
On July 17 my own native town of Bridgton appeared in the diary: “Mrs. Kimball went to Bridgton to meet her Aunt Marcia Stevenson and bring her home here.”<\/p>\n
On August 2, although the thermometer rose to 94, Ardella tells how the ladies of the church prepared the parsonage for the new minister: “At 9 a.m. not a room was in order. Four of us were sewing a carpet, another making pillows, two or three scurrying around with brooms and mops. Before night all was ready.”<\/p>\n
Ardella had a similar experience helping prepare for the coming of half a dozen summer boarders. By 1879 the lake region from Sebago to Waterford, including Naples, Bridgton and Harrison, welcomed every summer a number of families from the cities. The big summer hotels had not then been built. It was the farm homes, expecially the larger ones, that received the paying guests.<\/p>\n
How did those city folks reach Waterford? Ardella tells us: “Five of our guests came by the lake route to Bridgton and reached here at 2 p.m.” The Portland & Ogdensburg R.R. to the White Mountains had been opened in 1870. One of its stops was Sebago Lake Station. What those Waterford summer boarders had done was take a train from Portland to Sebago Lake, then board the lake steamer for the sail up the lake, through the Songo River and the Bay of Naples, then up the entire length of Long Lake to Harrison, where a stage took them to Waterford.<\/p>\n
Two years later such a party could come all the way to Bridgton by train, leaving the Portland & Ogdensburg at Bridgton Junction, and taking the narrow gauge Bridgton & Saco River R.R. for the 16 mile journey to Bridgton Center. But in 1879 that little two-footer had not yet been built.<\/p>\n
It was not long before Ardella Prince had the Kimball children and three others completely in her own charge. On August 9 the diary contained this entry: “Mr. and Mrs. Kimball and four other guests started for the White Mountains this morning, leaving five children in my care. The responsibility seems heavy, particularly as the children have never before been far from their parents, but they seem like good children and were so anxious to stay here that I could not refuse. I am very tired, for Harry and Fred have been bent on mischief all day. However I think the punishment I gave them when Horace found them eating green apples and breaking eggs will prove salutory.”<\/p>\n
By August 12th Ardella was getting fed up. She wrote: “I think the boys vacation has lasted as long as is good for them. I shall insist on resuming their lessons as soon as Mrs. Kimball returns.”<\/p>\n
Ardella planned a big dinner for the day following the return of the party from the White Mountains. Here is how she told about it: “Our dinner was a great success. Fred and Bertie, our white adorned waiters, were an imposing pair. After I had made a little speech, dinner was served with a variety of courses. Mr. Buck pronounced my ‘baked pickerel with cream’ equal to anything he had ever tasted in the best hotels. They were all astonished when I concocted seven varieties of soup for that one meal.”<\/p>\n
Apparently in 1879 the nearest commercial photographer to Waterford had his studio in Bridgton. Under date of August 23 the diary tells us: “We all went to Bridgton to have our pictures taken in a group. Had a picnic in Lovers’ Lane on our way back.”<\/p>\n
The diary has several more references to Lovers’ Lane, and that name certainly rings a bell in my own memory. Sixty years ago, before we had paved roads, there were two routes from Bridgton Center to North Bridgton. One ran from the Lower Village at the Pondicherry Woolen Millon Pond Street straight out Flint Street. From the Upper Village. near another woolen factory called the Gibbs Mill, a road went past the foot of Highland Lake and skirted its eastern shore. About a mile outside the village the traveler on that road came to a fork. The left turn went over the Highlands where later was built the Bridgton golf course. The right turn went on until, at a place called Four Corners. it joined the road from the Lower Village. From Four Corners the traveler continued on one common road to North Bridgton.<\/p>\n
About the middle of the 19th century a big farm had been cleared between the two roads about a mile south of Four Corners. The owner then built a road connecting the two highways and planted maple trees along both sides. It was just the place to take a girl for a ride, and to this day it has the name Lovers’ Lane.<\/p>\n
Year: 1966<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #688, Broadcast on April 24, 1966<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42954,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8595"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8595\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}