MEMORIES OF THE POOL part 1

by Carrington Williams, Jr. (1917-2014)

Originally written in 1997 & revised in 2006

Submitted by Dabney McCoy

During the first half of the 20^th century, until air conditioning was available, Southerners migrated to New England to get away from heat and humidity during the summer months. Thus in the early 1900s, my grandmother, Fanny Young Miller, came to Little Boar’s Head, New Hampshire, with her two daughters, Fanny (my mother) and Margaret, for the summer. Subsequently they traveled to Biddeford Pool and, in 1909, rented the cottage, known as the Flatiron, which Mother was to buy in 1952. My grandmother died in 1916, the same year Mother and Daddy were married.

During World War I, “The Great War to end all wars,” visits to Biddeford Pool were suspended. In 1920, our family rented the cottage on Ocean Avenue that was owned by the Dunlaps until 1996 and is now owned by the Coupes. My parents paid $120 for three months! We were in this house for several summers.

I remember watching with awe as the Coast Guardsmen launched their rescue boats into crashing surf by rolling them on round timbers down the ramp, which still exists, thanks to the wonderful restoration of the Coast Guard Station by the Johnsons. It was amazing to see the oarsmen (there were no motors) propel those heavy boats over the waves into deep water.

There were few houses along Ocean Avenue in those days, but Eagle’s Nest and the three identical houses built by families from Holyoke, Massachusetts have been there many years. We rented various houses over the next thirty years, including the Flatiron, the Elliott Cottage (now the “Seahawk”) and the house now owned by the Hulse family.

In the old days, travel from Richmond to Biddeford was by train. The first leg went to New York, changing from Pennsylvania Station to Grand Central in order to catch the State of Maine Express, an overnight sleeper. It arrived in Biddeford at about 5 a.m.. Then we had to take a small, narrow-gauge train to Camp Ellis and board the Nimrod or the Goldenrod for the short voyage from the mouth of the Saco River to the dock at Biddeford Pool. Sometimes we took the Federal Express train overnight from Washington to Boston, again changed stations and took the Boston and Maine Railroad to Biddeford. We always had a dog that was shipped in a crate in the baggage car, and we invariably paid him a visit during the changeovers.

In later years, as roads improved, we drove up and, still later, after 1952, Mother and Daddy worked out a combination of fly-drive. This involved Mr. Dick Carner driving their car, loaded with clothes and other belongings, and accompanied by Hannah, their cook. They usually took about a day and a half, Mr. Carner taking naps in the car. He unpacked at the Flatiron, then he met Daddy and Mother at the Portland Airport and flew back to Richmond. At the end of the summer, the routine was reversed. For many years, Emory and I traveled the same way.

In 1920, Mother and Jane Lindsay, who had been girlhood friends at Biddeford Pool, met again when families returned to the Pool after World War I, and they were surprised to find that both Andy Lindsay and I had been born on October 3, 1917. Andy became a close friend of mine, and we enjoyed our friendship until Andy’s death.  When he was 16, in 1933, Andy dropped out of school and joined the crew of the Joseph Conrad, an old square-rigged schooner, and sailed around the world! From then on his life revolved around sailing, and for a long period he was steward of the Yacht Club and sailing instructor.

When we were children, Mother and her sister Margaret took a cottage together. I never understood how the two families ever had enough room for four adults, six children, and two servants.

Uncle Churchill and Aunt Sally Young, Susan Coffield’s grandparents, visited there also, and my memory of Uncle Churchill occupying the only bathroom for an hour each morning is a vivid and still painful one! He was most unathletic in appearance and yet won the club tennis tournament on more than one occasion. Dicky Carrington visited me several times and, on one occasion, we were looking out of the third floor window of the Elliott cottage and saw a man collapse unconscious after being struck in the head by a ball sliced from the #7 fairway into the #8 fairway!