Arlene Brown interviewed by Richard Ade - April 3, 2001

• Brown, Arlene

Richard Ade Interviews

PLEASE STATE YOUR FULL NAME?

Arlene Greenleaf Brown

WHEN WERE YOU BORN?

November 26, 1921

WHERE WERE YOU BORN?

I was born here in Bethel, down on Main Street there used to be a restaurant down there and my folks lived upstairs. It wasn’t a restaurant then. My mother had a little luncheonette or something there. My father came here as an undertaker and he was also a veterinarian. Quite a combination. But, anyway, that’s where I was born.

HOW MANY PEOPLE WERE IN YOUR FAMILY?

Well, I had three brothers, all younger. I am the oldest one.

WHAT WAS YOUR MOTHER’S OCCUPATION?

She was a housewife. She went to college and studied domestic science which is well, sometime ago they used to call them finishing schools, or something like that. What it is, I don’t know. But she learned how to do all those things for housework. She went to Simmons College for a year and then she went to Worcester Domestic Science School for a year. But then, she got married and after that she had four children…she helped my father and she also took orders for flowers and did things like that. She was hands on.

WHAT WAS LIFE LIKE AT HOME?

Very busy. My father was very busy. He had the two businesses and we..well, I don’t remember too much about it, but they’d tell about it…We lived down in the park here at that time. We’d lived in several places in town. They used to live in a house by the Adroscoggin..it’s gone now. Then we lived up here, up on Broad Street. Then, when I was four years old we moved down to the park. My father had a funeral home down there and also had a well, they used what was a hen house and made it into a dog kennel. So he had a hired man there and everything. One day, the man, he was operating on a dog and the man faded right away at the table, so he had me stand up and give the ether. That was an interesting experience. We were always a busy family. We were into things. My dad was a charter member of the Lyons Club and we went to church. We went to the Methodist Church. We went to several, actually, to try them and we ended up at the Methodist Church. I was always very active in that. As kids we were always involved in something, choirs, Sunday school, all kinds of things. Is that what you want to know?

WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER ABOUT YOUR GRANDPARENTS?

Well, my grandparents…my grandfather…I don’t remember very well. I should remember…They tell me that I did ride in a horse and buggy with him…My Grandfather Stevens…my mothers father. They lived in a big farm over in Chesterfield which is over near Farmington, Maine, about ten miles. They had a great big farm and my great, great grandfather had a …you know…what do you call it…I’ll remember it. Well, he did that. I don’t remember Grammy Stevens very much. She lived to be late in her 80’s and I remember her very well. I used to go over there and visit. We always went over there in the summer…my mother and we kids and visit. And then we went also to my Aunt’s. She had a cottage down on a lake about three miles from there. We used to go down there some of the time. But, on the Greenleaf side, I remember my grandmother a little bit. She taught me to do mile-a-minute crocheting. She used to sing some songs…I can’t remember what it is now. But, I would remember her rocking, singing, crocheting. But, she died in 1932 so I was 12 and I do remember her but I don’t remember very much about her because she didn’t live here with us. My grandfather died in 1924, so I was three years old and I don’t remember him at all. He was a mailman…on the otherside of Farmington.

WHAT ARE YOUR EARLIEST MEMORIES?

Well, I don’t know. I remember an earthquake up here in Broad Street. In that house up there they had these great big sliding doors. I remember them shaking. I do remember that. I was only two or three years old then. I remember also when we were over to my grandmother’s…down to the cottage on the pond, I pretty nearly drowned. My father had to save me. A man had me on his shoulders…and that pond had a lot of drop offs in it and although the man could swim, he went down in. My father couldn’t swim…He was scared to death of the water, but he went out and grabbed me. I remember that. That’s one of my earliest memories that really sticks in my mind. I was never afraid of the water. In fact, later on, I swam across that pond.

We lived down in the park for a number of years when I was…well, I started school when I was down there. We had a good time down there. It was the house where the Creshies lived. Do you know them? Well, they are quite active in a few things. They moved here and had fixed the place up. So, I went down there and saw it a while back. They’ve done a lot to it. It’s so different than when I was there, course that was years and years ago. We had a good time playing. The girl who lived next door…I still know her. She’s a woman now…as I said, she was the same age as I was. We used to play together all the time and we used to have a fight over who owned the lilac trees between the house. And, we were always arguing about who owned them and course, we didn’t own them anyway cause we were renting the house.

We had an indian raid…the 1931 Indian Raid celebration. That was a big time with the floats and everything. My father was one of the rangers…We had people come in to make the floats and things. Course, my father had a funeral car. In those days, now here’s something different that you don’t see now, they made the funeral cars into ambulances. They would put in cots and chairs and all the things that go with it. So, for that parade, my father bandaged him all up like a patient and my father was the doctor and I was dressed up like the nurse and we went in the parade in that. We have pictures of that, of course.

My brothers were all younger of course. One of the houses had a cellar door you could walk into instead of having, you know, where you go down steps to go into the cellar…they made like a fort in the cellar and we had fun playing cowboys and indians and things like that because at that time that was when on the radio you had all the…you know..those radio programs who had all of the western things on it..the cowboys and so forth. We played that. We had a tent. We had tricycles and so on. Oh, what else did we do. The fourth of July…we always did…Have you heard about the fourth of July celebrations? Then you don’t need me to tell you about that. They did tricks on people. They had a cart that was down at the railroad station that you know, they hauled the luggage on, they took that, you know, some of the big boys, and put it up on Fred Edwards…well, it’s the house that’s now where the book shop is …they put it up on the piazza roof and things like that. You know, nothing that would hurt anybody really, but they…the tricks they played. They did that a lot on the fourth of July, those days. Now, you don’t even think about it. My father always had the neighborhood in …we’d have fireworks and they’d build a trough for the sky rockets and we had roman candles and things like that. Anything you want to ask about, you go ahead.

WHAT WERE YOUR MOST IMPORTANT EARLY INFLUENCES?

Early influences. Oh, mercy me. What would that be? I don’t know…such as…I can’t seem to think well, I thought…I wanted to be a nurse because of the experience with my father then, but I got over that. I was always a great reader. I did a lot of reading and my mother’s sister would come in the winter when she’d come to visit…She’d been sick and she didn’t like to do plays. She was a school teacher. She was a very good school teacher. She taught me a lot later on…in fact she was one of Stanley’s favorite teachers. She wrote a play about the Jack of Hearts or something. We put on a play. We made costumes and everything. We liked to put on plays and things like that. Then, I took piano lessons and then, later on, I took well, we all did. My father was very interested in music. He loved music and he didn’t have much of a chance when he was growing up so he wanted all of us kids to. He wanted us to do what he couldn’t. So, my brother Bob took piano and then he took up the violin. So, we kept that up. I became a piano teacher later. I went to Newman’s Observatory of Music there in Boston for three years. Then I taught piano here in town. My brother John, he was going to play trombone. But, his arms weren’t long enough to reach out so they decided that I should play the trombone. I was kind of embarassed. I didn’t know how a wind instrument blew or anything else. But, I went. I liked the piano teacher. Harry Cohen from Rumford. Very good band master. He taught me. So, I played in the band and John took the trumpet later. So, we all did things like that…did music. We loved to sit around the piano later on. I had a Uncle that came over here from Madison. He had an office where the fire station is now. We used to have the community room there. There’s a big building there…he had an office up there. We’d come once per month and that Friday night, we’d usually gather around the piano and he usually brought something with him so we’d gather around and sing. It was the thing to do then. Things change……Is that enough influence?

WHERE DID YOU FIRST GO TO SCHOOL?

I went to school at the Ethel Bisbee School…do you know where that is? If you go up by Brook’s store, it’s up there. Ethel Bisbee, in fact, was my teacher. I think it was 1924 or 1925 when it was built. I think they opened it in 1925 and the class before me was the first class to be in it. In 1926 I started school. I went when I was five years old to first grade. We didn’t have a kindergarten or anything like that. The first grade was divided into three different sections…you know, like red birds, blue birds and things like that. One of them usually was the kindergarten…I went right through there and graduated when I was 17 and went right to Boston to school. I went there and then I went to the grammar school which is over there at the academy where they’re going to build a science building. Then, course, I went to Gould. We watched them build that Hanscom Hall there…they showed the rivets and everything…we used to stand around at recess time and watch them to that. That was fun. After that I went to Boston to school and came home and after…well, my boyfriend got back from the war, we got married in 1944. I taught piano all the time. Then he went to photography school.

WHAT WERE YOUR TEACHERS LIKE AT SCHOOL?

I liked my school and I liked most of my teachers pretty well. There were some who were different than others and some that the kids didn’t like very well. I liked all of them. I had one teacher, Ms. Chapan, to different years, in the third grade and in the fifth grade. She was a lovely person…a nice woman. The one in the second grade always fascinated me because she did a lot of crying. I don’t know whether she was homesick or what was the matter with her…I think her name was Ms. Ryder…I don’t know where she came from or anything but she was always upset. Then, when we got in the eighth grade, it was Hubert Main and he was state commander of the American Legion, so we had a substitute most of the time. Those substitutes couldn’t handle the big boys we had…I don’t know if you have in your school…but when we were in school…7th and 8th grade we’d have a big mob of big boys who didn’t study very well and wouldn’t do anything and they were always acting up and being very bad. I remember in those times, you know, they would give them an awful slap in the hand with a ruler out in the hall and so forth. But, the substitute teacher across the way was a woman. But, she came trumping across with her high heels on and she’d get after the boys to make them mind when the one who was substituting couldn’t seem to handle them. I liked most of my teachers. Then, when I go into the academy, I was privileged to have Dr. Hanscom for Latin for a year. But, then he didn’t ah, but that was almost time for him to retire. So, I was glad that I had him. I liked him. He was nice. He knew all his Latin by heart. He’d go on and answer the door and keep on asking a question and expect you to answer it…Course, we had public speaking in the high school…I really think that was a good thing. I think they should bring it back. Do you do any public speaking? It really is good for you although you get scared to death. Although, we had to do it during the fifth period and nobody could do study period, that wasn’t fun. There was a stage in that room…it’s a library now. Usually, Dr. Hanscom was sitting down there to. One that I did was one…I think it was Swedish and it was about Miles Standish. The kids said he looked like he didn’t approve of it too much. I don’t know what it was. Anyway, we had to do it once the first year. Four times the second year and five times …no five times the sophomore and junior year and senior year you did it four times You went up in the main upstairs on the third floor there and rehearsed. We used to go up there. Ms. Levinworth was one of the best and she taught the chorus and things like that too, but we had some others who weren’t so hot. But, one of them who was the public speaking teacher my senior year…she wasn’t very good…I think her name was Ms. Vega or something like that. I had the lead in the senior play. I was always interested in that so I was always getting into those things. But, anyway.

WHERE DID YOU FIRST WORK?

At my folks. Mine was a different situation than a lot of kids. A lot of kids went away and they’d go to the coast and work in the big hotels, like Wentworth by the Sea and all those places and do beds or wait on tables, I suppose. But, my house was a very busy household and with two businesses, there was always something to do. The boys went on the ambulance and they would also tend to the dog kennels and things like that, you know and help with the operation. I learned to do the x-rays and things…He had everything right there…He had a medicine room where we’d keep pills and everything like that. You can’t get them in a drug store. I helped my mother. I said if I didn’t ever have to wash another dish I would be so happy. I hate to wash dishes. I still do. But, we of course had the black sink that you had to wash and everything. Then, we had the kitchen all made over in 1944 and got a nice white sink and everything…so it was good. But that’s where we worked mostly and I worked for my father in the office sometimes. Well, I took the college course over there…I went back during the war while I was teaching here and took eg and did shorthand and second year typing and shorthand. I took a test..you know, for getting jobs in…oh what do you call it? That’s the trouble with getting old…you forget what they’re called. But, anyway, I could have gotten a job down at the Navy down in Brunswick and there was one in South Paris for the ration board, I think, that I could have taken. But, I decided to stay. It was hard to get from place to place. You know, you had to take the buses and things because the gas was rationed. So, I decided to stay here and do the teaching. I had a big class so that was fine. I also helped my mother with the housework and things like that. So, we did that and the boys worked for my father. Our family really worked in house…and didn’t do much to work for anyone else downtown like everybody else did. We kept busy working at the house. And, then after that, my work was teaching. And my brother Bob, he had to leave immediately that summer. They did give him time enough to finish school. He was 18 in January and he left for the service right afterward. The next thing…not too long, he was in England. He went in on D day…and he was there and my husband was in the South Pacific. Went to New Zealand for rest and recreation. And got out on what they called rotation, because they had been in so long. He was drafted. He went in for one year and had to stay for almost five years. So, he got out in June before we stopped the war with Japan in August. So, it’s all very vivid in my head. You know, I can picture it so well. Those were the days that were really memorable in our minds…I think in my age group.

WHERE HAVE YOU WORKED SINCE THEN?

Well, let’s see. Norm went to school in New York City. Then, we came back here. We went looking other places and ended up finding a place here we could start up a photography studio. We had a studio here. His father was the …publisher of the Bethel Citizen and he went to work there as a photographer. And, he also started…he went into a different kind of press so he did that. I learned to take photographs and we sold framed pictures of scenes around, plus he did the other stuff at the studio and things like that. We lived right across from the movie theater where the Bethel House is. We could sit on our front steps and listen to the movies. That was kind of fun. Then, we built our own house and lived there ever since. I’m trying to hang on and stay living there by myself. But, I can’t see very well. I’m practically blind, but, I’m bound to stay there as long as I can. We built that up on Chapman Street and moved out of the big house. We felt as though we were heating the whole of Bethel. Now days it wouldn’t seem like much…I mean, the heating would seem like nothing, but at that time, it seemed as though we were. It was $50 per month! Imagine that. Now, here we are paying four hundred…seven hundred. Whatever. So, we decided to build a house and we had a studio made and I’ve lived there ever since. Norm died in 1996 so….

WHAT WERE SOME OF YOUR WORST WORK EXPERIENCES?

Goodness Gracious…well, I don’t know. I liked work and what I did. I enjoyed teaching very much. I also liked doing the pictures. I did all the portraits…I painted all of those. My son’s a photographer and he’s got all the digital equipment and everything. He’s built a studio in Wesbrook. He and his wife do that. In two minutes, you can get his all colored where I’d have to sit down and take an hour to do it. But, it looked more like a painted picture. I can’t remember any bad experiences. We had difficulty with the old man who lived next door to us there. When we built, we bought this property up there to build a house and the fellow we bought it from lived next door. He was on the school board and his brother, who was Lesley Davis, the fellow who owned the saw mill down there. And, the old man who lived next door to us was so afraid that they’d put in a mill or a school there, which there really wasn’t room and nobody had no idea of doing it but he was real upset over it. He’d have put in in the deed that we couldn’t have a business there. But, we didn’t know it. The fellow who made out our deed…he didn’t copy it into the deed. (you should never have a deed like that, you know). But, anyway, so, we didn’t know what we were going to do. The house was all framed up and everything and he informed the guy that was building it that he knew we would not have any more business there. Well, sadly enough, that was kind of a bad experience. We didn’t know what we were going to do. He finally died and his nephew, the fellow who was responsible for us getting the deed that wasn’t right, saw him and he agreed to have another deed made. But he limited it. We couldn’t have a garage or a mill there, I guess. But, anyway, it’s still there. But, I plan on getting that changed so it doesn’t have any restrictions.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE MOST IMPORTANT CHANGES YOU’VE NOTED IN YOUR LIFETIME?

Well, I’ve talked about some of them, haven’t. We could find things to do when we were younger, oh, we could have a baseball game after school or after supper and play softball and we could …we just found things to entertain ourselves. We did all kinds of things. Now a days, I find that adults will say…they have to do this for the children when I think they should find something to do for themselves. I think we’ve run away with that. I think we used to have a real good time. I’ll tell you I think we lived in the best part of the 1900’s which was right there in the middle. We had some of the conveniences, you know, we had bathrooms and electricity and all that yet we didn’t have so much of these fancy things that people now feel that they have to have. You don’t have to have them..you can be happy without them. You don’t have to have them in my opinion. This is all in my opinion, you know. But, there have been a lot of changes. Course, there is a lot more cars. We used to hang May baskets. Did you ever do it at school? We did them, especially down at the old part. As I say, I really think we had a lot of fun and did a lot more. We had skiing up here like they do now. I used to walk up there….to that store and get an eskimo pie which is in that building next to that big one on the corner where they…I always had to have an eskimo pie. It wasn’t on a stick…Can’t seem to think of anything more.

HOW DID YOU MEET YOUR HUSBAND?

Oh, I probably met him at the church. That was where I met him. I carried on our courtship by letters. I have all his letters and my letter since 1942 til 1944. They are…he sent all his letters back to his folks so I have all of them. I just read them a year ago. It’s really interesting. There’s a lot of history in there, let me tell you. They were all sensored, you know. One of them, you wouldn’t notice it, after they knew what you were going to write, after they go to know the officers, they weren’t too fussy. When he first went, he went out of San Francisco, I got an envelope which was absolutely empty. The officer forgot to put the letter in the envelope. So, I didn’t get that letter. It has been very interesting reading. We’d try to guess where they were and all. He was on the President Coolidge which was a fancy liner that they had made over to tranport…they were being, well, I guess they thought they were being chased by a Japanese submarine so they went into Spirito Santos…when they got in the harbor, there, all the guns were pointed on them. They were trying to find out who they were….They were all mixed up or something. Soldiers that were on the land there said that there guns were pointed right at them. So, they were briefed or something..anyway, the liner sunk. I’ve got pictures of them coming down the net. Only one man was lost. It was an officer who went back to see if his men were all out and he went down. That is now a park..sort of. You can dive down and see that. They never did raise it. It was in the National Geographic a few years ago. That was quite interesting. They were very careless…my husband kept saying he lost a lot of stuff…a billfold and stuff like that. But my husband couldn’t tell about it until the next spring, I guess. That was quite something. He didn’t have to go in with the first ones when the fighting began. He was there later…he went in to relieve people and you’ve heard of Iam William Sound….he was there. He was right there where John F. Kennedy was hit on his T boat. For a while there, he was on Arundle Island. I found out what that was because one of my teachers, Mr. Foster, the one at the Academy, he liked Kenneth Roberts and he wrote a book about Arundle, Maine and he mentioned something about it…in writing back and forth we got a little sneaky about and we found out that. But, he was there himself because he did the mail when he wasn’t fighting. He was a BAR man…I just saw a thing about BARS…I don’t like guns or anything but I was interested in that because he spoke about it…The Navy boat came in and picked him up every day and he went around to all the different island and delivered the mail. One night, he was on his cot and he had his mosquito netting over him. He heard hid this Jap plane coming over and he just rolled right off and onto the floor and in the morning they discovered that his lamp…his kerosene lamp, they had taken the top right off it. He sent that home (the lamp) but I can’t find it. That would be interesting to have. Then, he was a machine guy going onto New Georgia Island. Then they went to New Zealand and that was interesting. They went down South Island where it was winter and did some more training while they were down there and then they came back up when they went to New Guinea. He came home on a boat…they were all by themselves on the Pacific by then..they weren’t in a convoy or anything. He left New Guinea on November 11th and he got home December 9th. They didn’t fly them like they do now. He landed in Fort Devens and I waited in the station in Portland for him.

WHAT ARE YOUR CHILDREN LIKE?

I have a boy and a girl. My daughter brought me here today. She is very nice and a very smart girl, of course. And Kurt, he wanted to get into photograpy. I thought he would be more interested in the printing business. You know, it would be nice to have had the family keep on with the printing business if we could. But, he didn’t seem to want to. We probably thought there would be more money in printing than photography, but he wanted to do it on his own. He was all set to go to school..the Hallmark School in Western Massachusetts and he had this offer from a photographer in Northern New Hampshire who had a studio and he didn’t want to work anymore and he offered him a work study job. There was a bit of a decision to make but he did it. He’s had his own business ever since. He also went to the University of Maine and graduated Summa Cum Laude and took a two year course there in business. Now, he’s built two studios. This one is bigger than the other one. It’s in Westbrook. They are very busy down there. They just put in digitals last year. My daughter lives right up here. She has a daughter. She and George. She met a very nice fellow. He works..he’s a sawmill manager at Hancock Lumber. They’ve had a diner. His father was a chef. Actually, he was the chef at Gould and his mother worked there too. At first he started out in the garbage business…well, I hate to say it that way..what is the fancy word for it? But, anyway he bought out a fellow that was doing it here and then he sold it. Then they had a flower shop and built that up and sold it. Then the diner and then he was offered this job at Hancock and he took that.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE BEST ABOUT BETHEL?

Well, I know everybody here of course. I’ve always lived here and I like it. When I went to school in Boston, I loved it in Boston. I thought, well, I’d like to live in the city. But, now of course, with the way the city’s are…when I was there, it was lovely. You could walk out in the street at night and go up onto Mass Ave a little and go to the movies and all that sort of thing. I wasn’t scared to go anywhere. But, then, it got so it was bad. It is nice to be in a city so you can go to all the shows and things. I took advantage of everything and went to all the…they gave the students tickets to the opera. I got to sit in a box seat...you know, those seats the wealthy people sit in and I sat right over the stage and watched them. Well, as I said, I took advantage of it. I saw MacBeth and a lot of good plays. Here, you can’t get that. Course, there was a summer theater in Skowhegan and Lakewood..we used to go over there and think nothing of it and get home at 3:00 in the morning.

I like the small town. You know, knowing people and going and doing things. But, I did also enjoy being in the city. There are disadvantages to living in such a small town. Like doctors…when you get old…you can’t drive. See, I haven’t been able to drive for 22 years and I used to do all of the driving. Taking my mother and aunts and my out. So, I can’t drive cause course I can’t see. So, there are things I wish they’d have here. I don’t know why they don’t put…I probably shouldn’t tell you…but they were always afraid of the foreign element. My folks would speak about it. They were afraid they’d get the Italians, the French men and all that kind of stuff in here, so they didn’t want the mills an stuff. So, here, we haven’t had much stuff to bring people here to work. It’s all the tourist business. I don’t approve of just having that. I think if they could get some small businesses…maybe only a dozen people or something. You see it happening on the coast but not here. It would be nice because then there would be people here who would stay here on all time. It’s difficult to find renters and everything. I really think, as I said, they never wanted to have the working class people here so much. It’s always been kind of a snooty town (LAUGHS). It really has. Course, they had the Bethel Inn and Dr. Gerring..we knew them and everything but I never got to stay there. And, Dr. Chapman. We knew them..we knew everybody. They brought all these opera stars here. You know, all those things are fine, but now, you know…we used to have three or four grocery stores at one time. They weren’t the great big ones but you had your choice. They need another grocery store here, again, my opinion. Boy, I think I’m a very opinionated woman, huh??? But, you can see what I mean.

WHAT ADVICE DO YOU THINK IS IMPORTANT TO PROVIDE A YOUNG PERSON BASED ON YOUR EXPERIENCE?

Dear me. Well, definitely, if I wasn’t thinking about it, I might tell you to DO THIS or something…but, I don’t do that as much as I used to. I like talking with young people and discussing things. Oh, I don’t know. I’d say one of the most important things is to find something that you like to do and do that and don’t do something just to make a whole mess of money. I think the world today is so aware of so much money that’s its all they think about. I’m sure these people at least, these young folks, who get into all this computer business, they, I’m sure they’re happy. They enjoy doing that. But, everybody can’t do that. I don’t know. Get into something you like to do and stick to it, even if you don’t earn a lot of money. Don’t you think that’s a good idea? I think that’s very important.

WHAT DO YOU THINK THE FUTURE IN THE 21ST CENTURY WILL BE LIKE IN BETHEL?

Well, I expect it will keep right on going, the way the rest of the country goes. (LAUGHS). Well, I don’t know. I think we have a lot of people coming in here. And sort of keep it on going just about like it was. A lot of the people have money that have come here to retire here and they have their big houses here and they retire and they work and things, like in this building here and doing that type of thing. Which is fine, it’s good. I don’t know if we will ever have anything but tourism the way its going. I’m afraid that’s the way it’s going to be always. There are some things, like the Timberlakes down here. They do furniture and make things. And, there are some people who do things like that. I don’t know. I think it will probably go on as it has. I’d like to know in another 100 years what it’s like. That would be interesting. You think I should get myself frozen??? (LAUGHS)

DO YOU HAVE ANY OTHER COMMENTS YOU WOULD LIKE TO MAKE?

Oh, I think I’ve commented enough, don’t you? Haven’t I talked too long????