Dr. Richard Bean, 86, made house calls. He delivered babies. He helped people get better. Now his son, Dick, hopes to follow in his footsteps.

Bean had a long career in medicine. A graduate of George Washington University, he interned in Washington and delivered more than 1,000 babies during that time. He always had enjoyed New England, calling it “nature’s best,” so he moved to Whitefield, N.H., with his wife, and the couple later had five children.

Later the family moved to Norway, where he worked for Stephens Memorial Hospital just after it opened.

“My happiest moments were watching people get better …,” he told officials writing his biography. “I loved being a doctor.”

Changes and challenges

James Denholm, 88, lived through the Great Depression and Prohibition. Growing up in Rumford, he helped his family by delivering groceries for a few cents each trip.

Denholm later entered the military, spending two years in the reserves and – after taking time to raise his son – worked as an artillery mechanic for the Army. After he was discharged, he worked at the Oxford (Boise) Paper Mill for 38 years. On a good week, he’d take home $20.

In 1982 he almost lost a leg to complications after another surgery, but instead only lost a toe.

He’s continued to help others since his time at Maine Veterans’ Home in Paris. He donates his oil paintings to raffles, and shares his exercise bicycle with other residents.

‘Could fix anything’

Clifton MacDonald, 80, recalls schlepping more than 482 tons of phosphorus mortar shells while spending six months on a ship. The crew was sent to Italy with a load of soft coal, then to Germany to pick up equipment. They were headed to Panama when the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, so they went to Japan and worked through the wreckage.

MacDonald was rejected from three branches of the military because of a skin disease, so during World War II he worked as a Merchant Marine.

After the war he moved to Orr’s Island and started the Sea Lance Welding Co., where he invented a harpoon and a log splitter.

“I could fix just about anything except the crack of dawn and a broken heart,” he said.

Coded messages

Charles Stenger, 87, of East Dixfield was responsible for the phone transmission of a national speech by President Lyndon Johnson from a hotel on Long Island, while working for a New York phone company after the war.

It went off without a hitch.

Growing up, Stenger taught ham radio. He joined the Army during WWII after attending radio school in South Dakota. He was sent to India, where he worked coding and decoding messages to prevent the Japanese from intercepting them.

He still uses a ham radio in his room at Edgewood Rehabilitation and Living Center in Farmington, where he helps provide communications for health care facilities in emergency situations.

Remembering lost classmates

Thelma Alice Frena, 83, of Lisbon Falls, married her high school sweetheart, Jack. He had gone to fight in World War II, and many of their classmates did not come home.

The couple established a scholarship fund in their memory, which received plenty of support at their class reunion. She continued to gather donations, setting up booths at the American Legion Hall, holding yard sales and selling baked goods. Momentum gathered, and in 1982 the fund had $20,000.

Frena worked at Worumbo Mill in Lisbon Falls until it closed, and then did public relations work for Bowdoin College.

A little bit of luck

Gracie Hall Stone, 83, of Auburn never learned the name of the man who paid for her tuition at Bates College.

She was a top-ranking student at Edward Little High School, and told she was too smart not to go to college.

Living at home and working 30 to 40 hours a week, she earned a degree in chemistry.

She worked for Uniroyal, a Connecticut chemical company, and traveled all over the world. She trained men in the field and was described as “truly a professional woman.”

Meeting deadlines

A popular story tells of Barbara Yeaton, 92, of Farmington, driving through the town, holding a roll of film out the window to dry. Deadline was looming.

She’d do whatever it took to get the story.

Yeaton wrote and took pictures for 55 years, penning two books in the process. She is a member of the Maine Press Association’s Hall of Fame. She also worked for Gov. John Reed and was a Franklin County commissioner.

She also was committed to community service. She organized and led the Lakettes 4-H Club, and has worked with her church.

She was the first woman chosen Outstanding Citizen of the Year by the American Legion Post of Farmington.

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