OTISFIELD – The Otisfield Historical Society will hold its first meeting of the year at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 30, in the fellowship room of the East Otisfield Baptist Church, Rayville Road.

Following the annual election of officers and a brief business meeting, Polly Bartow will present the program,”Children in Wartime: Children’s Lives in Rural and Urban Maine During World War II: Portland and Otisfield.”

Bartow said, “The Second World War influenced the lives of virtually every person in the United States, including its youngest citizens, its children.”

She will look at how the war affected children’s schools and families and how it organized their activities and even their play. She has found marked differences in war boom towns like Portland and more inland communities like Otisfield.

Her research is based on numerous interviews with individuals who were students or teachers in Portland and Otisfield during the war, as well as research using newspaper articles, school records, scrapbooks and war records.

The public is invited to all historical society programs. Refreshments will be served. For more information, contact Jean Hankins at 539-2521 or Ethel Turner at 539-4404.