Class of 1951 Winter 2020 Class Note

Frances Pratt Caswell

In June 2019 your correspondent flew west for an extended stay with her daughter and son-in-law Lucy and Dan Hilburn ’81G in Sunriver, OR. One of the highlights of the visit was a four-generation trip to the Oregon Zoo, with great-grandma in a wheelchair and two great-grandkids in a stroller. I enjoyed a visit with granddaughter Alison Olson and her family and trips to lava buttes, the Oregon Badlands Wilderness Park, the lakes of the Newberry Caldera, and Smith Rock on the Crooked River. On the way back to Maine I stopped in Loveland, CO, to visit my granddaughter Marion Watts-Kelly and my third great-grandchild, Athena, who was three days old. Back on the east coast, Lucy and I were met at the airport by another granddaughter, Carolyn Hilburn, and taken to a restaurant in Boston to celebrate my 90th birthday.

Our class president, Woody Beech, celebrated his 90th birthday at his summer home in Raymond. Congratulations to those of us who were born in 1929. I wonder if anyone had 90 candles on their cake. I had one candle on a pot of crème brulée.

Malcolm K. Chadbourne has written his second novel, Harold, a story about a young boy growing up in rural New England. Malcolm, who lives in Suffield, CT, started writing in retirement. He writes one-act plays and directs a Readers Theater as entertainment for residents at the assisted living community where he now lives. Malcolm was an English major. You can find Harold as well as Greta and Caps, his first novel, on Amazon.

Harvey Lord writes that he and Carolyn are “still alive and kicking.” Harvey and Carolyn had both lost their spouses when they found each other in retirement and got married. They had been students together at Bridgton Academy 79 years ago. At White Rock Senior Living Center in Bow, NH, they discovered many common interests: music, reading, bird watching, the Red Sox and White Sox, and good food. Harvey is a retired minister and Carolyn is a retired librarian. He majored in physics and remembers discovering Popham Beach during his U of M freshman year at Brunswick Naval Air Station.

Leroy E. Farmer died last March. He was born in Honduras, where his father managed a banana plantation. Later his family moved to Maine, and he graduated from Wiscasset Academy. Following service in the army, he received a BA in business administration. In 1951 he married Joanne Pearson. In Wiscasset he started the Roy Farmer Real Estate Agency, which was bought out by the Carleton Group, and remained a full-time broker with the Carleton Group until he retired at age 88. Roy served Wiscasset as a selectman, trustee of the school district, and in many other roles, and was elected to the 96th Maine House of Representatives. He received several local awards for his service. Roy is survived by his wife, daughter, two grandsons, and a great-granddaughter.

Janice Anita Goldstein Povich died in May in Newton, MA. She majored in sociology at UMaine with a concentration in nutrition. She married Donald M. Povich ’51 and they made their home in Bath. Don died in 2001. Janice was active in Beth Israel Synagogue, serving on a committee that established the first Jewish cemetery in Bath, and served on the “Chai” committee, overseeing community meals. She was also a volunteer at the former Bath Memorial Hospital. She took an active part in the family business, Povich’s Men’s Shops. Braving Route 1 traffic in summer and winter, she drove nearly every day among the business’s three locations, Bath, Wiscasset, and Damariscotta. For the past four years Janice was a resident at The Falls at Cordingly Dam, an assisted living community in Newton. Janice is survived by a son, daughter, four grandchildren, and one great-granddaughter.

In September my daughter Helen Caswell Watts ’83 and I enjoyed a Midcoast Alumni-sponsored boat ride down the Kennebec River. Classmates who spent their freshman year at the Naval Air Station in Brunswick would see many changes in the Midcoast today. The ships being built at Bath Iron Works look like something from science fiction. However, the ride down the river has not changed much. The lighthouses and the rock-bound wooded shores remain. Fort Popham still stands guard.