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Romancing Weld
By Arnold H. Sturtevant Trafford Publishing
Copyright © 2015 Arnold H. Sturtevant
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4907-6307-1
CHAPTER 1
Romancing Weld
A family's love affair with Weld, Maine extends into its second century
By Arnold Sturtevant
The year 2016 marks Weld, Maine's 200th anniversary. Silhouetted by each day's setting sun, her gorgeous lake-mirrored profile remains unchanged over the years. What a glorious creature she is! My family is not unique in having experienced love at first sight. This statuesque beauty has captivated many a heart into lasting faithfulness.
My forebears' love affair with Weld started in 1903. Joseph Gardiner Ham was a pharmacist. As many hard working entrepreneurs of his era, he sought to invest a portion of the fruit of his labor in rest and relaxation. He found that R&R in what was then commonly called "rusticating" ... defined as choosing a more simple, laid-back country lifestyle at the 'frontier' of man's earthly journey. Most of Wall Street's mega-rich who sought to rusticate in Bar Harbor, Maine didn't really get it: they just carried their lavish mansion/castle lifestyle with them, not having grasped the truth that a simple cabin in Weld could be far more refreshing.
Joseph found an effective way to achieve spiritual renewal through periodic breaks from energy-sapping demands of his business pursuits ... the town's first telephone switchboard, an insurance agency and Ham's Drug Store. His children had become adults. He had a son, Joseph Chandler Ham, and a daughter, Bertha Ham, who could now spell him. He and his wife, Emma, welcomed the prospect of relief from cleaning, dusting and maintaining the clutter of Victorian frills and fussiness that characterized their home life on Pleasant Street, Livermore Falls: the silver tea sets and place settings, the Irish linens, the ornate heavy furniture, oriental carpets that Emma's sea captain father brought back from far eastern voyages, large gilt-framed portraits (including Emma's father, Captain Chandler, glowering down from over the mantle), elaborate wall hangings, dark velvet drapes and frilly organza curtains, parian ware busts of attractive Greek women, bronze statuettes, batteries of bookshelves filled with seldom-cracked leather-bound classics, a heavy cast iron floor stand that supported a huge 20-pound dictionary ... and a basketball size, spinning world globe that was an appropriate metaphor for the Ham's fast-twirling, increasingly materialistic, success-oriented world.
Escaping such burdens (largely of his own making), and relishing the chance to avoid "all-work-and-no-play" dullness, great grandpa Joseph purchased a Weld cottage on May 2, 1903. He chose to pace his hectic 'city' life with a liberal dash of get-away-from-it-all recreation, happily achieving that longed-for state of well-being quite close to home.
Weld Maine was only 35 miles from the Ham residence, but in yesterday's less mobile era of the horse and buggy it seemed like a trek to the ends of the earth from the Falls to a crudely constructed, sparingly-furnished cottage ... a modest structure he simply, logically and descriptively called ... "Recreation." Brief refreshing intervals at the cottage retreat allowed him to chuck it all and revert to square one, freed from those things he had struggled so hard to attain ... liberated from the success he knew was capable of enslaving the very one who 'mastered' it. After all, overworked Joseph needn't have demanded, "Give me a break!" God had already willingly provided that break, having ordained the Sabbath day of rest from his labors. The Hams just learned the wisdom of observing the will of the Creator who prospered them in the first place. It is for this very reason that our family's pronunciation of the camp's name was Re-Creation... like a whole new life, a time to restore and refresh one's energy level to the point of being able to once again return to productive work.
By the time great grandfather Ham died in 1911, the horseless carriage had cut down commuting time between Livermore Falls and Weld. Chester (I knew him as Bamp) acquired a 'touring' car in 1907. Camp Recreation became much more accessible! Children filled the family cabin, its capacity often further tested beyond limits by Bamp's sharing of Weld's beauty with his many friends, especially members of an adult Bible Study group he conducted at First Baptist church in Livermore Falls.
One of Joseph & Emma's daughters, Charlotte, married a former Fayette farmer named Chester Sturtevant ... who at age ten plowed fields with a brace of oxen for 25 cents per 10-hour day, and later earned his way through Colby College by selling books door to door. By 1895, industrious Chet had set a straight furrow toward fulfillment of the American Dream by founding a bank in Livermore Falls. Lottie Ham was his first employee; and, as he liked to say in droll banker lingo, 'my interest compounded' to the point of marriage. The couple's investment in one-another produced a girl and three boys, one of whom, named Reginald (or Ren, as he was more commonly known), was to be my Dad. Chet and his father-in-law struck it off well together, forming an insurance company partnership, Sturtevant & Ham Agency; and they likewise partnered successfully in putting Camp Recreation to very good use: (two weeks after acquiring title, Joseph deeded an "undivided half part" of the property to his son-in-law).
As the children grew, they enjoyed inviting increasing numbers of their friends to Weld. Camp "Recreation" was a natural attraction for imaginative kids ... mountain climbing, water sports, and pirates & Indians were high on the list of favorite pastimes, just as they are today.
In 1914, at the onset of World War 1, the town of Weld's real estate tax on the Heirs of Joseph G. Ham, owners of both the camp and its 50 acres of land, was only $4.90: (based on a valuation of $50 for the land, and $125 for Camp Recreation): such little cost for so much joy! War and college interfered with Recreation time. Ren and Norm served in the U. S. Navy, and after the conflict all four children went on to college in the 1920's ... never losing their love for Weld. Even as they pursued the kind of love that leads to marriage, their courtships always maintained a Weld focus. It seemed human emotion soared highest from the vantage of a Weld mountaintop experience. Altitude enhanced attitude!
With Ren's and Norm's marriages and growing families ... (and Ronald's and Eleanor's marriages soon to follow) ... my father, Ren, recognizing the constraints of Camp Recreation, rented our own separate cottage on Houghton Beach from Bernice Shaw. The camp was big enough to accommodate our immediate family of four: Dad, Mom, my sister Joanne and me ... (sister Pamela had not yet been born) ... plus our pet spaniel, Corky. With the help of an umbrella tent, it even provided space enough for Mom's visiting sisters, my Aunt Gin and Aunt Mil.
A world view from the summit of favored Tumbledown did much to cement lasting relationships. For my Dad, Weld was sort of a litmus test of the prospect for marital success.
Of what lasting good was a woman who failed to share a deep passion for Weld? So it was that Laura Wing (my Mom) passed the test ... top of the class in Ren's candidates for fellow Weld-lovers!
When the real estate market tanked, severely depressed by the early 1930's, Bamp and Barma decided it was a good time to purchase a cottage big enough to sleep the growing family. Barma liked the prospect of a full-blown 2-story house in Wayne, Maine. Bamp adamantly insisted on a magnificent 5-bedroom 'cottage' erected only 20 years earlier by Leon Blunt on a knoll just off the Weld-Dixfield Road. At the time, Bamp's choice offered a panoramic view of both Webb Lake and its grand surrounding mountains. [Today that view is obscured by large pines that have grown over what in the 1930's was open pasture land of the John & Suzie Arsenault farm.]
Barma agreed the Weld structure was the scenically superior choice ... in fact she thought it too attractive and too commodious. She could foresee hordes of people standing in line, waiting to leap at the opportunity to accept Bamp's invitation to share the life! She feared natural beauty could cause unnatural work! She hated the thought of becoming a constant hostess and short order cook for throngs imagined ready to descend on the hotel-like retreat.
In the summer of 1931, Lottie finally gave permission to acquire the Weld property. However, her approval came at a cost to Chet. As a prerequisite, my grandfather had to agree to relieve his wife of all responsibility for preparing the main meal of the day while at camp. Equal-opportunity-Barma concluded, "Fair is fair! When you rest, I rest, too! She was intent on sharing in Weld's relaxation time, promptly naming the retreat "Green Pastures" (indicating her true inner enthusiasm, even love for the choice!). In Psalm 23 context, Barma believed her Good Shepherd Lord certainly agreed with her that Green Pastures was to be a place for both husband and wife to be "made to lie down "... male and female equally meant to enjoy respite from the cares of life.
When Chet and Lottie's offspring visited Green Pastures, they either assumed meal preparation duties or Chet agreed he would foot the bill for them to share in neighbor Suzie Arsenault's cooking. It was just a short, pleasant walk across the meadow from the Sturtevant's new family compound to sumptuous cuisine from Suzie's kitchen.
Green Pastures indeed became an ideal retreat for Lottie as well as for Chet. I have fond memories of the dinner treks to Suzie's. It gave the girls, old and young, an enjoyable opportunity to dress up ... doffing damp and skimpy bathing attire and donning more lady-like flowing cotton dresses preferred by Barma (who, would you believe it, even put on gloves for the occasion!). As much as the dinner bell's call to prepare for dinner was somewhat of a downer for youngsters engrossed in play time, the reward of Suzie's food made it all worthwhile. I even grew to enjoy the social aspect, while honing my table manners.
The Sturtevants weren't the only ones at Suzie's tables! Other neighborhood diners regularly paraded together with us down Bragg Point Lane, in lock step toward good old farm cooking at Suzie's. There were the Coverts, the Truslows (with polio-afflicted, beautiful Lallie ...sadly encumbered by cane and braces) ... and the Oslers ... (now, there's a subject worth elaboration!).
Dr. Osler was a chipper rotund Quaker with a ready laugh and predictable tastes. I soon memorized a favorite line. When it was time for desert, the good doctor would bellow from the depths of his awesome being for all to hear, "What's for desert today, Suzie? Do you perchance have any apple pie?" In or out of season, somehow Suzie always had freshly baked apple pie on the menu, for Dr. Osler's prodigious belly, if for no other. Inevitably, his bellowed follow-up command was always the same, "I will have a working man's portion of apple pie with a slab of rat bait on the side." Clearly, both of these modifiers ... ("working man's portion" and "slab") ... implied large servings. The Quaker's floor-quaking girth made one surmise his habit was less that of working and more that of eating. Having been given fair warning, Suzie never did skimp in her serving ... at least for Dr. Osler. No others seemed to have the 'guts' to attempt to so-quantify their orders. Now an adult pie-lover (with maturing courage), I'd like to go back in time and try again to vocalize my heart's desire for an Osler-like portion!
Green Pastures' living room is twenty feet high; its focal point is an immense fireplace of river rock, and, over the mantle, a massive stuffed bull moose head. Many a time my Dad would lift me up on his shoulders, to rub the impressive creature's soft nose ... in fact, so many times that the nose finally cracked and 'ran' (not mucus, only a bit of excelsior stuffing!), calling for several repair jobs by fastidious Mom, who would suffer neither cracked-nosed moose nor runny-nosed kid in her immaculate, always well-groomed household.
Two stairways accessed a horseshoe-shaped balcony that ran around three sides of the living room; and, off the balcony, there were doors to five bedrooms and a bath. At the foot of the south stairway there was a floor model, hand-cranked RCA "Victrola" with a supply of thick, heavy disc records. Bamp's favorites were the "Amos and Andy" records, which he would often play, never failing to laugh 'til tears ran down his cheeks ... (and this was, by far, the most entertaining part of the show for me, as I never could understand the jokes).
Perhaps there's such a thing as a genetic humor bone, for I recall in later years I would repeatedly play a "Bert and I" record with the same affect on tear ducts, and with like aggravation of some who swore they had heard it enough, already.
Bamp was an "early to bed and early to rise" person. Our whole family was gathered around the crackling fire on one cool summer evening. Barma stayed up with us to the very end, but Bamp had, as usual, quietly negotiated an early exit, mounting the stairway to prepare for bed at his appointed time. Intrigued by my grandfather's doings, I paid more attention to him than to the crowd around the fireplace, with its constant inane chatter about Suzie's menu and female attire. First, Bamp disappeared into the master bedroom through its two large French doors; then he emerged garbed in a flowing spectral night shirt, his head crowned with a cotton nightcap. Quietly sneaking across the balcony, he disappeared into the bath. The tub water ran for some time into the big claw-footed cast iron tub, followed by the soft splashing of water, followed by the ever-so-soft thud of wet feet on the Lily pad scatter rug purchased at the Wishing Well gift shop, followed by the loud gurgling of water draining through exposed uninsulated pipes downstairs... then, finally, the bath door reopened and my grandfather emerged, stealthily soft-padding himself across the open balcony, clearly attempting to avoid attention of the crowd below. Proud of my grandfather, I sought to affirm him in his every act, using a phrase often employed by my Mom when I submitted to a bath, I shouted for all to hear, "Are you all sweet and clean now, Bampa?" Every eye turned on Deacon Chester Sturtevant, nattily attired in cap and gown. I suspect his florid complexion wasn't due to over-scrubbing with lavender soap purchased at the Wishing Well gift shop on the way home from Suzie's. Bamp was speechless and downright embarrassed! His audience was thoroughly entertained; and embellished reports of the newsworthy event had traction for many years to come. Good material for Amos and Andy ... its telling and retelling never failing to induce copious tears of hilarity among family and friends who knew him.
After hours of exhilarating recreation, fueled by food from Suzie's kitchen, an ideal Weld day ended with a quiet, restful cool-down swing on the hammock that is today still ensconced on Green Pastures' screened-in porch, shielded from evening hordes of soft-humming mosquitoes, moths gently thumping the porch lights and a colony of silent, happy bats scooping up easy prey, occasionally soft-caressing our cheeks with velvet wings, but never colliding. I savor nostalgic recollection of those sounds of dusk, carried so clearly over time as well as over the quiet waters of Lake Webb - (the day's winds having also taken to rest): the Boys' camp dinner bell; Kawanhee's plaintive sounding of taps at lights-out; and then the grand finale notes from Mrs. Bragg on her back lawn, preparing her Scottie dog Holly for bedtime. "Holly pee- pee? ... Holly pee-pee? ... Good dog!! Holly pee-pee!" This always-anticipated Holly Sonata, softly wafting over the misting blackberry patch, never failed to invoke satisfied chuckles that punctuated the end of another lovely Weld day. [By then, Bamp had already turned in, having pee-peed, finished his tubby and retired, properly garbed in night-cap and gown.]
Uncle Norm had a hobby of building boats in his Livermore Falls garage. His fleet included two elaborate inboards named Normandy 1 & Normandy 2 ... in racy design similar to the popular Chris Craft Century model. His boats were transported to and from the lake on a rugged trailer consisting of an old Packard auto frame obtained through the help of a young Weld resident, Rusty Lee. (At this writing, once boyish Rusty is favored with possession of the Boston Cane for being the town's oldest living citizen. As some sage once noted, "How time flies!") Normandy 2 was powered by a mighty Packard inboard marine engine. For years, Uncle Norm enjoyed tinkering with, modifying and fine-tuning his creations. Having accurately memorized reef locations by visual landmarks, he courageously (some thought foolishly!) navigated the waters full throttle through channels unknown to other boaters, causing many a gasp of concern from those expecting (but never witnessing!) certain disaster.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Romancing Weld by Arnold H. Sturtevant. Copyright © 2015 Arnold H. Sturtevant. Excerpted by permission of Trafford Publishing.
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