This year she gave up her license, not wanting to chance blemishing her good record.
By Cora C. Briggs
Special to the Sun Journal

LIVERMORE FALLS – The Town Office took on a party atmosphere in November as the Boston Post Cane was presented to Kathleen Poland.

Waiting to greet the 98-year old resident were Town Manager Alan Gove and Town Clerk Kristal Flagg who presented her with a corsage, as well as friends who had learned of the presentation.

Gove did the honors, presenting the cane and a framed certificate, assisted by Ernest Steward Jr., the police chief.

A native of Livermore Falls, Kathleen – as she is known to everyone – was the fifth of eight children born to Charles and Caroline Paige Poland of Knapp Street. She is the last of her family.

She recalls that her father, who was a carpenter, often teased her that he had lost a half day’s pay when she was born on July 1, 1905.

Poland was embarrassed when told about the cane, concerned that she could not possibly be the oldest citizen in town. “It’s enough to be the oldest member of First Baptist Church (which she joined in 1920), but of the whole town!”

After graduating from Livermore Falls High School in 1922, she studied for a year at Colby College, then went into teaching.

Although she earned her degree from the University of Maine several years later, most of her teaching skills were learned through on-the-job training in her junior high classrooms.

“I loved it. They were very happy years,” she says of her teaching. “There were lots of changes along the way.”

The first 30 of her 47-year career in education were spent in Rumford, the remainder in South Paris, where she purchased a home and retired in 1970.

She took one detour about three years into her teaching career to pursue another vocation: nursing.

Although she chose not to continue in that field, she found her training was not wasted for she used it in her classes and used it years later while caring for her sister, Marion P. Hood, former town clerk/treasurer.

She stayed on in her South Paris home after retirement, serving on the first Environmental Committee that town had. She was also active in Eastern Star, Rebekahs and church affairs, enjoying these pursuits because of the people.

“I like to meet people. I was always a ‘people’ person,” she said. She still is, enjoying getting out and about as well as entertaining frequent visitors in her home.

Although she lived out of town much of her life, she always came back to Livermore Falls for visits and vacations, and eventually she came back to live here again.

Admittedly very independent, she is in excellent health but has suffered some broken bones over the years.

She enjoys taking care of herself, and it was only this year that she gave up her driver’s license, not wanting to take the chance of blemishing her good record.

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