By Dagny A. Erickson

(Ed.'s Note: This story was passed onto me by the former owners of Dr. Wheeler's home.)

  That particular letter should have arrived on wings to the sound of bells and with trailing colorful banners.   But, of course, nothing even remotely like that happened.  It was just an ordinary envelope addressed to Mother at 10 Sheffers Gaten, Oslo, Norway, and it came from Dad in America.  It was his regular bi-weekly communication and was familiar to all of us.  Always these contained terse but interesting accounts of his life and experiences far across the ocean, and each contained a slip of paper worth money for our support.
 However, the letter which Mother held in her hand that day in early June of 1907 was different - startling so.  We children watched in eager impatience as she slit the envelope neatly, not to tear the corner where she noted a new address.  This, too, was quite the usual thing.  Work in America seemed to be almost anywhere you chose to look for it.
 As Mother read the letter, first silently to herself, we saw her expression of surprise change to joy.  Then she uttered an exclamation of excitement.  Then she cried.  Finally she managed to tell us that Dad had changed his plans.  He was not coming home as we had hoped, but we were joining him in a strange new land called South Brewer, Maine.  Our native language is more or less phonetic, so we labored over the pronunciation, preparing ourselves to answer questions about our destination.  South became two syllables, the "w" in Brewer became a "v", and Maine was extended to all three vowels.  But as our small friends were no masters of English either, our glib sounds were accepted as correct and proper.
 My four brothers and I listened with selfish concern and combined imaginations as Mother discussed Dad's drastic new plan with our relatives and neighbors.  At first we did not realize that she was painfully disappointed by this turn of events.  For almost three years she had waited for Dad's return, bringing with him enough money to set himself up in a black smithing business of his own.  Our lovely capital city was well populated with wealthy aristocrats and well-to-do upper middle class elite, all of whom owned fine horses and elegant carriages.  Like the garages of today, any blacksmith's shop, carefully located and thoroughly equipped, rendered services that kept the public in motion for either work or play.  Mother cherished some hopes of her own that we might be able to move a couple of streets nearer a better residential section where the apartments were larger and more comfortable.
 Now her modest dream gave way to dread of an unknown future.  That far off place with the strange sounding name held alarming possibilities.  From her letters Dad evidently sensed the desperate nature of her dismay.  He launched a campaign completely at odds with his pragmatic inclinations.  He needed to sell South Brewer to his wife, so he set systematically to the task of improving his literary style of almost telegraphic brevity to a more prodigal use of words.  He became the best press agent our parish ever had, all unknown to the city's Chamber of Commerce.  Once having deserted his ordinary, very practical method of communicating, he began to excel in colorful, lively, and, I am sure, honest descriptions of the place he now wanted to be part of.  His theme emerged like a documentary title.  South Brewer in that first decade of this century was a "city set in a park."  His personal convictions were so strong, his happy messages came through loud and clear.  His weekly letters contained word pictures of paradise, provided by nature with the indigenous help of man and machines.
 Although he was unaware of the fact, Dad's venture into the writing of purposeful prose entailed the use of three skills he knew nothing about, namely, exposition, description, and narration.  But he must have done something right.  Mother's moods improved.  Often we heard her tell her coffee table friends what the long letters from America conveyed in the way of comforting details.  She said he had rented a whole house for us and was getting it furnished.  It was located on a section called Main Street, and the electric trolley line passed near the front door.  On these trolley cars people could go to a much larger city called Bangor, here there were a variety of theaters, opera houses, and concert halls.  Here too were many excellent stores of all kinds, some of the streets were paved and at least three men owned automobiles - those new type vehicles.  Mother observed, "It does sound fairly up to date!"
 
 

 That the education of their children was a prime concern of our parents was made evident in the early part of that busy summer.  Two letters from them passed each other somewhere in the mid-Atlantic, having similar contents relating to that vital subject.  Mother's was an urgent request for information about schools.  Dad's was filled with answers to all the questions he had anticipated.  In narrative style he told his story to Mother's satisfaction, spiked with dismay.  We heard the account as she told it to sympathetic interested listeners.
 Dad had taken time off from work and, dressed in his best to make a good impression, boarded the trolley and made his way to upper Brewer to the home of the highest official of the City's school department.  He had found the important individual, dressed in overalls, down on his knees weeding his good sized back yard vegetable garden.
 In his cool direct manner, Dad introduced himself and stated the reason for his visit.  The man rose, and in a gesture of pleasant greeting to the tall intruder, held out a hand wiped clean on his pants' leg.  Then he led Dad to a settee in the shade of an apple tree in the well-kept orchard.  He took out his pipe, invited Dad to do likewise, and the two settled down for a session of earnest conversation.  Dad learned that school would open in early September, and two weeks after our arrival here.  Our speech handicap cost is status, as the voice of authority said we must enter what was then known as the "baby class."  Dad found no fault with the necessity, but he questioned the five-day school week.  "No school on Saturday - why?"  The long reply gave Dad his best lesson to date of what it meant to be good American back at the turn of the century.
 "The children are needed at home at least one day every week.  There are many chores to be shared.  Most of the fathers work ten to twelve hours six days out of seven, and that mothers' work is never done is not a pun but harsh truth.  Whenever possible many of these hard workers have gardens, hens, and even a pig or two, with a view to adding as much as possible to the food supply.  Most of this town's working class place a high value on their independence.  Such families ask only for freedom and for opportunities to make themselves self-sufficient.  Children take an important part in the action.  During the three months' long summer vacation, they take over chores and other responsibilities and learn self-discipline from knowing that what they do is vital in the scheme of things.  It is so vital, in fact, that school laws and policies have had to conform to the stringency of the local situation.  We have many immigrants here.  A few are from Ireland, Finland, and Poland, but many more are from the Maritimes.  French Canadians from the Province of Quebec have the same speech handicap as your own.  Most of these attend school briefly but may leave to go to work after completing grade six or at reaching age fifteen.  The motivation to remain in a classroom in practically non-existent,  The temptation to exercise earning power is great.  Work for everyone is elsewhere.  The compelling truth behind the constant drift of youngsters from the academic benefits of grades five and six to full time jobs in the mills is the lean look of a man's pay envelope.  That top figure of $2.50 per day for a six-day week does not allow much leeway for rising prices.  Milk will not always remain at five cents per quart, nor butter at ten cents per pound.  The time will come when even potatoes may cost a dollar per bushel.  An extra small income makes all the difference.
 Obviously, the foregoing is a poor attempt to paraphrase what I remember about Dad's letter pertaining to schools.
 To direct questions Dad's genial host had been explicit and reasonably brief.  No, there was no school lunch program.  He commended the Oslo plan of mid-morning snacks of nutrients and noon-day bowls of hearty stews or soups, but remarked dryly, "Workers here would consider that a hand-out or charity.  They take great pride in meeting the challenge head on, but sacrifice their older children's possible future needs to the urgency of present security."
 He spoke highly of these hard workers, describing their way of life from an educator's frustrated long-range point of view.  But Dad left his informant with an appreciative understanding of the people and problems of South Brewer.  Realizing that Mother needed to share his knowledge and thoughts, he relayed them to her with meticulous self-serving bias.  Although he wanted her to know and like her new home, he wanted even more to prevent later unpleasant surprises.  So he composed an editorial of negatives, both good and bad, to banish visionary hopes and to help her see the total situation with which she would have to cope.
 His summary of school information amounted to this.  There was no lunch program, no Saturday sessions, no weekly inspections, and no showers.  The school day was in two sessions with a break from eleven-thirty to one.  There would be no books or other classroom material to pay for as all such things were provided free for everyone.  Our slates would not be needed.  With a large paper mill right in the middle of town, there was paper in abundance for all practical purposes.  As for the qualifications of the teaching staff, Dad's evaluation was somewhat skeptical.  Most of the instructors had apparently met the highest standard by completing two years in one of the teachers' colleges called Normal Schools.  But many were only high school graduates who, having passed a written examination, had been granted short-term certification.  During the long summer vacations, these so-called non-professionals were required to take courses in education in order to obtain renewal of temporary certificates.
 The frank and honest school official, who had so generously filled Dad in on these pertinent facts, had at the end of their interview offered a little advice rather reluctantly.  He had suggested, "Tell your wife after school begins to watch for tiny creeping things in the children's hair."  Horrified, Dad expostulated, "The pupils are not clean!  In Norway such filth is illegal!"  Patiently the kindly man explained, "Many of the men of South Brewer spend their winters in logging camps to the north from freeze-up time in late November till the saw mills start up again in the spring.  These logging camps with never win any prizes for sanitary perfection.  There is a building on Washington Street in Bangor where these workers can be fumigated before they rejoin their families, but a few don't bother and go directly home.  If the wife is untidy or at all neglectful, home circumstances change from bad to worse."  Then ruefully he added, "You say that in Norway such a situation is illegal.  Here, my dear friend, it is epidemic."
 For several other lectures Dad had polished off his unused store of adjectives to expound on the reasons why "The Village" would be a good home for all of us.  Without question this south end was by far the most attractive section of the long narrow city, contained some of the very finest homes, had all the necessary stores to make it a complete shopping area, and along with Hampden and Bangor constituted the largest industrial center on the Penobscot.  Some years earlier Bangor had been called the greatest lumber port in the world, which badly down graded the other two.  The river at this point is an estuary, and Dad told Mother there were tides here just the same as in Oslo Fjord.  He spoke of the stately elms and spreading maples that lined the streets, hovering over green lawns and neat little homes.  He made much of the fact that the rich and the poor lived on the same street, mentioning that one of the sawmill owners lived directly across from our little bungalow.  He described the best he could some of the other fine homes like the beautiful one perched on its terraced hillside just beyond the church.  In speaking of the church, he was reminded to mention that we would not have far to go for our morning catechism lesson.  Later he learned that the edifice was only a Sunday facility, with a brief opening on Wednesday evening for prayer meetings.
 What he loved best looked like Nature at its summer peak of lush beauty, but it was really painfully man made.  It was a large millpond on Elm Street, an expanse of water used as a control pool for a long chain of dams of varying sizes.  Channeled from the Orrington hinterland, a sparkling stream spread out from the railroad trestle to the very back doors of some Main Street homes.  Lovely to look at with tall marsh grass around its edges, brightened with wild iris and yellow cow lilies, flooded later it became a winter skating rink.
 By the last week of August 1907, we were getting settled in our little house at the edge of the flat and adjusting awkwardly to a new way of life.  It had taken us three weeks to change our address from 10 Sheffers Gaten to Main Street, Brewer, with short stopovers in England and Scotland.  We are still asked about our first impressions and emotional reactions.  My personal feeling included appreciation of Dad's graphic descriptions, which proved remarkably accurate but subtly toned down, leaving opportunities for later reassessments. 
 There is no doubt, however, that color was the dominant difference in our new environment.  We had come from the classic monotony of weathered brick and gray granite pillars and arches, and had trod mostly on dark cobblestones.  Here even the familiar green grew in innumerable hues.  There were wild flowers, berry bushes, apples ripening in the sun, and houses painted pastel or white and accented with contrasting trim.  Fall flowers, wild asters, and goldenrod were everywhere - harbingers of the later foliage still in store for us with brilliant blending like those of sunrises and sunsets all over the hillsides.
 Then too, of course, we loved the river and its constant traffic.  We thrilled to see steamers and noted foreign flags on many of the four and five masted schooners and freighters.  Life was going to be good in South Brewer.  The time came when we had to revise some of this optimistic estimate and begin again on a firm footing of involvement and experience.
 Everyday one evil hovered over our community and nearby areas.  At regular intervals emissions of gaseous fumes from the pulp mill and rose and mixed with the fresh Maine air and pleasant scent of green timber, down grading both to respiratory irritants.  Every so often it was necessary evidently to release excessive pressure in the digesters that was stifling to anyone who found in the worst of it.  Luckily it dispersed rather quickly, leaving the asthma sufferer little the worse for the encounter.  It was industrial air pollution at a time when this region had a frightening record of tuberculosis.  Its prevalence was never adequately accounted for except that it was highly contagious, and the Eastern Manufacturing Company did such patients no favors.  Gradually the emissions were put under some control.
 Another evil of the times was that of abject poverty.  It was not too common here, but it did exist.  Near us then stood a three-storied house divided into four small tenements.  One day a little girl who lived on the first floor came over to play with me.  In mid-afternoon she said she was hungry and was going home for something to eat.  Although I was not invited, I followed her home.  The room we entered contained no furniture, but the floor was strewn with broken parts of chairs and tables.  The youngster went to the door of a small bedroom where her mother lay on a tumbled cot, obviously ver ill.  But she rose at her daughter's request, and we followed her to a sad looking kitchen.  She put a bit of a dismembered chair into the feable fire and placed a frying pan on the stove, using a thoroughly depleted pork rind to grease its surface.  Then she poured some thick batter on it to make what came out as a dreary looking pancake.  The girl nibbled at it and, as if telling me I wasn't missing much, she said, "It should have sugar in it, but it is only flour and water."
 At supper that night I sat and looked at my plate of hashed browned potatoes, cold meat, well-buttered bread, and dish of rhubarb sauce.  All at once I broke into noisy sobs.  In the clever way parents have, they learned the full import of my neighborly visit.  I was excused from the table and allowed to go to my bed in the next room where I cried myself to sleep.  Within the next twenty-four hours, the ailing mother was taken to the hospital and the two children to the Bangor orphanage.  Where had everyone been while three people were starving to death?
 Limited funds for extras was kind of poverty too.  It sometimes caused neglect of repairs and maintenance.  A broken gutter on our chapel roof spilled water from melted snow down the slope near our church structure.  In late November a man trudging up from the river, carrying a heavy piece of driftwood on his shoulder, took a shortcut to Stone Street by going over the ice-covered grass.  He slipped and his load bounced from his shoulder to crash down on his temple.  He was found there by folks gathering for the Wednesday evening prayer meeting.
 Indifference can be cruel and deliberate, but more often is caused by the necessary self-concern merely to survive and to keep one jump ahead of crowding difficulties.  Once another girl (probably Effie) and I were asked to solicit something for a sale at our church.  We were given a few names and addresses nearby, and we set forth proud of the duty entrusted to us.  Our last port of call was within sight of the church.  At our vigorous knock an elderly lady whom we did not know opened the door and asked what we wanted.  Her harsh voice frightened us, but we stated our mission and asked for a donation.  The vehemence of her anger dispelled forever for both of us any possible desire to be door-to-door salesmen.  "You dare to ask me to help that church!  My husband was sick for months before he died.  My daughter has run away and left me.  Who cared over there?  No one ever came near me in all my trouble!"  Then she slammed the door, but we saw her lean her head on the glass panel and weep.  She mentioned in her outburst that she did not even know the minister's name.
 But life is a checkered patter, with an equal number of dark spots and light ones.  We found both in South Brewer.
 In that time long ago our village was like an individual with two distinct personalities.  By day the whole town featured a roaring vibrating commotion, the robust, noisy activities of men and machines.  But at five-thirty the "knock-off" work whistle shrieked its welcome order.  Then a slow metamorphosis took place.  Our section of Brewer became a relaxation resort.  The four sawmills came to rest and settled down like huge, tired monsters hissing sighs of escaping steam.  Gradually the bleak outlines of heavy industry melted into the gathering dusk.  Only the paper and pulp mills remained alert and humming, standing guard in the background.  On pleasant evenings men gathered for desultory conversations at places where they could sit, mostly on Herrick's store steps or at the weighing station near the scene of their daily labor.  Here they accepted the therapeutic and spiritual benefits of peace and quiet, while the sounds of nature took over pronouncing it benediction.
 Now more than seventy-five years later, I still see ghosts and hear echoes.
 Recently a niece of mine came up from Providence for a short visit.  She expressed a desire to see the inside of our church once more.  We entered by the side door to find the chapel room shining, sparkling clean, and in the ultimate state of neatness and order.
 My relative gave a sound of surprise and wonder as she looked around.  I was proud and very grateful to our dedicated caretakers.  I thought of times when we could afford only part time help.  Often then the floors were covered with dried mud, corners filled with litter, and dust everywhere.  Even the Sanctuary showed signs of complete neglect with discarded papers in the pews, gum stuck to hymn bookracks, and the windowsills thick with dust.
 Although the past is dead, the best of its spirit lives on making progress in the right direction.  Today our shut-ins, the elderly, and the ailing not only know our minister's name, but they know his warm handclasp, as well!