CHESTERVILLE – Members of the Chesterville Heritage Society want to preserve history and, perhaps, breathe some life back into long-abandoned traditions, too.
They’re starting on Father’s Day, with a talk given by a longtime local father about life in the Chesterville of days gone by.
This Sunday, from 2 to 4 p.m., the society will be presenting a talk by Earnest Butterfield, who has lived in town since the mid-1920s.
The event will take place inside the Center Meeting House – a former hub of activity that has sat empty for years, event organizer Cyndy Stancioff.
The impetus for the talk came at least a year ago when the society put together a book of town memories featuring reminiscences from Butterfield and other longtime town residents. The books went like hotcakes, Stancioff said. People couldn’t seem to get enough of the photos and reminiscences by Chesterville’s older residents.
Buttefield, for example, has memories of days when snow had to be shoveled onto the old covered bridge so that horse-drawn sleighs could get through. He remembers how women had to burn wood to heat water and wash clothes by hand, dirty diapers and all.
He also recalls putting hot bricks in his bed to keep warm through the long winter nights. “We never went anywhere. But we were happy,” he said in the book.
Chesterville and many other small Maine towns changed dramatically after WWII ended. But in the heady days surrounding the close of the war, Stancioff said, some people remember racing to the Chesterville Center Meeting House, where the event will be held, to ring the bell to signal V-J Day.
The bell rang for two hours straight, and everyone who wanted to got a turn tugging on the bell-pull, Stancioff said, seated on a pew, gesturing to the pull and chatting while workers painted the outside of the building.
The Meeting House has sat forlorn and mostly empty for years now, Stancioff said. The light filtering in illuminated flaking paint on the doors. But, Stancioff said, folks who remember “the good old days” say the building used to be a hub of activity. Dances were held almost every Saturday night in the schoolhouse across the road, which was torn down soon after Stancioff moved to the area, she said.
Stancioff and others in the town hope to bring the Meeting House back and make it some kind of a hub again, she said. As she spoke, music wafted across the room. Her husband was testing out the keys of a piano remarkably in tune for the years of disuse.
“Sing,” she called out to him. “Sing. I want to hear what it sounds like in here. Maybe we could have a concert here,” she said.
History buffs and everyone else are invited to attend the Sunday afternoon presentation. Stancioff hopes people with memories of the town as it was in the past will come and add to Butterfield’s reminiscences.
Iced tea, lemonade, cookies and bars will served. For more information, call 778 – 3513.
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