Friends Of
Whitefield
Newsletter - April 2002. . . .
. .
The picture above shows the Ford Mill just minutes before it met its demise in a spring freshet nearly 50 years ago.
Welcome
to our 4th issue of the "on-line' version of the "Friends of
Whitefield" Newsletter. This newsletter is a free, un-official, occasional e-newsletter about matters of our town,
Whitefield, Maine.
* How-to-Subscribe * How-to Contribute
* Contact-Webmaker*
In
This Issue: (just
click on the picture or underlined
link)................................................
Whitefield
has many beautiful, interesting and historic homes. We have begun a project web
page to celebrate our architectural history. Although we only have 3 homes
listed , we have many good candidates. Click
here to see the page and read the interesting history of these places. And
please, if you have knowledge of the history of your home or someone else's.
Please tell us. And, we will help add it to the web page. It is our goal
to have 20 or 30 homes listed.
Click here to contact us
if you can help.
Whitefield has a "Weather Man" ! We all know that Tim Chase wears many hats. Now, he not only posts daily Whitefield weather forecasts AND conditions, but he has mounted a camera (web cam) on top of his house that looks down Grand Army Hill to the School - and LIVE pictures of that wonderful view are posted to the web every 10 minutes. Click here to see that view and click here for the weather conditions. You will want to bookmark this site as a "favorite".
ps. watch for those beautiful summer sunsets !
When
our school decided to have a "celebration of learning" fair,
one of the projects suggested was to feature past graduates. To that end, a
collection of pictures of former classes was begun. We scanned and posted these
class shots to yet another Whitefield web page.
You can see this great and growing collection by clicking here.
There are 25 class pictures posted, but you need to know there are about 300
more pictures out there somewhere !!!
If you have or know where there is one that is not on the website, and wouldn't
mind loaning it for a day to be scanned, we'd love to hear from you. Click
here to contact us.
One day a year or so ago I was searching the web for new references to Whitefield. Imagine my surprise when "The Ballad Of North Whitefield Maine" popped up. As it turns out Janet McBride the national Yodeling Queen lived on Rooney Road in the late 40's. And that experience was so memorable that she wrote and sang this ballad. You can actually hear her sing it by clicking here. I have written her several times about her childhood memories. She is very excited about our town and I have posted some of her notes to be read by clicking here. You can see her website by clicking here.
In our quest for variety in this "Friends of Whitefield"
newsletter, It is with unabashed pride that I tell you
that our friendly Springer "Bill" was chosen as "Dog Of The
Day" (after we nominated him).
If you have a pet that you think deserves this distinguished honor, Click
and read here how Bill got the prize and how you too can compete for this
coveted honor :-)
As Spring approaches along come thoughts of canoeing our beautiful Sheepscot River, I would like to remind you that there is a great site on the web that gathers data from the little concrete station at the bridge by Grand Army Hill. You will notice that there is a fancy little antenna on top that communicates a stream of data about the river to the site. You can keep up to the minute on the water conditions through floods and droughts . There is also historic data for a frame of reference. Savor the Sheepscot by clicking here.
*......for BACK ISSUES of "Friends of Whitefield" newsletters (click here)
****
....and of course click
here to visit the unofficial
Whitefield website !
Some of the items planned for upcoming
issues:
*Whitefield's
lost cemeteries. *
* Dave
Jackson's inside story on his retrieval of the first astronauts to the
moon.*
* "The Islands of Whitefield" - maps of the post Ice Age by David
Chase *
* Learn
about the man from Whitefield who signed to play major league baseball.*
* Steve
Gorrill's Brewery.*
* Read
about the Whitefield mother of 8 who fought tirelessly to bring a hot lunch
program to our school.*
* Gordon Kellor's new cabinetry shop.*
* Discover fascinating details of the life
of George Whitefield, our namesake *
* Discover
about the boy who left Whitefield barefooted and penniless and ended up
building the tallest skyscraper in Detroit !*
* And
more opinions, thoughts and pictures by and of our town and its people.......*
words
to ponder.......
EDUCATION
The most important outcome of education
is to help students become independent of formal education.
- Paul E. Gray