LIVERMORE FALLS – A leader of the 1918 fight against yellow fever, Dr. Frederic Goding, will be remembered at the Tuesday, Sept. 28, meeting of the Livermore-Livermore Falls Historical Society. The program will begin at 2 p.m, after the regular 1:30 p.m. business meeting, and will be at the Bunton American Legion Post on Reynolds Street.

W. Dennis Stires, local historian in Livermore, will report on his findings from a trip to Ecuador two years ago. Goding’s service as U.S. consul-general to Ecuador was commemorated when that country named a landscaped boulevard in his honor in 1924.

Goding encouraged U.S. business in Ecuador from 1913 to 1924, the years he served in Guayaquil, a seaport on the west coast of South America. He was able to change local attitudes about Americans and enlist the financial help of the Rockefeller Foundation, according to the society. By 1920, Guayaquil was free of mosquitoes that carried the yellow fever virus. The yellow fever vaccine still used today was developed in a hospital in Guayaquil.

Goding retired to Livermore in 1924, and encouraged several Ecuadorian teens to accompany him. One young man, Jose Diaz, raised a family and worked at the Otis Paper Mill. His son, Jose Dias, developed a large construction business in Jay, Diaz Construction. Goding died in 1933.

Goding’s story is included in the Livermore chapter in “Androscoggin County, Maine: A Pictorial Sesquicentennial History, 1854-2004,” which is available at town offices and at the Book Nook on Main Street.

Visitors to the historical society are welcome. More information about the society may be obtained by calling Muriel Bowerman, the organization’s president, at 897-4495.