Windham in the 50s: Arrival in a new town

By Max Millard
Special to The Windham Eagle

In February 1958, when my family relocated from Durham, New Hampshire to Windham, it was quite a different town than it is today. It had just one-quarter of its current population. No person of color attended the public schools, and there wasn't a single immigrant family.

Located at the corner of Routes 302 and 115 in Windham,
Boody's Store was considered to be the epicenter of
Windham in the 1950s. COURTESY PHOTO 

Except ours. My parents had grown up in England and arrived in the U.S. in 1949. My dad worked as a chemistry teacher at the University of New Hampshire, but with five children to raise and educate, he accepted a better-paying job in the research department of the S.D. Warren Paper Mill in Westbrook. For $20,000, he was able to purchase the Goold House, an ancient farmhouse in Windham Center that included a large barn and twenty acres of land. Just beyond our property was a graveyard dating back to the American Revolution, punctuated by the immense tomb of William Goold, who died in 1890.

The house had a long, narrow extension, the ell, ending in a tower. In the crawl space under the tower, we found a large pile of books left by the house's previous occupants. They were all the same book: William Goold's “Portland in the Past: with Historical Notes of Old Falmouth,” published in 1886. They were unbound, with the pages uncut, and tied up with string. They were probably stored there by Mr. Goold himself. I still have a copy but must confess that I never unpacked it. The book was reprinted as a paperback in 2019.

I enrolled in the 3rd grade at Arlington School in North Windham, and on one of my first days there, I proudly brought in my prized coin collection, which I safeguarded in an old handbag of my mother's. I can still recall the stinging laughter that greeted me when I took it outside at recess. It was a sharp lesson on the cultural climate of Windham compared to our former home, where our social circle was mainly university families.

My parents spoke with distinct British accents, which of course they imparted to their children. My Maine-accented schoolmates would scrunch up their faces and sputter, “You talk funny!” But soon we blended in and established strong friendships with three other college-minded families in town – the Aldriches, the Perrins and the Sanborns. Stan and Donna Aldrich were transplants from California who both taught in the Windham schools. All three families remained close to ours until my mother's passing in 2004, when they all sent representatives to her funeral.

On the route to school, the chief landmark was Boody's Store, which occupied the intersection of routes 302 and 115 – the epicenter of North Windham, It was the biggest commercial structure in the town – an all-purpose country store dating back to the late 1800s. It burned in 1930, was quickly rebuilt, and thrived until 1960, when it was sold and became Meserve's.

As a 9-year-old, I would ride there on my bike to purchase stacks of Superboy comics with the covers ripped off, which sold for 5 cents. Route 302 was then a relatively quiet highway where it was safe for kids to bike.

Meserve's thrived for just three years; a devastating fire in 1965 sealed the building's fate. To the delight of local teenagers, it was replaced by a Dairy Queen, who flocked there for summer jobs.

I was enthused to discover two ponds for ice skating within a quarter mile of our house. One was downhill from the Bennetts, who operated a nursing home just above it. Each winter, as soon as it froze, Eddie Bennett would flood it with a hose until the surface was as smooth as glass. He was a virtuoso skater and somewhat of a daredevil. His favorite stunt was to have us crouch down into a cannonball, and to remain immobile while he backed up, then barreled toward us, his skates flashing in the sunlight. At the last moment he launched himself into the air and vaulted over us. He never injured a child and never failed to land squarely on his skates.

The other pond, just down the hill from our house, was owned by the Hawkes clan, who maintained a cider mill nearby. It was smaller than the Bennetts', and was never flooded, but it had a small skate shack on the shore, with benches lining the interior. It was built by Alley Hawkes, the family patriarch and gentleman farmer. We would burn old tires inside, choosing the acrid smoke over the cold.

Like Boody's Store, Arlington School and the cider mill, the ponds have disappeared from the scene. One has dried up, and the other has shrunk to a puddle. The skate shack fell into ruin decades ago and no traces remain. The cider mill ceased operation in the early 1990s, when new laws required pasteurization and labeling, in lieu of the preservative-free, just-pressed product of the small farm. The cherished skating hangouts for neighborhood kids are part of local history. All things must pass.

Max Millard is a retired journalist and teacher in San Francisco, California. Email: sunreport@aol.com <