News and notes from New Gloucester

Serving her community

Coky Wills has gone above and beyond the call of duty all of her life.

In 1952, she began a three-year nursing program at Maine Medical Center in Portland. At that time, the nurses in training put in long hours at the hospital which reduced their tuition costs to under $100 per year. She put this training to good use in serving as the school nurse in Gray and New Gloucester for 27 years. She recalls organizing extensive clinics to administer polio immunizations, first by injection than taken orally.

For over 40 years, Wills was the Salvation Army representative for New Gloucester and Danville, with Gray being added to her region afterward. She became the health officer for the town of New Gloucester in 1960. During her tenure at that post, she arranged for oil assistance and clothing donations to those in need.

More recently, she became one of the founders of Caring Community of Gray-New Gloucester, along with Avis Ford and Michelle Bourne, to provide assistance to families over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday seasons. Wills feels a sense of accomplishment being involved with a group that delivers special holiday dinners for homebound senior citizens and rounds up gift certificates to be donated to deserving families, among other charitable efforts. She gets a kick out of witnessing the enthusiasm displayed by handicapped children while they explore their food baskets of treats.

Unfortunately, Wills has been forced to scale back her participation in CCGNG this year due to a debilitating illness, but she urges anyone who would like to contribute to the organization to send a check payable to CCGNG to Donna Rand, 5-A Doughty Farm Road, Gray, ME 04039.

Sparky and Our Gang

Tiny Timber’s growth spurt had heartened many in New Gloucester for the annual tree lighting at Town Hall that was held on Nov. 29. Alas, electrical problems short-circuited the full lighting of Tiny Timber, but thanks to two citizens now known affectionately as Sparky and Our Gang, the tree is fully lighted.

The tree lighting ceremony went well thanks to the efforts of emcee Kevyn Fowler, the high school chorus and its conductor Jason Cassidy, the library’s friends and trustees and the New Gloucester Historical Society, which opened the new History Barn for public viewing for the ceremony. The society, having served as organizers of the event, wishes to thank all who came and were part of this fun community time.

Franco-American history project

Eleventh- and twelfth-grade French students at Merriconeag Waldorf High School on the Pineland campus in New Gloucester have just completed an oral history project focusing on the history of Maine’s Franco-American population, as part of their semester-long study of French America.

Thanks to Rita Dube, who facilitated the encounters at the Franco-American Heritage Center in Lewiston, the Merriconeag high school students were able to partner with a person of Franco-Canadian origin. Each student met twice with their partner and interviewed them on their family history, while speaking in French. What started out for the students as a simple, though unusual class project, quickly turned into an often poignant testimony of personal history lived by French Canadian families.

This French American history project offered not only an unusual linguistic challenge for the students, but also allowed a very personal, affectionate connection to arise between the young people and their Franco-American partners who kindly and patiently shared a bit of their lives with them.

Pajama story time

Baxter the Library Cat invites children to join him for a Holiday Pajama Story Time on Tuesday, Dec. 22, at 6:30 p.m. Since this is a school night, he will do his best to conclude spinning his tales by 7:30 p.m. Music and light refreshments will be featured, and rumor has it that there may be a special guest. For more information, call 926-4840.

Upcoming Shaker exhibit

The Sabbathday Lake Shaker Museum, New Gloucester, recently received a $5,000 grant from the Maine Expansion Arts Fund of the Maine Community Foundation to develop an exhibit, catalog and programs titled “Creating Chosen Land: The Architectural History of Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village.” The exhibit will be open to the public for both the 2010 and 2011 seasons.

“The exhibit will be the first comprehensive look at a single Shaker Village’s built environment,” states Leonard L. Brooks, director of the Shaker Museum. “Shaker Village has been part of Maine life for over 225 years and continues as an active community today – a unique distinction for this National Historic Landmark.”

Coky Wills, a lifelong resident of New Gloucester, is presented with a beautiful flower arrangement by representatives of Caring Community of Gray-New Gloucester. The bouquet was given to her as a thank you for all of her years of service to area children and families. (Courtesy photo)