LIVERMORE FALLS – Kathleen Poland was born on July 1, 1905, in a little house on Knapp Street in Livermore Falls. Her father was Charles Poland of Peru and her mother was Carolyn Paige of East Livermore.
She had four sisters and three brothers. “I was nearest the middle as you can get,” she said.
“I grew up in Livermore Falls, but my grandparents had a farm in Fayette.”
After her father had an accident in the mill, the family went to the farm in Fayette.
“They didn’t have compensation in those days like they do today, so we went to live on the farm with Grammie.”
There wasn’t much money to go around.
“I’ve spoken to ever so many people of my generation who were from limited incomes, and nobody ever felt poor. It didn’t seem to be a point.
“We were definitely in the poor group. We were very lucky if we could go to a matinee on Saturday. Our friends might have 10 cents for the movie and another 10 cents for an ice cream cone or a dill pickle to take to the movies with us. That seems funny to me now, buying a dill pickle to take in your fingers.”
Poland graduated from high school in 1922.
“I had a job teaching in a country school in East Livermore. I had already signed to go when I met the president of the bank on the street.
“I knew him pretty well. He said, Are you going to college, Kathleen?’ And I said, No, there’s no money.'”
He told her to have her brothers come to the bank.
She went home and talked about it, and her two brothers went to the bank and borrowed $200 so she could attend Colby College.
“Second semester I got a scholarship to help, plus a dollar a week spending money. I managed.
After her year at Colby, she was looking for a job. “In those days, you took whatever you could get. For me, it was teaching freshman and sophomores in a country school in Stow, Maine.”
In 1923, Fryeburg had the nearest train station. From there to Stow it was either by horses or a few automobiles.
“One of the funny things about it, I had just had my hair cut short and was using a curling iron. An electric curling iron. At Fryeburg Station we started out toward Stow. I was noticing the light poles. Before we got too far, they disappeared. And I thought, what am I going to do about my hair? Of course, I ended up using an old-fashioned curling iron over a lamp.”
After teaching for a few years, she decided to go into nurse’s training.
She spent a year training at Dr. Eugene McCarty’s, a private hospital in Rumford with a nursing school. She loved nursing, but circumstances brought her back to teaching.
“The superintendent’s daughter was in for an appendectomy and I was working with her. He got word that I had taught, and he asked me, Did you have any trouble with discipline?’ And I said, No, not a bit.’ He said, I’ve got a job for you, why don’t you take it? Get out of this.’
“So I started teaching, thinking I would eventually go back to nursing, but I never did.”
When a position teaching social studies came up at the junior high school in Rumford, she took it, staying for 35 years. She then moved to Norway to be closer to friends. She taught there, moving to the junior high in South Paris after the district consolidated. She retired in 1970.
“My last two years of teaching were difficult years. Up until that time, I had very few disciplinary problems. I loved my kids, I loved teaching. I think the best compliment I ever had was years after, my students said, You were strict, but you were fair.’ That’s been my best compliment.”
She loves hearing from her students, finding what they have done with their lives. And she never forgets any of them.
“I’m not lucky,” she said, “I’ve been blessed.”
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