Cressey turns 90 on Valentine’s Day

Ernest Cressey will celebrate his 90th birthday on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14, with family at his lifelong home on Flaggy Meadow Road.

Cressey, a 1943 graduate of Gorham High School, is one of Gorham’s most widely known residents and is a former town councilor. He and his wife, Elizabeth, have three children – Cynthia Perry of Dixmont, Kathy Cressey of Gorham and Michael Cressey of Gorham – four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

He is the sixth generation on the farm where he was born in 1924. His forebears were among the earliest Gorham settlers. A former poultry farmer, Cressey, his son said, owns 75 apartment units in 15 buildings and is still active.

“He’s still the boss,” Michael Cressey said on Monday.

According to family records, Ernest Cressey, as a high school junior, worked for 10 cents an hour and later received $1 for a 12-hour day on dairy farms.

He launched the poultry business with $14 and a grant for 500 chickens. Michael Cressey said his father hatched eggs and sold chicks in addition to peddling eggs to stores.

He built a huge poultry barn in 1958. The business flourished, and he annually grew up to 300,000 birds (broilers). In 1969, he built his first apartment house.

“He knew the poultry business was not going to last,” his son said.

Cressey has been active in politics and was elected three times to the Town Council. He has served on numerous civic, church and agricultural committees. He once was a member of a federal poultry board.

Now, Michael Cressey said, his father wants to build another duplex. He said his father has heeded the advice of his mother, who told him to “never retire.”

Remembering ‘Hoppy’

A lifelong Gorham resident, Donald Hopkins, will be remembered at a potluck open house noon-4 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 15, at the United Church of Christ in North Gorham, intersection of North Gorham and Standish Neck roads. Known by friends and neighbors as Hoppy, he died at age 70 on Feb. 5.

He was a 1961 graduate of Gorham High School and the Maine Vocational Technical Institute in 1964. Hopkins owned Hoppy’s VW Service.

‘In the Underworld’ set for USM stage

The University of Southern Maine Department of Theatre has announced the cast for “In the Underworld,” which will open at Russell Hall on the Gorham campus in April with several performances.

The play, according to the university’s theater department, is a “darkly comic operetta written by Germaine Tillion, a French ethnologist and Holocaust survivor who wrote the script while imprisoned in Ravenbru?ck concentration camp for women in World War II Germany.”

The university’s production will run from Friday, April 18 to Sunday, April 27.

For more information about the production and the USM Department of Theatre, visit http://usm.maine.edu/theatre.

Doucette, Gagnon are engaged

Paul and Fran Doucette of Gorham have announced the engagement of their daughter, Amy Doucette, to Tim Gagnon of Tyngsboro, Mass. The couple became engaged this past summer after three years of dating, her parents said. Their wedding will be in Kennebunk this coming summer.

“The whole family is very excited for the upcoming wedding,” Paul and Fran Doucette said, “and would like to wish congratulations to the happy couple.”

U.S. taxpayer debt

The Bureau of the Fiscal Service reported on Feb. 7 that the U.S. public debt was $17,258,824,690,537.53.

Ernest CresseyThe University of Southern Maine will present “In the Underworld” April 18-27 at Russell Hall on the Gorham campus. The cast includes, from left, in front row, Hannah Perry, Mary Kate Ganza, and Elinor Strandskov; middle row, Helena Crothers-Villers, Madelyn James, Virginia Hudak, Clare McKelway, Rhiannon Vonder Haar; and in top row, Sable Strout and Callie Cox. Caroline O’Connor is not pictured. Amy Doucette and Tim Gagnon