The news in the Oxford Hills edition (April 26) about a farmers’ market coming to Lewiston’s Kennedy Park brings to mind something I have been thinking about for some time.

A century ago, almost every home needed a full-time wife and mother to keep the family properly fed, clean and housed. Because so many women were home all day, local farmers could sell dairy and other farm produce house-to-house, giving them a decent income while providing the community with a needed service. Meat wagons and fish carts also had their regular customers, helping to keep store prices at a reasonable level.

Today, with taxes and the cost of living so high, most wives and mothers cannot afford to stay home, so that market has disappeared, but a new opportunity is taking its place.

Almost every town has at least one senior citizen housing project. Letting a few selected farmers sell their produce there would help the farmers’ income and make shopping easier for the tenants as well.

Richard H. Box, South Paris

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