My Mother’s Marbles

By Jono Walker

My mother, Joy Walker, was a fearless body surfer and taught me to be one too. There wasn’t a wave we would hesitate to swim out to in any weather short of hurricane force winds at any point along the two miles of beach at Biddeford Pool. Stretching out in the clear hollow of a towering breaker and seeing your shadow appear for a split second on the sandy bottom just before everything crashes down in a pandemonium of sound and foam is such a rush. We’d fight through the icy undertows looking for the next great ride until our feet could no longer feel the sand and our lips were blue as crabs.

But Joy wasn’t just about daring and speed. She had a contemplative side and was an inveterate explorer of tidal pools with a life-long collection of blue and green sea glass that will never be surpassed in terms of color and opaque purity. No raw edges in her collection. Nothing see-through. Every piece different. Each one perfect. 

Joy Walker, around age 40.

 Mom’s grandfather, the Reverend Philip Schuyler, was the first summer minister of St. Martin’s, the church that now stands on the golf course in what was just a sleepy fishing village before President Taft paid a brief visit to Biddeford Pool in 1910. This turned the place into a kind of secluded resort for extremely wealthy people from Ohio…and us.

In those days a boardwalk carved a mile-long loop around East Point, which was where the Reverend took his morning constitutionals with grandchildren in tow. The first side of the loop took them through canyons of scruffy pines and bayberry bushes, offering bright blue glimpses of the little islands dotting Saco Bay, with easy access to rocky tidal pools. When the pathway left the woods and spilled onto an open field, the ocean was spread before them on all three sides, aiming straight towards the rocky point Mom called “The End of the World”.

When I was a kid things began to change, but Maine was still Maine. The big old hotel was converted into a Catholic retreat (locals dubbed it “The Nunnery”) and the boardwalk around the Point was left to rot except for a few splintery sections that remained half buried in the clumps of sea grass along the inside arch of Little Beach. Gardeners working for the people living in the enormous mansions that were eventually built out towards the Point started dumping grass clippings and kitchen scraps onto mulch piles that were strategically placed where the boardwalk used to be on the far edges of their long sweeping lawns. It was a deliberate attempt to discourage recalcitrant point walkers like us, but that didn’t put an end to our ritual. We just skirted around the steaming debris determined to keep the public right-of-way open until years later when my kids were small and the mulch piles had finally grown too big and the bayberry and the scratchy beach plum bushes around them had become completely impenetrable, forcing us, at last, to wave the white flag and take our morning strolls on the Big Beach. 

Joy at the Point

Mom lived the last of her days sitting in a chair in a place called Maplewoods. It was nice there, but the old girl – who cheerfully admitted in a rare moment of cognitive clarity that she had lost just about all her marbles – was soon running on nothing but the microdots of distant memories. One time, even though she couldn’t have told me what she had eaten for lunch or named any of her grandchildren in the photos hanging on her wall, I caught her looking over at her mason jar of sea glass sitting on the windowsill. Something bright and clear flickered across her eyes. Faint synapses deep inside her clouded brain were feeling gentle breezes from summers long since passed. She bent a little forward in her recliner just as a breaker curled, shooting her all the way to the beach. At the end of the ride she rises up on her elbows, the water retreating beneath her thighs. She looks over at me, blinking out the salty sting. When she sees that we caught the same wave and are beached together her whole face lights up. Wow! she shouts over the roar of the churning surf before turning back over her shoulder, hoping to spy the next big roller building out on the horizon. 

Nestling again into the back of her chair, she now has a child in hand, tiptoeing around the barnacled edges of a tidal pool out on the Point. An icy wave comes sluicing between the rocks and splashes white and foamy around her ankles making them ache for a second before sucking back over a chattering bed of small glittery stones. No, she says about the piece of sea glass the child presents to her. The edges aren’t yet smooth enough for the jar. Throw it back. Let some other kid have a turn to come and find it. Later, when it’s good and ready.

Grandpappy Deupree

by Josephine Deupree

In post-Civil War America, there emerged an expanding group of people who had leisure time and the money to enjoy it, and the summer vacation was born. This generally involved city folk going to rural places with recreational opportunities, facilitated by quick, affordable train transportation.

In Maine, large hotels sprang up to cater to these people, but many families decided they would prefer to own or rent private vacation homes. This resulted in the development of summer communities in choice locations beside the ocean or lakes.

Groups of people from America’s big cities often picked the same vacation spots. Sometimes these people were neighbors, relatives or work colleagues at home. As a result, many Maine summer communities have a strong association with a particular city. For Biddeford Pool, that city was Cincinnati.

John, Grandpappy, Jim on the lawn at 7 Staples St. circa 1920. 

There is no definitive account of how my grandfather, Richard Redwood Deupree (1885-1974), discovered the Pool. My cousin Susan Deupree Jones and I believe this happened around 1920. I have a picture of him with my father (John Deupree) and Uncle Dick (Susan’s father), sitting at the side of the Staples Street house, circa 1920.

Although Richard Deupree worked his way up the ladder in Procter & Gamble and eventually became President and Chairman of the Board, in 1920 he was still in sales, becoming General Sales Manager in 1917.

There were many other Cincinnati families at the Pool at that time, and many still have ties to the Pool today: Taft, Black, Clark, Whittaker, Wilby, Moore, Anderson, Blake, Kittredge, Shaftoe, Bigelow, Busby, Shaffer. How wonderful it would be if we could establish a time line for all these families!

The Deupree family consisted of Grandpappy, his wife Martha, sons Richard Jr., John and James, and daughter Elizabeth (Betty Goldsmith.) According to cousin Susan, they came by train with a stop in Boston and then by truck from Biddeford.

Grandpappy probably first rented the house on Staples St. and bought it a few years later. At some point, he bought (or built) 39 Lester B Orcutt Blvd, the house currently owned by his grandchildren the Goldsmiths, and sold the house on Staples Street to my father (circa 1940). It still belongs to our family.

According to my brother Jesse’s account, during the Depression (he was by then President of P&G), Grandpappy was poised to purchase the Hoyt mansion on Granite Point. However, his children wanted to stay at the Pool, so he bought the house on LBO and property at East Point, including Eagle’s Nest.

He intended to build on East Point, but his wife Martha’s death in 1943 put those plans on hold. He then sold Eagle’s Nest to Harry Busby and his interest in East Point to the Russells. By the time he married his second wife, Emily Powell Allen (the wonderful lady we all knew as GeeGee,) he split his time between the Pool and Wequetonsing, Michigan, where GeeGee’s family summered.

Grandpappy was instrumental in bringing the Ittmanns to the Pool. According to Bobby Ittmann, his father, who also worked at P&G, had spent summers at Prout’s Neck, circa 1947/1948. During the Christmas season of 1948, Mr. Ittmann attended a party at my grandfather’s house. Grandpappy encouraged Mr. Ittmann to rent his house on Staples St. as my father did not use it until August. And so he did. In 1950, Mr Ittmann bought a house which he sold to Davy Taft nine years later. At that point, the Ittmanns bought the Flagg house, on St. Martin’s Lane.

My grandfather had a passion for horses: he enjoyed riding and hunting and going to the races; he had a stable of many horses in Cincinnati. Joe Deering had horses at his property on St. Martins Lane (now the Morgan property) and they rode the horses on the Big Beach.

Grandpappy often visited the race track in Scarborough and, according to a family story, he won on a horse named Sea Fox. He then bought a 19-foot sailboat that he christened Sea Fox. She graced the Pool for many years.   

(originally published Feb. 8, 2019)

Recollections of Biddeford Pool, 1955-1962

By Sherwood E. (“Joe”) Bain

Exeter, NH,

Summer 2014

When my family started coming to Biddeford Pool in 1955, it was very different than it is now. Back then, men wore tuxedos to the Abenakee Club dances, cocktails were served at lunch time, and the beach was never crowded. Here are some of my recollections from those years, roughly 1955 to 1962, giving a glimpse of what life was like then.

At first, Carol and I didn’t have any connections to people at the Pool other than Howdy Marshall’s mother. She and Carol’s mother had been classmates at Radcliffe College. That first summer, we rented a small cottage overlooking the Little Beach, on the property that now belongs to Bill Dunlap.

We bought our own cottage, Rosewild, in 1963. It sits on a low rise overlooking the lily pond, with the sand dunes and Marie Joseph Spiritual Center in the distance. We have been very happy there.

Our children were small in 1955, and, like many of the other young mothers, Carol usually took them to the beach around 10 a.m.  There were few cars, or members, for that matter. Access was by Elphis Street or one of two paths: there was a wooden boardwalk starting near Marie Joseph, and the other path wound its way from the Wilby property, opposite the fire barn, and connected with Elphis Street.

The beach club in the 1950s

 At the beach club, Mrs. Goodwin presided at the white, wooden U-shaped bath house. Each family had a private stall for changing. You could shower after bathing and take your bathing suit and towel to Mrs. G. to be washed and dried. Mrs. G. always wore an overcoat to deal with the cool breezes which gathered strength as she sat in her sunless wind tunnel.

In 1955, there were open dunes on the stretch. The first house belonged to Miss Mary Smith, daughter of Joseph W. Smith, author of Gleanings From the Sea.

The first morning that Carol went to the beach, she faced an intimidating sight: there was a line of youngish women in beach chairs, all facing the ocean. It seemed forbidding to us strangers, however, Carol gathered her courage and sat down at the far end of the line. At noon, the fire barn siren sounded as usual and the ladies departed, to be replaced by more casual afternoon bathers.

One morning, Betty Barstow, occupant of Stonecliffe, greeted us and invited Carol to play tennis. That was our introduction to the Abenakee Club, and we soon joined. Membership was easy if you knew the right people!

Most members resided on the north side of Main Street (now Lester B. Orcutt Blvd.) and St. Martin’s Lane; hardly anyone was from South Point. Caddies were available for golfers, there were few organized tournaments, and views from the fourth hole were spectacular. A work shed sat near the ninth tee, but during the winter, equipment was stored in members’ empty garages. A nasty tee shot could ricochet in the shed.

The “second home” people, or cottagers, were in the minority at that time. There were many year-round residents, including a number of lobstermen and several small business owners. Most of the lobstermen were eventually forced to move elsewhere by rising property taxes. Skip Day’s garage and junk yard occupied what is now a public park overlooking the Pool. There were two stores: F. O. Goldthwaite and, across the street near the post office, another market operated by Carlos and Rose Goldthwait. Carlos also operated the bus service to Biddeford, driving the lone bus.

Jordan Goldthwait maintained rude shacks behind what is now the Orcutt house, where several small sailboats spent the winter. Jordy is still remembered for organizing bona fide clambakes on East Point for the Abenakee Club, as well as private affairs. He constructed a vast pyre of four-foot logs on the rocky beach and, after it had burned for a while, it produced high-temperature rocks. They were covered by seaweed and canvas while all the goodies steamed and baked inside. We loved to watch Jordy open the bake. Why doesn’t someone restore that tradition?

“Up for the season?”

Jordy’s standard greeting when the summer people returned: “Have a good winter?” or, “Up for the season?” Sadly, not all the locals were fond of the vacation people. The class distinction was polar, between empty cottages owned by the "rich" and the local residents who were fishermen. It wasn’t just about money: locals were not welcome at the Abenakee Club or the Beach Club. Partly as a result of this bitter divide, there were incidents of vandalism, including twice at our place. We identified the culprit, a local whose father told me he had beaten him.

Back in the 1950s, the landowners, starting with Stonecliffe, did maintain a public path cum boardwalk extending to East Point. All were welcome to enjoy the views and breezes, as well as admire the mansions. Alas, it came to an end when Dr. Harrison Black discovered a group of naked dancers on his lawn. Even so, Abenakee Club members were welcome to borrow the padlock key to open the gate near the end of Orcutt Blvd. and drive out to East Point for picnics.

The Biddeford Pool Improvement Association (BPIA) was the creation of the summer people. The only service provided, as I remember, was to maintain the various paths described above. Residents of South Point were not members of the BPIA at that time; they had their own association.

Having grown up in Maine, I had heard that the Pool was an exclusive place. In the 1930s, the Biddeford newspaper carried a social column with news about afternoon tea parties at the Abenakee. 

Abenakee Club

In the late 1950s, the Abenakee Club dances were the highlight of the summer social season. These were small, semi-formal events, with four-piece bands from Boston such as Ruby Newman or Herbie Sulkin. To celebrate their 50^th birthdays, Joe Russell and Bevo Stevens brought in a big band from New York, Howard Lanin. The music was dominated by Gershwin and Porter tunes, with the Charleston thrown into the mix. One hot, sticky night, Bill Anderson found his tuxedo was soaked. No problem: he kept a spare at his house. He went home and changed and was back in time to bribe the orchestra to play for another hour.

Prior to the Abenakee dance, Margery and Bevo Stevens entertained an intimate group at dinner. To be included at that gathering signified that one had finally made it! At the dance, we could always count on someone, assisted by bourbon, to fall down on the dance floor.

The Overseers

A small group of senior men who called themselves “the Overseers” took responsibility for the financial security of the Pool, accepting donations to provide for that rainy day. Among them were Joe Deering and Richard Deupree, men of substantial means. Deering kept a horse at his house on St. Martin’s Lane. Apparently it was an elderly animal, since one day it dropped dead during Deering’s morning ride on the beach.

Another tradition was the annual Beefeaters Breakfast, then held at private homes. It was an important honor to be invited. Minimum age was around 40, gin and vodka were consumed, and the host’s cook was always instructed to prepare scrambled eggs for Joe Russell, cooked in a double boiler.

Sunday supper picnics on the Little Beach were another Pool tradition, and everyone was expected to attend. There were also picnics on Wednesday evenings, and this time children were included.

Here are a few more random reminiscences:

Frank Handlen, a house painter and self-taught artist who lived in the village, found a ready market for his delightful oils of familiar scenes.

The guests of The Inn were welcome at the Abenakee. The WASP policy at The Inn may have contributed to its downfall and eventual destruction.

The Coast Guard station was in full operation at the Pool at that time. The officers and men lived on Ocean Avenue, and there was a patrol boat in the harbor.

Some families brought their cooks and nannies – most of them African Americans – to the Pool for the summer.

Finally, we were fortunate to know some of the descendants of those who founded Biddeford Pool’s summer community. They included Steve Stackpole, grandson of Gleanings From the Sea author Joseph W. Smith, and Elsa Hemenway, daughter of Harvard Law Professor Joseph Brannan, who wife’s father, a Mr. Gorham, built the first true summer cottage at 122 Mile Stretch.

Elsa and Courtney Hemenway told us they always spent their first night in Maine at The Cascades in Saco. It was a family custom. Some people took the Boston and Maine train to Old Orchard Beach, transferred to the Ferry Beach Railroad and then caught the ferry across Saco Bay to the Pool, but others preferred to stop at The Cascades en route.

I am now one of the last of my generation still living, and I am glad to share these memories of summers in the late 1950s and early 1960s with my children and grandchildren, and with everyone else who loves the Pool. 

(originally published Dec. 17, 2018)

Photo credits:

“Biddeford Pool Beach Club, 1957,” Toby Schoyer album 1057, Biddeford Pool Historical Society, bpoolphotos.com, http://bpoolphotos.com/zenphoto/toby-schoyer-s-historic-biddeford-pool-photos/1057.jpg.php

The “Abenakee” Club, Toby Schoyer album 1067, Biddeford Pool Historical Society, bpoolphotos.com, http://bpoolphotos.com/zenphoto/biddeford-pool/1067.jpg.php

A Lifetime of Summers

by Janice Hamilton

My mother lived for the summers she spent in Biddeford Pool. She had a lovely home in Montreal, but the two months she spent near the ocean recharged her batteries and helped her get through the winters, especially as her health declined.

In late June, 1994, she arrived at the Pool, fragile but hoping to regain strength as usual. She suffered from emphysema and osteoporosis. A few days later, she died in her own bed, in the place she loved the best.

42 L.B. Orcutt around 1993

Her family had been summering in Maine for many years. The southern coast of Maine, including Scarborough, Old Orchard and Ogunquit, has long been a favourite with Montrealers.  Her mother enjoyed many vacations in Kennebunkport, Maine before she was married. In fact, my great-grandfather died of throat cancer in Kennebunkport in 1912. I imagine that the family decided to take their usual vacation on the coast, even though he was ill, thinking that the sea air would do him good.

My grandparents, Gwendolyn Bagg and Fred Murray Smith, were married in 1916. They planned to get married in Kennebunkport, but Gwen’s brother was injured in an automobile accident, so at the last minute they moved the wedding to Montreal. My mother, Joan Murray Smith, their only child, was born two years later.

My grandfather is on the far left.

When Joan was about six years old, her family started staying at the Ocean View Hotel at Biddeford Pool, a few miles from Kennebunkport. I don’t know how they first heard about it, but they loved it. The hotel catered to families, and my mother later described the fun she had as a child and teenager, playing on the beach and participating in Sunday evening hymn-sings. But when World War II broke out, vacation travel between Canada and the United States became difficult. Joan did not return to Maine until after the war.

In June, 1946, she married Jim Hamilton. When I was four years old, my parents returned to Biddeford Pool, and they never missed another summer. Every July, they rented a small cottage that belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Bartlett from Milwaukee. When the Bartletts arrived for their own vacation in August, my family usually rented another cottage, but the Bartletts’ house was always our favourite. My parents bought it in 1963.

My father spent his two weeks of vacation at the Pool, where he enjoyed playing golf with a group of men every morning. My mother and I spent our entire summers there until I started university in 1966. After my father died in 1980, Mother continued to go there, accompanied by a cook and caregivers. My husband and I started to vacation there after our first son was born in 1984.

When I was young, my Mother used to take me to the rocks, where I played with little plastic sailboats at one of the tidal pools. We both loved the beach. A huge gang of baby boomers grew up at the Pool, and there were lots of activities to keep us busy, including a playgroup for the younger children and sailing for the teenagers.

Mother at the beach in the 1970s or 1980s. Note the healthy sand dunes.

Perhaps that sounds idyllic, however, I was very shy and not part of the in-crowd of kids. Maybe it was because my mother, always wanting to protect me from catching a cold, made me wear wool shorts and knee socks. Even at age 12, I knew that wasn’t cool. Meanwhile, both my mother and I cringed on hot days when my father wore shorts, exposing his white, skinny legs and black socks!

There were always lots of cocktail parties at the Pool in the 1950s and ‘60s, but my parents were not party-goers. Nevertheless, my mother developed some good friendships over the years, often inviting people for afternoon tea in the sunroom or chatting with her neighbour over an after-dinner drink.

After she died, I inherited the house. Basically, little has changed. My mother loved that cottage so much, her spirit lives on there.  

(originally posted Dec. 13, 2018)

Summer at the Pool, 1845

Summer activities at the Pool in 1845: not much has changed in 170 years!

by Toni (Stackpole) Russin

On August 14, 1845, three children sat down to write their father and tell him about their summer holidays at the seaside. Their activities were surprisingly similar to those young people enjoy today, including swimming at the beach, boating and fishing.

John, Joseph and Helen Smith, ages 15, 14 and 10 respectively, were vacationing at Biddeford Pool with their mother, Agnes Ferguson Smith, while their father, thread manufacturer John Smith, was at home running the factory in Andover, MA. The Smith family were among the earliest summer residents of the Pool, which at that time was primarily a small fishing village.

John's letter. click to enlarge

Joseph W. Smith (1831-1907), the middle child, grew up to be the author of Gleanings from the Sea, first published in 1887, a book about Biddeford Pool and about fishing and the ocean. His daughter, Mary Byers Smith, who was my great-aunt, found and transcribed their letters, and these typed copies eventually came into my possession.

The children’s father, John Smith (1796 -1886), came to the United States around 1812 as a penniless 17- or 18-year-old immigrant from Brechin, an industrial town in Scotland. From working in the Scottish mills, he knew something about linen manufacturing and how to make the machinery for this. By 1845, he and his younger brother Peter and Scottish friend John Dove had established a successful linen thread factory in Andover. Linen thread, made from imported flax, was first used for sewing shoes and sail making.

According to Smith family lore, John remembered that prosperous families in Scotland sent their families to the seashore to escape the pollution and summer heat in the factory towns where they lived. So in the 1830s, with his business already doing well, he started looking at coastal fishing villages and came upon what is now Biddeford Pool. At that time it was known as Fletcher’s Neck.

While Biddeford Pool did not yet have any big hotels, it did have the Mansion House (later called Auldstocke), run by the Hussey family. Mansion House had been welcoming “summer boarders” since 1833. Years later, in Gleanings from the Sea, Joseph recalled that Peter Lawson and Alexander Wright were the Pool’s first summer boarders. They first came in 1833 and continued to be summer visitors for 50 years.

Helen's letter

In his book, Joseph wrote, “It was at this house my father stopped on his first visit to the Pool, and for many years the family found at Mr. Christopher Hussey’s a restful summer home. My memory takes me back to 1838, and I can remember the jolly time we had with ‘Uncle Chris,’ as he was called.” Joseph recalled pleasant times spent under the old Balm-o’--Gilead tree, or strolling on the shores, gathering shells and mosses, or taking an evening row to Wood Island in the boat Jabe. Also, he noted, Mrs. Hussey was a good cook. ”Transient visitors from Saco and Biddeford came to spend the day and get a nice fish dinner, gotten up in Mrs. Hussy’s best style.”

Joseph described hanging out at the old store built by Capt. Cutts. “As a boy, I used to climb the winding stairs and go up into the cupola where, with other boys my age, I would sit for hours at a time, cracking nuts and looking out upon the ocean, watching the vessels as they sailed up and down by the Pool. The view from the cupola was grand: Saco Bay with its islands, the harbor and shipping on the one hand, the broad Atlantic on the other.”

Joseph's letter

The Smith family started summering at the Pool when the children were very young, although it was a long trip in those days. “The Portland, Saco and Portsmouth railroad was not built,” Joseph recalled in Gleanings from the Sea. “My father took his family from Dover NH, by the old stage route, to Biddeford. I can just remember the old-fashioned stage, the jolly driver, and how we children enjoyed the ride.”

How did the Smith children pass their time at the Pool in 1845? Their letters tell us quite a bit. Helen had one sail in Mr. Hussey’s boat over to Wood Island. She went bathing every day, but was homesick for her school. She explained that she did not go to church that Sunday because there was no boat on the Saco River that morning, but that her brothers had walked to church. (They probably attended services in the building known as the Meeting House, on Pool Road.)

John told his father that he went clamming with the family and bathing every day except Sunday, adding that he hoped to go fishing for mackerel. He also enjoyed observing the people from Saco who boated to Wood Island for fish chowder two or three times a week.

Joseph wrote that he went fishing almost every day. He enjoyed observing the mackerel business in great detail, talking to the fishermen and learning how they fixed the bait. Even at age 14, the future author of a book about fishing and the sea was fascinated by this subject.

Note: My Great Aunt Mary B. Smith, Joseph W. Smith’s daughter and younger sister of my grandmother Agnes Smith Stackpole, found these letters and made these typed copies. The originals might be in the Andover MA library or historical society collections. All three are written from “Fletchers Neck, August 14, 1845” We can assume that John, Joseph, Helen and their mother were staying at the Mansion House with Mr. Hussey when they each wrote a rather formal letter to their father. It might have been a rainy Sunday afternoon that kept them inside.

As for my great Aunt Mary, she also loved and summered at the Pool all her life. She built “The boat house”, almost the first bungalow on the Big Beach, and later the small house at 15 Lester Orcutt which I now own. Her second cousin Ester Smith, also a single lady, built the first house on the Stretch, known even today as “The Shack.”

(first posted Nov. 22, 2018)

BERGLAND HISTORY

by Christy Bergland

  

In 1907, my grandfather John McFarland Bergland had just finished his residency training at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He was beginning to set up a medical practice when Mrs Clayton Brown, whose extended family owned and managed several hotels at Biddeford Pool, asked him and his wife Alice to come to this new summer colony on the coast of Maine for a few summers to be the doctor on call. He said yes.

Caring for the Pool’s small population of summer and winter residents was not difficult, although the eight-mile ride to the Webber Hospital in Biddeford was long, windy and bumpy. Margaret Milgate, RN or LPN, a year round “native” resident from a prominent local family of many generations, became his nursing assistant.

Dr. Bergland in front of the house Christy now owns

My grandparents had only a three-year-old son at this point. Another son, born in 1908, died at age nine months, so the summer of 1909 was one of mourning for them. My father, Eric, was born in midwinter 1910. Dad would spend part of every summer of his life deeply involved at The Pool until his death, at the age of 73, in 1983.

For many years, my grandparents rented the house now known as Christopher's Pasture. It had originally been the farmhouse belonging to Christopher Hussey. Gran lovingly referred to the house as the Hen House, possibly because an old chicken coop survived in the back. By the time my grandparents stayed there, the farm fields had already become the golf course, as the Abenakee Club had been established in 1893. The house is currently owned by Mary Blake.

Gran and my grandfather Doc brought with them from Baltimore a maid and a cook to help with their young family, which was the custom of the day. They packed steamer trunks, boarded the train for Boston and arrived in Saco Station. How they got down to the Pool in the early days is a good question. Was it by ferry, a horse and carriage, or an early automobile?

A few remembered tales of my Grandfather's doctoring at the Pool    

I remember hearing that my grandfather delivered Billy Drew in 1912 in the master bedroom of what is now the Anderson House on St. Martin's Lane. Billy and his brother Jody, from St Louis, became life-long friends with my parents. The house was then owned by Van Horn Ely from Philadelphia and later by the McRae family from St Louis. Eventually, neighbor Joe Deering bought it and sold it to William G. Anderson in the mid-1950s. It is interesting to note that my mother, Dodie Bergland, married Billy Anderson in 1994 and lived in that house for the next five summers, until Billy’s death in late 1999.

Another story was the sad “tale” of a dearly beloved cat whose tail had been run over by a vehicle. Flossy belonged to Courtney and Elsa Hemenway. The Hemenways, who were childless, were

extremely upset about their cat's condition. There was no vet at the Pool, so they brought her to Dr. Bergland, hoping he could heal her crushed tail. The doctor decided to amputate the tail, however, with all good intentions, Dr. Bergland, not knowing the proper amount of anesthesia to administer, gave too much and killed the cat. This was a tragic ending, one that my grandfather never forgot.

I have few memories of my grandparents at Biddeford Pool because, in their later years, they became only occasional visitors. When they did visit, they stayed with Mrs. Florence Evans in what we now refer to as a “B&B” -- Peter and Eve McPheeter's house.

I have a lovely memory of my grandfather: I was around 10 years old and I was floating in the ocean near the rope lifeline that stretched out into the waves; my grandfather, wearing an old-fashioned two-piece bathing suit with a small belt, was next to me.

More recent history

My family continued to rent houses each summer until 1970, when they built their own. They bought land from Margery (James) Stevens, who had inherited her parent's house next to the croquet courts. She sold the house to Peter and Ann Lindsay, but she remained in possession of almost an acre of land in front of that house, stretching from the road to the Great Pond. This became, and remains to this day, the Bergland house and property.

(first published Oct 17, 2018)

Childhood Images of the Pool in the 1950s

by Lisa Barstow

In the 1950s, when I was a child spending my summers at Biddeford Pool, 60 was the new 80, not the other way around as it is today. Many of the female “elders” of the Pool’s summer community had tightly curled grey hair (thanks to a permanent) and whenever they happened to be outside they wore hairnets so the sea breeze would not disturb their un-blowable hair. They always wore dresses, never pants, and I remember most of them had plain copper chains around their ankles that were supposed to heal arthritis.

The ladies of the summer Pool were the grandmothers, the dowagers, the wives of formidable men. Most had live-in hired help they brought from where they lived “year round” because they entertained frequently -- always a favorite sport at the Pool -- and they were perfect hostesses. They also spent time on the Abenakee Club porch, watching the tennis matches, and a few, like Mrs. Mower (Christy Bergland and Helen Reilly”s grandmother) and Mrs. Black (Tim Black’s grandmother) played an excellent game of golf.

Mrs. James (Marjorie Stevens’ mother, who was a force all her own,) lived in the present Lindsay house next to the croquet courts; Mrs. Wear (Will Borders’ great-grandmother) lived in the Dean’s home; Mrs. Hubbard (we, of course, called her “Old Mother Hubbard,”) was in the house known as The Lilacs (now Joan Wyon’s house, next to the Fire Barn,) while Mrs. Kilvert was at Auldstocke. Mrs. Lindsay (Peter Sr. and Andy Sr.’s mother) lived, I believe, in the house Peter and Kate Lindsay now own on Staples Street.

Mildred Emmons Tidd, my maternal grandmother Nanny, lived at Stonecliff with her second husband, George Tidd. She inherited Stonecliff and she in turn willed it to my mother and two uncles. Our families are still happily sharing the property 60 years after her death. There are many more Pool dowagers but I will leave this topic for now.

I also remember some of the older men, including Mr. Colgate who lived in the Red House (yes, it really was red then.) We called him “the Lollipop Man,” because he walked around the Pool with a cigar box filled with lollipops, offering them to the children only.

He lived with his reclusive wife whom I’d go visit with my mother. Mrs. Colgate had a bun, wore plain clothes and sturdy, lace-up black shoes, and she was always sitting in a rocking chair. We used to joke that she was glued to it.

Mr. Wear often swam at the Big Beach and wore wool bathing trunks and a wool top that sort of looked like today’s muscle shirts. Most men had given up the swimming tops, but not Mr. Wear.

Before the Wears bought their houses (now the Dean’s and the Burkham-Borders homes), Margot Anderson’s grandparents owned it. I loved walking down Evans Road to the boardwalk that led to the beach because, more often than not, old Mr. Anderson was sitting on the lawn in his wheel chair. He was always dressed in a summer suit, white bucks and a straw hat, and my friends and I would go over to say hi. We would squeal with delight when he would ask us if we wanted to see his teeth. “Yes!” we’d reply, and he’d remove both his upper and lower false teeth and give us a huge toothless smile!

I caddied for Mr. James, who paid $1.00 a round, and I am sure that my friends and I were extremely unpopular with the boys from town who sat in the caddy shack on the 1^st hole, waiting for work. My summer “job” was short-lived, however, when I left Mr. James’ putter on the 8^th green and everyone had to wait on the 9^th while I ran the length of the hole and back to retrieve it.

More later …..

(originally posted Sept 23, 2018) 

Summer at the Ocean View Hotel

By Joan Hamilton, 1918-1994

the little girl is the future author; her mother probably took the photo

In the twenties and thirties, my family spent summers at a hotel overlooking the beach in Biddeford Pool, Maine. The Ocean View was a family-type hotel catering to a great extent to Canadians, especially Montrealers, since it was only 300 miles from Montreal. In the early days, we used to take the overnight train to the city of Biddeford. Frank, the man of all work at the Ocean View, met us at the station and drove us to the coast. It was a banner day in the 1930s when the first person did the drive by car from Montreal in one day.

The Ocean View letterhead read, “Henry D. Evans, Prop.”, and a proper proprietor he was. Fully in charge of all that went on in the hotel, and knowing all of us children well enough to tell us off if we got out of hand, he nevertheless had a wonderfully dry sense of humor. I’ll always remember the time he answered the one and only public telephone in the front hall. The call was for a very popular teenage friend of mine who was being pursued by a number of boys, amongst them one named Black and another whose surname was White. Mr. Evans came to the dining room door and boomed out for all to hear, “Margot, it’s for you. I don’t know if it’s a Black or a White.”

The kitchen was supervised by Mrs. Evans, who managed to produce delicious meals in an antiquated kitchen with coal stoves and ice boxes. The ice came from an old shed down the road where it was stored under layers of sawdust. The fare was simple by today’s standards, but always fresh and perfectly cooked, and with choice enough to suit everyone’s tastes. How my mouth waters when I think of that Saturday night special, “Boston baked beans, brown bread.”

The Ocean View was far from luxurious. There were no elevators, few private bathrooms, no telephones in the rooms and wide, dark linoleum hallways that echoed to our footsteps. We quickly learned to recognize everyone’s individual pattern as they walked down the hall. If we were up to some mischief, it gave us lots of time to hide the evidence.

There were a lot of children at the hotel and many of us had nannies, so we ate in the children’s dining room. It was in a glassed-in area off one of the balconies, with a marvelous view of the dunes and the sea. Putting us in our own dining room was also an effective way of keeping us out of the hair of the adults at a time when children were supposed to be seen but not heard.

The balconies of the Ocean View, with their wood and cane rocking chairs, were ideal for children’s games. On rainy days when we could not get out of doors to play, we would pull the chairs into a long line for a game of trains, turn them upside down for hiding places or houses.

Sometimes traveling shows came for the evening. Usually they were magicians who made shredded newspapers whole again and pulled rabbits out of hats. The chairs in the lobby were pulled into rows and parents and children alike watched the entertainment. Afterwards, the hat was passed. This must have provided a pretty meager living for the entertainers.

Sunday evenings were hymn-singing time, with one of the guests playing the piano and a group of us children gathered around singing. “Now the Day is Over” and “For Those in Peril on the Sea” always seemed to me dramatically mournful and appropriate, while the fundamentalist fervour of songs like “Shall We Gather at the River” and “Onward Christian Soldiers” had us raising the roof with our voices. After this observance of Sunday as a special day, everyone played games again. That is, everyone but me. My strict Presbyterian upbringing meant no Sunday games allowed.

Sundays also included a morning walk across the golf course to St. Martin’s in the Field Episcopal Church. Straw hats and white gloves were de rigueur for the women and girls, while the men looked handsome in navy blue blazers and white flannel pants.

(originally posted Aug. 28, 2018)