Nov. 8, 1989

Louise Waycott and children filed suit last week against her brother, Lyman K. Woodbury Jr., asking the court to put into trust the lands along Westbook’s Mill Brook he was given by their father in 1978. If successful, her court action will halt the Woodbury Estates housing development along the brook. The development is the target of another suit brought by Waycott, challenging the approval given by the city’s Planning Board July 25. The land is in the most scenic section of the 7-mile-long Mill Brook Valley. Many of the 16 houses in Woodbury Estates would be at the top of steep slopes leading down to the brook. Also stymied would be a second housing development proposed by Lyman Woodbury Jr. and associates, to be known as Woodbury Estates East, on the opposite side of Route 302. Waycott’s new lawsuit says that it was the wish of their father, who died in 1986, that the land be kept as it was.

There will be no smoking allowed in any Maine hospitals by law, starting Nov. 16, and that’s causing a minor panic among staff and patients in drug and alcohol dependency units, including Westbrook Community Hospital’s Flexcare chemical dependence program. Hospital administrator Joel Rogers says the hospital will be in compliance with the law. Rogers said he has had an office in the new wing, near the laboratory and solarium, converted into a smoking room for patients who have permission. It has a ventilation system, exhausting smoke out through the roof, and the door will have to be kept closed. Rogers says no smoke smell escapes.

Prides Corner School in Westbrook received water damage in classrooms of its old wing when wind blew off a plastic covering and rain came in. Because of leaks in the flat roof, a new roof is being built over it. Officials said there was a lot of damage to teachers’ personal effects. Teachers lost books, games and tools they use to teach math. Children’s papers on the walls were also damaged.

Gorham farmer Alton Benson and his son Eddie say they many not be able to live with a Planning Board condition prohibiting development of their 175 acres of rolling hills for 10 years after local contractor R.J. Grondin and Sons finishes mining gravel and 42 of those acres. It effect, it is a 20-year moratorium, because Grondin estimates that the pit operation will last from seven to 10 years. The condition was one of many outlined in a six-page motion last week in which the Planning Board, after months of emotionally charged meetings, recommend approval of the pit operation to the Zoning Board of Appeals, which must still address the issue as a special exception.

Sue Dries, president of the Friends of the Windham Library, spoke recently at a meeting of interested persons who are seeking to reform a Friends group of the Baxter Library in Gorham. The Baxter group would assist librarians and supplement current efforts to meet the needs of the library. A meeting on the subject is Nov. 8 at the library, on South Street.

The Pine Tree Squares will hold a Mainstream Plus dance at the Congin School in Westbrook on Nov. 11. The caller will be Mary Clark and Gil Fernald will be cuer. There also will be an ice cream smorgasbord.

The Westbrook High School Band marched its way to Class A victory Saturday at the state Marching Band competition at Edward Little High School in Auburn. The band, which has become accustomed to taking standing ovations in stride, swept all five categories of competition, music, marching, percussion, auxiliary (color guard) and drum major. On the following day, the band traveled to Boston University, where it competed in the New England competition, taking fourth in a field that drew bands from all over New England and part of New York. Geoge Bookataub is band director.

Nov. 10, 1999

The Westbrook High School Marching Band finished third in the New England School Marching Band championships Saturday, on 6/10ths of a point away from winning the whole thing. They won the right to compete with 30 other high school marching bands by winning yet another state championship Oct. 30 at the University of Maine.

Gorham town councilors were to receive a facilities study last night that recommends construction of a new, $4.4 million-$6.2 million town hall on the present building’s front lawn and conversion of the present town hall into a public safety building. PDT Architects, Portland, is also recommending construction of a new, $15.7 million middle school on the town’s 109-acre former dump property off Weeks Road, conversion of the present Shaw Junior High School into a community center and various elementary school scenarios.

The ban on issuing new liquor licenses throughout most of downtown Westbrook expired quietly last week. Almost as quietly, the city has been working on a new twist on the zoning ordinance that would give its Planning Board control over uses in a new downtown zone, in particular over drinking establishments and restaurants. The City Council will hold a workshop meeting on the proposed new “overlay” zone Nov. 15. Since the ban expired, one new liquor license application has been received in the area it covered, from the proposed Casa Novello, a planned Italian restaurant at 694 Main St., the former Westbrook House of Pizza location. Owner is Zazack Inc., with co-managers Greg Manoogian, Westbrook, and Bob Esposito, Falmouth.

Laurence S. Lovejoy, Pride Street, Westbrook, motorcycled to Bigelow Oct. 15. He biked to the caretaker’s cabin and helped close it up for the winter. There already was snow on the ground. He came home Oct. 17 after two nights in a shelter.

Jody Williams, a junior at Gorham High School, is this year’s winner of the Sarah S. Brown Award at Kent Stables, Gorham. The award is for most points in a Kent horse show and honors the memory of a Kent riding instructor who died at age 17 after a 1993 auto accident. Williams rode Spot, her first horse, which she got in 1997. She is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Sterling Williams, Queen Street.

From Ramblings, by Anne B. Foote: Helping enroll applicants at the Mercy Westbrook Community Hospital flu clinic last month was Theresa Tourangeau, Deer Hill, Westbrook. I noticed her stylish leopard-patterned blouse. When I commented about it, she showed me her stockings, knee-length, in the leopard pattern, too. Then last week, on the “Today” show in New York City, Katy Couric was chatting with the crowd outside the studio, and on that cold morning she was wearing mittens also in the leopard pattern. Since then I have come upon several more leopard fashion ads in the New York Times. So I know that Theresa, well known in Westbrook, is right in style.

This photo taken in 1964 shows a crowd gathered to await a parade on Main Street.  Parades often started on lower Main Street and marched through Cumberland Mills and then west on Main Street. Buildings in the background are Peter’s Tea Room and Fruit Store, the Benoit Building with Benoit’s  and Nutter’s clothing stores, Parker’s Dress Shop, Lane’s Shoe Store, Public Finance Co., Westbrook Congregational Church, LaFond-Brackett Block, Hood’s Drug Store, Day’s Jewelry Store and the Scates Building. These buildings, with the exception of the Benoit Building, were all demolished during urban renewal. Current Publishing occupies the first floor of the Benoit Building with LivingWell on the second floor. To see more historical photos and artifacts, visit the Westbrook Historical Society at the Fred C. Wescott Building, 426 Bridge St. It is open Tuesdays and Saturdays, 9 a.m.-noon, and the first Wednesday of each month at 1:30 p.m., September-June. Inquiries can be emailed to westhistorical@myfairpoint.net. The website is www.westbrookhistoricalsociety.org.