Nancy Kelson denied Monday a report that she has sold the Kelson real estate agency in Westbrook. She acknowledged, however, that Alexander Juniewicz, Kenneth Lefebvre and Paul Albert have made an offer to buy it. Juniewicz is the Ward 5 alderman and Lefebvre is the Ward 4 alderman on the Westbrook City Council. Albert, former Westbrook pharmacist, and his wife Donna, are the owners of land just approved for the Stroudwater Locks housing development. Kelson and her husband William have been in the real estate business in Westbrook for about 25 years. They now live in Casco. She said that Juniewicz, Lefebvre and Albert have transferred their real estate licenses to her agency are now out of her office. She said a written understanding is under lawyer review.

Similar daytime burglaries hit two homes on Brook Street in Westbrook last week. At one home, a VCR, some jewelry and a .38 caliber handgun were stolen by someone who broke a window while the homeowners were at work. At another home, a TV set was taken and possibly other things. The burglar broke in through a bulkhead while the homeowner was out for a few hours. Detective Peter Murray said police have clues.

Parking will be skimpy at Westbrook City Hall for about a year starting next March. The City Council voted last week to tell bidders that they can park equipment and supplies in the City Hall parking lot while building an addition to Walker Memorial Library. There will be no room on the library lot itself. Most of it will be occupied by the addition.

The first day of school was delayed for some Gorham third-graders, while other elementary students at the White Rock School found quarters a bit cramped. The culprit behind the situation – incomplete portable classrooms. Two of the new relocatable classroom units at White Rock were not ready in time for the start of school because of installation delays, according to Superintendent Connie Goldman. Their absence forced four classes into the main building, where art and music classes have been curtailed pending their installation. At the Narragansett School, two third-grade classes relying on portables were scheduled to start tomorrow, two days after the rest of the Gorham school system. The portable classrooms are a temporary solution to overcrowding in the Gorham system.

Mr. and Mrs. Richard L. Sawyer, Main Street, Gorham, recently returned from a Society of Real Estate Appraisers International Conference in Montreal. The Sawyers chaired the Hospitality Committee for the conference. One of their responsibilities was to be hosts for the speaker, Art Linkletter. He was a marvelous guest, they report.

Sept. 10, 1997

Westbrook High School’s marching band has been invited to march in the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin, Ireland, in 1999. The Music Boosters group is compiling this week the answers to a survey it sent to members and band parents: Do they want a 15-month campaign to raise $1,400 a student? “If it’s 100 students, that’s $140,000; if it’s 200, it’s $280,000” said George Bookataub, Westbrook school music director. The band would be gone seven days and six nights. High school Principal William Michaud and Superintendent Robert Hall have given their OK, Bookataub said. The invitation from the Lord Mayor of Dublin is an outgrowth of the band’s big trip to the Tournament of Roses in Pasadena, Calif., for New Year’s Day 1993. The band also marched in the Citrus Bowl parade in Orlando, Fla., Dec. 31, 1995.

Ellie Conant Saunders has given Thomas Nadeau’s painting of the Cumberland and Oxford Canal to the city of Westbrook, and it will be the showpiece when the city holds an open house in its new City Hall Sept. 27. The painting, which the artist loaned earlier to Westbrook’s Cumberland and Oxford Canal School, was mounted in the City Hall lobby several weeks ago. The artist grew up in homes on the New Gorham Road and at Saco and Main streets, Westbrook, and as a boy played on the canal’s towpath and at the pond on Berry’s Farm, a remnant of the canal off the New Gorham Road. He graduated from Westbrook High School in 1939, a classmate of Mrs. Saunders’ sister Nathalie; the Conants were near neighbors. He said he wanted in this painting to bring attention to the courage and public spirit of the people who built the canal.

Gorham Police Chief Ronald Shepard received his 25-year pin Aug. 29 from Town Manager David Cole in a ceremony in a bay at the fire station. Shepard started his career as a jail guard for the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office. Later he was hired by the Gorham department, which sent him to the Maine Criminal Justice Academy. Shepard recalled that he got into the profession because he wanted a variety of challenges in his work. “I didn’t want to put 3,000 widgets in a box every day,” he said. His job as a police officer and as chief “has had its exciting moments and its boring ones,” he said, but all in all, he has “enjoyed it immensely.”

Mary Welch, daughter of Meadow and Mahlon Welch, Narragansett Street, Gorham, has returned to her junior year of studies at Marist College, Poughkeepsie, N.Y., after a summer with her parents and working at Bayley’s Campground, Scarborough.

Taken in 1955, this photo shows the entrance to the Westbrook District Nursing Association offices at 29 Bridge St. The building was originally part of Westbrook Manufacturing Co., which went out of business in 1896, then became part of the Dana Warp Mills. In 1956 Stultz Electric Co. purchased the building and moved its operation from 821 Main St. (corner of Ash Street)  to this location. The building originally had two front entrances, 25 and 29 Bridge St. The district nursing offices relocated to 51 Bridge St. (corner of Brown Street), and the entrance at 29 Bridge St. was bricked up. The building became 25 Bridge St. with the one entrance serving Stultz Electric Co. and two tenants. Stultz Electric sold this building several years ago to Flannery Properties and it was demolished to make way for the Riverfront office building.  Photo taken by Del Cargill. To see more historical photos and artifacts, visit the Westbrook Historical Society at the Fred C. Wescott Building, 426 Bridge St. Inquiries can be emailed to westhistorical@myfairpoint.net. The website is www.westbrookhistoricalsociety.org.