LIVERMORE — The life and work of Ethel “Billie” Gammon, founder of the Washburn-Norlands Living History Center, is being honored with a scholarship fund in her name.

In 2010, on the first anniversary of Billie’s passing, the Norlands Board of Trustees established the Ethel “Billie” Gammon History Education Scholarship Fund to honor her bottomless enthusiasm for sharing American history by providing support in her name for “learning through fun.”

Billie Gammon took great joy in seeing visitors to the living history museum that she founded “get it” — discover that history education could be fun and that lessons from rural life in the 19th century are timeless: 

To feel what it was like to sit on the hard school benches, to know the day started and ended with family chores and responsibilities, to understand the rural Maine philosophy of everyone pulling together and that at the end of the day the love that bound the family together made your home a nurturing, comforting place where you felt safe.

“Billie has been described as a bottomless well of energy, a bottomless well of joy, a bottomless well of mischief and a bottomless well of sharing, and it has been said that her love of Norlands was contagious and she shared it with everyone,” said Nancey Drinkwine, volunteer coordinator at Norlands.

One $1,000 scholarship will be awarded each year to a Maine high school senior who has been inspired by their experiences at Norlands and is planning to pursue a field that can be related to its mission, which could include history, American studies, education, museum studies or sustainable agriculture, among other subjects.

No later than June 30, applicants for the statewide $1,000 scholarship must complete a simple application and submit an essay of 300-500 words about how Norlands relates to and/or has affected their interests and their life plans. Applications are available on the website (www.norlands.org).