GREENWOOD – Ninety-two-year-old Helen Chase, the town’s oldest resident, was honored in a special ceremony Wednesday as she received the Boston Post Cane.
Chase’s son, John Chase, said his mother has spent her entire life in Greenwood. He and several other family members, including grandchildren and great-grandchildren, were present.
“I was very much surprised,” Helen Chase said after Selectmen Wayne Hakala and Fred Henderson presented her with the cane. “I didn’t have any idea anything like this was going on.”
Henderson said he wasn’t sure how long Greenwood has had the cane, but it has traditionally been passed along to the town’s oldest resident. Once, the cane was allowed to stay with its recipient. Today, however, it is kept by the town and a plaque is presented in its stead.
Chase said she will probably place her plaque on the wall in her room at the Ledgeview Nursing Home in West Paris.
In 1909, Boston Post publisher Edwin A. Grozier distributed 431 ebony canes with gold caps throughout the New England region. The canes were to be kept by the oldest resident of each town.
Henderson said the move was probably a publicity stunt. Some towns, he said, have lost the canes.
Comments are no longer available on this story