The following newspaper clipping was found in the Cumming-Duncan Reunion “traveling box” and transcribed July 19, 2004. Hope you enjoy reading it.
“Around the County”
by Virginia Hiltz, NEWS Houlton Bureau, Bangor Daily News, Sat. – Sun., July 11-12, 1981
Houlton- To some, what used to be called the Good Ole Days was that era between the turn of the century up to perhaps the 1920s. Then there is another generation through the years of the Depression that uses the term, although times were extremely hard. Back then families did things together and a hard day’s work was put in for a pittance of remuneration. Then, of course, there is another generation that speaks fondly of the 1940s and 1950s as “the good old days.”
I guess probably I fall into the last part of the middle category. Many, many happy memories were connected to those years just before Pearl Harbor. Perhaps because I was a child I didn’t know about, or at least wasn’t aware of, the economic situation.
One of my greatest thrills at that time was visiting my uncle and aunt, Alec and Marion Duncan, at their farm in Washburn. Riding astride one of the two huge work horses while my uncle sprayed potatoes was an exhilaration all children should experience. Back and forth, up and down the rows, a child’s mind imagined all sorts of fairy tale dreams while legs stuck out straight on both sides. And I even got to help feed the horses at the end of the day. Little did I realize at that time the hard work my uncle was putting into his farm for practically no money.
One experience at the farm vividly stands out in my memory, and I probably will always shudder when I think of it. We children had been warned about keeping away from the barn this particular night. But, as children will, we nosed around to see what was going on. Evidently some farmers had butchered hogs and had them hanging from the rafters so the blood could drain from their slit throats. That wasn’t all. Later they dipped the bodies into boiling water to make it easier to scrape off the bristles from the hide prior to cutting up the meat and preparing it for use. UGH!! It seems as though I can still hear that scraping.
My uncle Alec, when milking the cows, always aimed just right to fill containers for the cats and kittens, whose domain was the barn. When we weren’t looking he sometimes squirted some at us, never hitting out mouths but surely our faces.
My aunt Marion was in charge of the butter-churning operation. Swish, swish, swish went the churn as it went around and around. Next came good cold buttermilk, not even resembling that found in stores today.
If the farm were visited in the winter, there was always the horse and sleigh or sled. The roads weren’t plowed all that well, and the snow surface built up higher and higher. The banks would reach nearly to the electrical wires, so much the better for digging tunnels. And what a beautiful home they had—all hardwood varnished floors and conveniences to go with that day and age.
What brought on all this reminiscing? Well, another aunt, Mrs. Lena Dow of Houlton, recently loaned me a small cookbook with information and recipes in it that people today would have a hard time understanding. Prefacing each segment of recipes is a well turned phrase such as the one before “Bread, Biscuits, and Muffins”—“Behind the snowy loaf is the mill wheel; behind the mill is the wheat field; on the wheat field rests the sunlight; above the sun, is God.”
Or how about these: before “Candies,” “He that is at ease seeks dainties;” “Creams, Custards and Ices,” “Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look; he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in this book;” “Pastry,” “Who’ll dare deny the truth, there’s poetry in pie;” “Pickles,” “I’ll warrant there’s vinegar and pepper in it;” and, the best one yet, before “Salads,” “The Spanish proverb says four persons are wanted to make a good salad: a spendthrift for oil, a miser for vinegar, a counselor for salt, and a madman to stir it all up.”
Among the advertisements in this little book was one by the George C. Roberts Co., of Caribou. They had for sale canned goods, teas, coffees, fresh roasted peanuts, fruit and confectionery, as well as these items: “I also manufacture and keep in stock all kinds of soda waters such as strawberry, Pine Apple, Vanilla Cream, Soda Sasparilla, Crab Cider, Hop Beer and Ginger Ale.” Or how about the G. H. Freeman and Co. ad for plows, harrows, horse hoes, team wagons, drag plank, ox-bows, muzzles, dynamite, powder, creamery cans, butter firkins, wheel heads and spinning wheels? And last but not least, Delaittre and Pettengill, Millinery, advertised ribbons, feathers, flowers, gloves, corsets and underwear. All OK, except for the corsets.
Now, THOSE were the days!!!
THE END
