Historical Society saves the day

Friday August 30, 2013
Lubec, Maine

 

A breakfast with no pictures.

Yes, you heard it right.  We went to the Wharf restaurant for breakfast this morning.  If you will recall, early in our stay David checked out every restaurant in town and concluded that the best breakfast could be had here.

When we arrive at 8am there is one couple in the restaurant.  There appear to be three people working at the counter.  It does not say wait to be seated so we choose a table.  Shortly someone brings the menu.  And that’s about it.  We wait 15 minutes while the couple who is seated is served, another couple comes in and gets drinks.  Finally a woman apologizes with no explanation and asks what we want to drink.   Another 15 minutes go by before she brings David coffee and me hot water with lemon.  She starts to leave and I say “we’d like to order now’.  We order what I consider to be very expensive breakfasts.  $9.50 and $8.50.   It’s nearly a half hour before our food arrives.  Breakfast is not a complicated meal.  In the mean time, another couple comes in, gets menus, their order is taken and their food arrives.  A third couple comes in their order is taken and their food arrives right after ours.  Their wait was less than 10 minutes.   As for the food.  It was fine.  Nothing to brag about and certainly not worth those prices.  The french toast which David had was excellent.    There are no pictures of this fiasco as I do not wish to remember it.   If you come to Lubec try somewhere else for breakfast is my advice.

 

I have been trying to find a copy of the Cobscook Bay Trail Guide which Cindy at the campground loaned to me.

 

It is a great little trail guide to this area and I’ve been everywhere trying to get a copy of it. The most recent suggestion made was “check with the Historical Society”

 

This seems unusual to me.  Not sure why they would have a trail guide.  But I’ve tried everywhere else in town and on the outskirts so after the breakfast irritation we stop on our way home.

 

 

The little historical society building is right on the edge of the road shortly before the campground.

I go in and ask about the guide.  Joe and Deb say no they don’t have one but when I see the inside of the building, I motion for David to come on in.  He loves this old stuff.

We have erroneously come in the back door so we walk over to the other side to begin the “tour”.

Joe is a serious history buff and is eager to tell us all about Lubec’s early history and its canning hay days when there were twenty some canning operations in this town.  I can’t imagine it.   The museum has great pictures and artifacts of these times.  Unfortunately you are not allowed to take any pictures of things donated to the museum.  But I did get this the picture of Joe later when I returned with my camera.  At that time I found him reading a recently donated copy of Maine Sardine Industry History 1875 to 2000.

 

 

 

Remember the crumbling building?

 

For those who follow us and especially Terri who was particularly interested, you may remember that falling down building we paddled by on our kayak venture.  Joe tells us that actually it is out in their backyard and they are trying to get a grant to tear it down.   It was the Columbian Canning Company and the building we are in was the Columbian Company Store in front of the cannery.   Brings to mind “another day older and deeper in debt….I owe my soul to the company store”.   Joe says that’s just about the way it was.

This is a picture of Columbian Can before it became the ruins behind the store.  More about how I got this picture later.  Notice most of the workers are women.

 

 

We go into another room which has some beautiful vintage clothing from around the turn of the 20th century.   From there we go into the “school room” where information on Lubec’s schools and on the military commitments of the citizens of Lubec are kept along with vintage aerial photos of the area.  Joe tells us that nearly every man in town and some women fought in WW II which was just what we surmised from seeing the war memorial names. 

 

In the final room I meet Deb who is sitting at the counter of the 100 year old general store.  There are  grocery items behind the counter and hardware across the room.  The rear of the room contains an old barbershop.  It’s a great museum. 

 

 

 

I spend a nice hour talking to Deb about the 1889 “signed” quilt on the wall done by three sisters for a fourth.  And about other items in the store.

 

 

I later look on line and find that many of the pictures in the Lubec Historical Society Museum are on line at MaineMemory.net, Maine’s statewide digital museum and an amazing resource.  One picture that I find is of the Wormell Sisters who made the quilt.  It’s the picture Deb showed me.  Maine Memory tells me that the sisters were the daughters of Ebeneezer Wormell who was the West Quoddy Lightkeeper during the 1840’s and 1850’s.

And that there were actually six sisters originally.  One died and her husband married her sister and then he became the lightkeeper ten or so years later.   This town has some stories all right.

 

Deb has an interesting story all her own.  She is from Gloucester Massachusetts but moved to what we call Southside Virginia thirty years ago.  After some changes in her life she decided to just up and move to Lubec to be nearer her mother in Gloucester.  When I asked her why not return to her home town, she says it’s too expensive to live in Massachusetts anymore and she found a perfect house to rent on the county road here and likes it very much.

 

 

 

Clearly she is interested in the historical because the house she picked is a rare mid 19th century traditional Maine farmhouse with the house on one end, the kitchen, other work rooms in the middle and then the barn on the other end.  All are connected so that in the winter, you don’t have to go outside for days if you can’t.  Deb is disappointed that the barn has been turned into a garage and she hopes some day to be able to buy the house from the owner who lives “away” and eventually return the garage to the authentic barn.   She says originally the outhouse would have been on the barn end and that the animals’ heat would help to keep the building warm.

I spend a very pleasant 90 minutes with Joe and Deb.   Thank you both so much.

 

 

Now about these parts that were discovered right next to the end of the slide steel ram cylinders back when we were at Narrows Too THREE weeks ago..

 

Way back then, David was getting something out of the back basement bin on our driver’s side slide.  He sees a shiny aluminum part just sitting on top of the basement compartment visible through a cut out around the ram cylinder.  The part is not attached to anything.  He picks it up wonders what it is doing there and why it has not vibrated off.  On investigation he finds another part of the same dimensions with the same three holes in the exact same spots sitting on top of the ram cylinder itself.   This one is made of white nylon.  Put the two together and they match perfectly.  With a flashlight he looks back in side to see where they might have come from.  An empty slot just the right size is on top the ram cylinder where it goes back into the steel frame on the chassis. 

So now the fun begins.  Call HWH.  

“Well you can’t walk to a technician for a week or two.  They are too busy backed up with calls.” 

“Well I need to know whether it is safe to put my slides in with these parts missing.”  

We email them this picture of the parts he has found.

“Ok someone will call you back.”  

They call.  We’re out of range, in this sketchy cell phone service area.  Not available.  They leave a message. 

David calls back.  They are on the phone. 

“Leave a message. They’ll call you back.”

And on and on and on. 

Finally over a week later, they say they recognize the pieces and that we will need a new kit that won’t require any special tools or any instructions. 

We order the kit.  It comes and this is what we get.  There is a whole lot of other stuff here with no explanation.   The original TWO pieces are there at the bottom right.  The kit to replace them comes with THIRTY THREE pieces.

 

If you know what this is or why it came off or how to make these 33 pieces replace it, I hope you’ll let us know.

In the meantime,  we are still waiting to talk to a technician about why what they sent us is SO much more than the two pieces in the picture we sent them.  

They assure us it is not dangerous to leave it out.  We can put it back if we want to or not.  It isn’t a safety issue.

WHAT?  Then why did you put these in in the first place if we can just leave it out or NOT.  I think we need a second opinion on that.  But the first one was so hard to get it will be weeks before we can get another one.

Here’s David under the slide trying to figure out where all these little parts go.

 

 

 

We’re STILL waiting for a call back.  It’s going on a month now.

 

I’d say the Lubec Historical Society Museum was the highlight of our day wouldn’t you??   Thanks Joe and Deb.