AUBURN — Judith Johnson is surrounded by history.

Her house on Youngs Corner Road is an antique cape built just before the American Revolution. When she moved there during the bicentennial, she became instantly enamored of a white pine that towered over the property.

The tree wasn’t quite as old as the nation, but it wasn’t a young sapling, either.

“I moved into the home in 1976 and the tree had been there some 50-plus years,” Johnson said this week. “One of my attractions to the home was the fact that there were so many trees all around it. This particular tree was much smaller then but still a very big tree. My two young sons loved to climb the tree when branches were accessible to them.”

The tree survived the 20th century, including hardships like the Ice Storm of 1998. It was there as Johnson’s children grew up and moved away. The pine was an important element in Johnson’s life, every bit as much a part of the backdrop as any photo hanging on a wall.

This week, the tree will be taken down, the victim of disease spread by the white-spotted sawyer, a large, wood-boring insect that damages a pine from within. Johnson suspects the trouble may have begun a year ago when landscaping in the area opened the door for the troublesome insect.

The pine, approaching 100 years old, is no longer healthy and strong. The boring insect weakens a tree to the point where it is not safe to leave it standing. This week, Webster Tree Service will go to Youngs Corner Road to take it down.

Johnson will miss it, she said. But she does have her memories.

“One day, my youngest son, Ross, who was probably 7 or 8 years old, decided to climb the tree — and proceeded to climb to the top or close to it,” she said. “When I discovered where he was and that he couldn’t get down, I had to call the fire department and they came and retrieved him for me — sort of like when they used to be called to homes to get cats which climbed trees and couldn’t get down. He never climbed a tree that high again, but he did climb many mountains subsequently as a teen and young adult.

“The tree has survived many storms,” Johnson said, “including the ice storm of 1998 when the ice took down many, many branches and after that never really looked the same. However, it kept growing, remained healthy and I loved it all the same. It has provided wonderful shade for my yard and protection from the exposure to the street, which has become extremely busy over the past 35 years.”

Johnson said that once the familiar pine is gone, she will plant new trees on the site.

Who knows? In another 50 years, or 100 or 200, some resident of Youngs Corner Road might contact the newspaper to talk about the big, old tree in her yard that brought her family so much happiness.

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