Edna York interviewed by Richard Ade - January 23, 2001

• York, Edna

Richard Ade Interviews

TODAY’S DATE IS FEBRUARY 23, 2001

CAN YOU PLEASE STATE YOUR FULL NAME?

Edna Moore Dean York

WHERE WERE YOU BORN?

In Lewiston, Maine.

HOW MANY PEOPLE WERE IN YOUR FAMILY?

There were six of us.  Six children plus my mother and father. 

WHAT WAS YOUR FATHER’S OCCUPATION?

He was a carpenter by trade.  But he did all sorts of things.  My mother was a housewife/homemaker.

WHAT WAS LIFE LIKE AT HOME? 

Very quiet.  Part of the time it was spent in the country.  We lived on a farm in the country during part of my growing up years and then we lived part of the time in the city.  Because of health reasons, my father would have to give up his trade, which is carpentry.  And, then the doctor advised him to go into the country and he thought it would be better for his health.  So, part of the time in my growing up years, we lived on the farm and he was a farmer and at one time, the last of our being in the country, he built a store and ran a little country store for a while.  Then, finally, he had to give up his trade, which was carpentry, which he was excellent at.  He went into guns and ammunition in Langford and that’s what he did until the time of his death.

WHAT WERE YOUR EARLIEST MEMORIES?

Well, living in the city, that’s where I was born.  We had a very loving home life.  My family was very close.  As for any specific memory when I was real little, I remember going to a country school and how much fun it was.  So much different than the city schools.  Life in the country was what I loved.  I never was a city person.  Even as a child, whenever my family moved to the city, I always wanted to be back in the country again.  When my father would say, well, we’re going back to Albany…that’s where he had his farm…I couldn’t wait to get there.  My grandmother and grandfather both, when I was real small, lived there in Albany and our house wasn’t that far from theirs.  Of course, I have memories of being with my grandmother.  My grandfather was a civil war veteran but he died when I was about 11 or 12 years old.  So, I have good memories of him.  I remember I hated living in the city and I think it was very hard for me to change from a country school to a city school because the rules and regulations and this whole system was so much different that it was hard for me to adjust and for that reason I had to take one grade over twice.  But, when we were back in the country, it was a one room school house and the teacher had all the grades in that one room and when we went back the last time, I should have go into the fifth grade but if she had put me in the fifth grade, I would have been the only student in it because there were no others at the time.  So, she asked my parents if they wouldn’t mind if they put me in the sixth grade and see if I could do the work.  Well, the country and the cirriculum and all in a country school is not quite as advanced as in the city, so I had no problem doing sixth grade work.  So, actually, I didn’t lose a grade because I made up for it when I was in the country.   Then we moved back when I was in the eighth grade, we were in the city again.  It wasn’t quite as difficult that time.  Then, of course, we moved to Bethel.  The last move my family made was to Bethel and that’s when I entered the Academy.

WHAT WAS GOULD LIKE?

Much smaller than it is today, I’ll tell you.  The average, I think, enrollment in each class wouldn’t have been over 40.  There were 33 in my class.  If it was over 40, it would have been a big number.  But, I could easily say that the average class was probably about 40.  So, that would make it less than 150 students in the school.  They had just built the girls dormitory.  No, they built it my second year when I was a sophomore.  Otherwise, the girls and boys shared the same dormitory.  ‘Course it was separated, girls in one section and boys in the other.  And, at that time both town students and boarding students attended because the town had no high school.  Although we could have gone to any school we wanted to go to, the town would have to have paid our tuition.  But, most everybody in town went to the local high school, Gould Academy.  We had wonderful teachers and we had a lot of fun because it was more on a one to one basis.  Course, now Gould is so much bigger and you’ve got so much added to help with your education than what we had back in 1923 to 1927.  But, even then, classes were more or less segregated.  If you were a freshman, there was a tendency for the seniors to kind of pity you, you know, you poor kids, you’ve got a lot to learn.  But, we didn’t really intermingle much other than in outside of our own class.  I played basketball.  There was a girls team and a boys team and we had a religious organization called “The Girl Reserves” which a lot of  the girls in the school belonged to.  It was very nice.  We met a couple of times a month and it was a fun time, you know.  Then, every summer there would be representatives from the Girls Reserves sent to a summer camp.  I happened to be one of the fortunate ones to go between my junior and senior year.  That was a wonderful experience.  A great emphasis…a lot of emphasis at the time I was schooled…was put on courtesy and your treatment toward other people.  Our principal was very strict in many ways and we had to keep study hours from 7 to 10.  If you lived in town, you’d better not be out of your house and have the principal catch you out on the street otherwise you stood in danger of getting demerits.  After so many demerits, you could be expelled from the school.  But, the only way you could get around that was to go to the principal.  For instance, if you wanted to go to something in the evening like some particular thing that was going on in town and you wanted to go to it, you would have to go to him and get permission.  Otherwise, it was expected that you would be in your home from 7pm to 10 pm.  He was very strict about it…if you met anyone on the street, especially an older person, you were very respectful toward them, you know.  You always called them Mr. or Mrs.  He was very strict on manners and that type of thing, which was good.  Every morning before school began we had devotions.  Course now you can’t do that on account of the separation of school and religion.  But, and another thing we had to do was we had to learn poetry.  (Or, as how the principal called it “a declaration”)  It didn’t necessarily have to be a poem, but you would have to memorize something because every morning before classes began and after devotions he would call on somebody in the assembly to come up and give their declaration.  You never knew when you were going to be called on so you’d better be ready when you got up there.  That was kind of…you sort of dreaded that…getting up in front of the whole school and speaking the piece, but it was good.  You had to memorize things.  I never regretted it.  There were some student, though, for whom this was very hard.  They weren’t good at speaking in public and they were very shy and it actually would make them sick to have to get up and speak before the whole school assembly.  So, in order to get out of doing it, you had to have written permission from your parent with a good excuse as to why you could not give a declaration so then he wouldn’t call on you.

Gould was a good school to go to.  I have very many happy memories of my four years at Gould and our graduations were a lot different than your’s are.  Now, you go in a cap and gown.  When I graduated, the girls all had to wear white dresses and they’d carry a bouquet of roses and the boys all had to have dark suits and ties and a carnation or something in their lapel.  The graduations were very pretty.

WHERE DID YOU FIRST GO TO WORK?

I graduated in 1927 and actually I went to work in 1928..the fall of 1928.  I had hoped to go to college when I graduated.  But, my folks were not able to finance a college education but I had an uncle who was principal of a school in Newark, New Jersey and he was very much interested in my education.  He told my mother that if she and my father would allow me to come there and live with them they would take care of me and see that I was educated.  I would have gone to a normal school there in Newark.  But, he and his wife and his two children went to France that summer.  He was also a French teacher.  He wrote a French book, but for many years was being used in high schools.  On the way coming back from France, he got typhoid fever and he wasn’t back in the country very long before he died.  So, my education flew right out the window.  So, that year that I graduated, that winter, I stayed at home.  I had three sisters younger than me and my mother really needed help.  So, my father made a deal with me, because we were expected  (in my day), when you got your high school education, you were supposed to be very well educated and able to get out on your own and make your own living.  But, my father said if I would stay home with my mother he would buy my clothes and give me my board and room.  Well, I know that may sound kind of heartless to you, for your parents to tell you that when you’re only 18 years old, but, that was the accepted thing.  You were supposed to, you know, once they educated you…So, I didn’t know.  My uncle didn’t die until July or August and what was I going to do.  So, I said that I would stay home.  Oh, yes, he said he would give me a little spending money.  But, I couldn’t have very much, probably like 50 cents a week or something like that.  In those days, 50 cents would go quite a way compared to what it does today.  So, I stayed home with mother and the next fall the superintendent of schools here in town…well, I didn’t work that winter..you couldn’t call it a job because I only worked part time in the local library.  But, I would come up and work part time in the library.  So, the superintendent saw me in the library one day and he asked me if I would be interested in teaching school.  I said, oh, I might, but I didn’t take the normal course, which at that time, was part of the cirriculum here at Gould Academy.  And, a lot of students who graduated from Gould went right into teaching because they had an education.  I had taken a college course.  So, he said, I don’t think that makes any difference if you are willing to go to summer school for six weeks, I think you will be granted a two year certificate to allow you to teach for two years.  If you liked it, you might have to go back and get your certificate renewed.  So, I talked it over with my folks and I thought, yeah, I would like to teach school. That would be fun.  So, I went to summer school and then that fall I taught school at East Bethel.  I taught the first four grades.  I liked it very much.  So, I went back and taught the second year in East Bethel.  But, by then, I had gotten interested in a young man so I didn’t further my education.  I got married instead.  But, if I hadn’t got married, I’m sure I would have gone back and continued teaching for the rest of my life.  I liked the little children.  I liked working with them. 

WHERE ELSE DID YOU WORK?

A few years after I was married, I worked as a mail carrier here in town.  They called it a “Star Route Carrier”.  I carried the mail bags from Bethel to Hanover.  And, on the way I had to do some RFD work.  I would have to go u Sunday River and take mail up there.  I put the mail in the mail boxes to people who lived on Sunday River.  And, Sunday River then was not what Sunday River is today, I’ll tell you.  It was just a little farming community.  I also had to deliver mail on the road to Hanover.  I would take the mail bags to Rumpford Point.  That was my terminal.  Then, I had to wait an hour.  But, I had to be back at Bethel at 3:00 pm because at that time the mail was transported out of Bethel by train and they had to have time at the post office to get the mail ready so they could take it to the station at 4:00 or something or other when the train came in.  So, somedays it ws kind of hard to make my schedule but I did.  I did that for four years and then my husband and I ran a restaurant after that.  Then, for quite a few years, I didn’t work. Then, I finally, when we moved to Boothbay Harbor, I worked in a gift shop for about six years.  When I came back to Bethel I went to the library here and I’ve worked there for 13 years until I retired about 2 or 3 years ago.  So, that’s the story.

WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER ABOUT SOME OF THE GREAT EVENTS OF THE 20^TH CENTURY?

The great events of the 20^th century….The first World War.  I remember very plainly because my brother enlisted and he was severely wounded and he came home.  He recovered.  That’s the first big event.  I remember the …I wish I had these questions to think about before you gave them to me…I’m sure there were other big things that happened.  I remember when the armistice was signed and all the bells were ringing.  We were living in the city then, my sister and I.  There was so much rejoicing.  This was the  first World War! And when we heard all the racquet, my sister at first thought the Germans had landed…instead of that they were just celebrating the armistice. 

I remember the flu epidemic when so many people had the flu and died. 

Going back and forth, you know, from city to town to country.  And the big fire in Brownfield and we didn’t know if half of the State of Maine was going to burn up. 

And, of course, Pearl Harbor.  And President Kennedy’s assassination.  Martin Luther King…I don’t remember the Titanic…I was born in 1909 so I might have been alive.  Wasn’t that in the teens…when the Titanic sunk?  I must have been too young.

WHO WAS YOUR FAVORITE U. S. PRESIDENT?

Dwight Eisenhower, I think.

WHY?

I had so much respect for him at the time.  And, Jimmy Carter.  You know, it would be a toss up between the two because I had a great deal of respect for him.

WHO WAS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE PRESIDENT? 

That’s hard to say.  I respected all of them.  Some, I didn’t have quite the respect for…I guess probably Nixon would have been the least if I were to pick one.  There was always something about him that I didn’t like…you know how you get the wrong vibes about people…there was always something about him.  Although, I respected him.  I thought he was a very smart man in many ways.  I think I would say Nixon.

WHAT WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT CHANGE IN YOUR LIFETIME?

When I got married.  Your whole life changes, I’ll tell you.

HOW DID YOU MEET YOUR HUSBAND?

Well, we both attended Gould Academy.  He was a class below me.  And, when we were in school, I wouldn’t have exchanged the light of day with him.  I thought he was the most borish young man I ever knew in my life.  Then, after I had graduated, course he was still in school, we went on a sleigh ride.  The Methodist Church sponsored a sleigh ride and they invited some of the academy students to go on it too and he was one of them.  We went out to Albany to the church out there and they put on a supper for us.  Can you imagine riding in a sleigh from Bethel to Albany?  Eight miles?  And, on the way coming home we happened to sit together.  And we got to talking and you know, he seemed different, all of a sudden.  So, when we got to the end of the ride, he walked home with me.  He had time before he had to get back to the Academy.  And then, he just asked if sometime I would go to the movies with him. I said sure (you know, free ticket, I’ll go with anybody…LAUGHTER..)  Well, no, not anybody…Well, anyway, it just went from there.  That’s how we met, even though I knew him in school.

WHAT WAS THE OCCUPATION OF YOUR HUSBAND?

Well, he was a heavy equipment operator.  He was a woodsman.  Then, the last ten years of his life he was town manager of Brownville, Kennebunk, Boothbay Harbor and Jay.  While we lived in Bethel he was always interested in legal things and he was a selectman here in town and he was also a road commissioner.  He had a lot to do with town affairs.  He had a lawyer friend.  He used to spend evenings with him a lot, you know, talking about town law and that type of thing.  He, one day, had a very bad heart attack, and the doctor said he would have to give up the type of work that he was doing, which was with heavy equipment.  And, so he didn’t know what he was going to do.  Someobody suggested…well, you know quite a lot about town legality and so forth, so why don’t you go into town manager work.  At first he just laughed it off…Me? A town manager?  But, the more he thought about it, the more the thought nothing ventured, nothing gained.  There was an opening in the little town of Brownville and so he applied.  He went up and had an interview and they took him right on the spot.  From then on, he just kept going.  He had a better offer offered to him in Kennbunk so we left Brownville and he went there.  Then, the pressure there in Kennebunk (politics) ran high.  It was a very difficult job for him. So, he decided he needed a break and got out of town manager work for a year and he bought a garage over in North Raymond.  He ran the garage for a year.  But then, it started to effect his heart again and the doctor said, you cannot do this type of thing.  So, back he went into town management and we went to Boothbay Harbor for about three years or more.  Then he had a good offering in Jay and he left Boothbay Harbor.  He died in Jay.

DO YOU HAVE ANY CHILDREN?

I have five. 

WHAT DO THEY DO?

My oldest son was in the service for 20 some odd years.  He became a magistrate of Cumberland County in North Carolina.  My son Barry graduated from college and he also served two years in the service.  He went to work for GE as an engineer and he retired from there a few years ago.  My oldest daughter Elizabeth..she took up nursing and she graduated from the Salem School of Nursing and she was a nurse for over 20 years.  She retired just a few years ago.  Then, my son Peter.  He was a lot like his father.  He liked trucks and heavy equipment.  He took a course in driving these big rigs that go all over the country.  For many years, that’s what he did.  Then he got kind of tired of not being able to be in one place for any length of time so he gave that up and he went to work for a smaller company where he could be home nights.  He bought a place in Nebraska.  He loves it out there.  He has always been a truck driver.  Then, Julie, my youngest daughter.  She has been doing office work.  For many years, she was the office manager for Shaw’s.  Then, they made a lot of changes at Shaw’s and the position they would have put her in she was not happy with so she left.  Now, she works in the bank.  She’s in the loan department and she has an office of her own.  They have all done very well and I’m very proud of all of them. 

HOW LONG HAVE YOU LIVED IN BETHEL?

We moved here in 1923.  I was here until 1961, I think that was the year we went to Brownville.  So, figure that out.  That would be approximately what….28 years..no, 38 years.  Then, after my husband died, I came back in 1975.  So, there’s 26 years more.  Boy, that’s putting me right up there, isnt’ it?

WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT THIS AREA?

Oh, I love it.  I love the scenery.  Course, I knew Bethel as a very small child and I was a very enterprising child in my younger days…and everybody knew everybody else.  It was a very friendly town.  And, it still is to a certain degree.  But, of course, Bethel has expanded so much that you know, there was one time you could go downtown and you knew everybody you saw.  But, now, you go downtown and you see so many strangers…But, it is a good town to live in.  It really is.  I love the country, like I said before and I hope Bethel doesn’t get too much bigger.  But, it doesn’t take you but a minute to get right out in the country.

WHAT ARE SOME OF IT’S DISADVANTAGES?

I don’t like the way it’s growing!!  You know, older people like me don’t like to see things change.  They like to keep things just as they are.  But, you can’t do it because things are changing all the time.  Nothing is the same.  When I came back to Bethel after being gone for so many years…16, 17 years we were away, it was just so different because Bethel had started to grow.  Sunday River was starting to get built up and it was just in the early process of it…It was just such a change in the small town.  Course, a lot of the trees had to be taken down.  There were some beautiful Elm trees here in Bethel..they had that Dutch elm disease and they had to be destroyed.  Although they’ve tried to put out..and they have done a good job of putting out other trees to take the place of them.  But, no, I think the thing I don’t like is change.  But, it has it’s good points.  Like, look at Gould Academy and the changes there.  I mean, the advantages you have and opportunities that we didn’t have back in the 1920’s.

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE CHANGED? 

I don’t know.  I just hope that no more industry comes in to Bethel, for one thing.  Also, I don’t think we need anymore restaurants.  But, what I would like to see is maybe some little, not big, but some small department store where you could go and get a spool of thread and not have to go out of town to do it.  I would like to see another grocery store because I think competition is good.  I’d like to see another drug store.  We need that.  We need the competition.  But, other than that.  I’m happy.  When there’s only one grocery store and one drug store…they’ve got you.  You’ve go to get out of town.  It’s good to have competition.  I just hope these big conglomerates don’t come in…cause that just takes away…you know, like Wal Mart.  I hope big industry never comes.  Sunday River is enough. 

WHO WAS THE MOST UNFORGETTABLE CHARACTER YOU EVER MET IN YOUR LIFETIME?

Oh, it would have to be our principal, Mr. Hanscom.  I will never forget him and some of the teachers that he had.  He was a builder of character, I’m telling you.  He really cared for young people and he wanted them to get the most out of life.  He was very strict but he was very understanding.  He was a wonderful teacher.  He would have to be it.

WHAT WOULD YOU CONSIDER YOUR MOST IMPORTANT DECISION? 

Decision?  Well, there are a lot of decisions you have to make during your lifetime.  The most important one….That’s hard for me to answer, really, because I’ve had to make so many and they were all important.  You will find out as you go through life that you come to a cross road…and you have to say do I take it or don’t I?  Do I go this college or do I go to that one?  What to I get involved in?  Do I marry this girl or do I marry that One?  You will have a lot of decisions to make..so, the most important…I’ll have to pass.  I’ve made a lot of decisions and it would be hard to pinpoint the most important.

WHAT ADVICE DO YOU THINK IS IMPORTANT TO GIVE YOUNG PEOPLE?

Advice?….To thine own self be true and it must fall as the night the day.  Thoust cannot then be falsed to any man.  That’s your motto at Gould Academy.  And, I think that’s the best advice. 

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

I have no idea.  The world is going by so fast.  I have no idea.  I never dreamt when I was young that I would ever see the day when we’d be watching television. Your computer…that is just….and to put a man on the moon is just unbelievable.  All the time they are coming up with something new.  It’s just hard to imagine where it will be.  Probably, they’ll be having somebody live up in space.  I won’t live to see it, but you may.

DO YOU HAVE ANY HUMOROUS STORIES? 

Well, I’m trying to think.  You mean, personal?  You should have sent me the sheet that you were going to ask me so that I would have time to think about it.  But, I think, maybe one of the funniest stories that happened not too long ago was when my niece came to see me when I came back to Bethel.  I was given the opportunity to be caretaker of the Greenleaf funeral home which I had moved in and had been doing for the last 14 years.  She had never been to the funeral home here in Bethel…the Greenleaf funeral home.  So she pulled into the yard.  There were two doors.  There’s a front door and a side door and she wasn’t sure what door she could take.  Well, before she had time the day before, a local lady had passed away and her body was in the funeral parlor and it was on display for any of the family who wanted to come in to view it before the funeral.  So, she came around to the side door which takes you right directly into the funeral parlor.  She came to the door and rang the bell.  One of the men…one of the morticians was there at the time and he went to the door and he spoke to her and he said how do you do.  Hello, she said I’ve come to see my aunt.  She thought she was at the door to enter into my living quarters.  He thought she had come to view the body.  So, he said well, you come right in.  So, he took her in and she looked around and she thought, well, my aunt is living in a strange place….and he took her over…she saw the casket and she wondered, what’s going on?  And, he took her over…and he said doesn’t she look nice?  And my niece looked at him…it scared her for a minute…she thought I had died you know, and she hadn’t been told.  So, she says yes, I guess she does.  I’ve come to see my aunt Edna.  And, the poor director said Oh, I am so sorry…and he brought her into my area.  I thought it was very funny…she was some shook up there for a few minutes to think I had passed on and she didn’t know it.  There were many, many funny things that happened, I’m sure….you know, when you ask me right off the top of my head, it’s hard to remember….we did laugh over that one many, many times.  

WHAT WAS YOUR MOST MEMORABLE EXPERIENCE?

Well, this is ONE memorable experience…I’m sure there are many others but I can’t think of them right off quick.  When I was still living in Boothbay Harbor, my mother had just died.  I was coming to Bethel…she lived in Bethel and I was coming to her funeral.  My youngest daughter was in high school.  It started to snow when we left the harbor and we got as far as Bath and we had car trouble.  We had to stop at the garage and get the problem fixed…I can’t remember just what it was…some old thing had gone wrong.  So, but in the meantime, it had begun to snow quite hard.  So, we were headed from Bath to Auburn through Lewiston and from there on to Bethel.  Somehow or other, we missed the turn that we should have taken, and in the meantime, the snow had turned to rain and sleet so the roads were just as icy as could be.  We were off in….not Freeport…it was one of the little country towns before you get to Auburn and my daughter, even though she was in high school, was an excellent driver, she had lessons on how to dive on ice and whatnot.  She was doing a remarkable job but the roads were just like a skating rink, you know.  We tried to make this hill and when we did, the car turned around and it went cross ways on the road.  So, if a car was coming up over the hill, it couldn’t see you…it would have crashed right into us.  So, we had to leave it.  Just a short distance below from where the car was there was a house.  She stayed with the car and I walked down to the house and I called the Auburn Police.  Luckily, nobody came down the road and hit the car and the police arrived and straightened out the car.  One of the police man drove with us until we got to the part of the city where they had sanded the roads.  That was quite a frightening experience.  I’ve had many experiences since I lived at the Greenleaf funeral home.  I think that is a haunted house.  I’m not afraid of ghosts, so it doesn’t bother me.  But, that would take a long time to tell you all that.