When Islesboro resident Pauline Byrd turned 90, a circle of her island friends joined her for a birthday party, where she announced that, being 90 years old, she was now going to do and say “whatever I darn well please.” Puzzled looks came over the partygoers’ faces, since this represented no discernible change at all, so far as anyone could tell. Pauline has always done and said whatever she darn well pleased, and she delights in her reputation for being so outspoken since she considers that to be an admirable trait typical of islanders – to be straightforward enough to speak one’s mind.
Although Pauline did not grow up a year-round resident of Islesboro, she can trace her ancestry back to the early Islesboro families of Ames and Parker. After spending virtually every summer of her youth visiting her grandmother, Rosalind Coombs, on the island, she chose to return to the island to spend her retirement years.
Pauline’s grandmother, the former Rosalind Parker, was first married to sea captain Charles Chester Thomas, who was chloroformed to death in 1899 in a Connecticut hotel during a robbery attempt. Later, in 1905, she married Islesboro resident Robert Coombs, a ship’s carpenter. Pauline’s mother, Bernice Thomas, had lived on Islesboro until she was 14 years old, when she moved to the mainland to attend high school. Bernice moved to Waltham, Massachusetts, where she eventually met her husband (and Pauline’s father) Harold Bertram Johnson.
Accompanied by her brother and sister, Pauline would take a boat from Boston, arriving for their Islesboro summer visits at Warren’s Landing. This steamboat wharf at Pripet – built in 1847 and abandoned after World War II – was a very busy stop, with passengers and freight arriving daily. Pripet community members living nearby commonly referred to Warren’s Landing as Lime Kiln Wharf because of its proximity to a limestone quarry and kiln. According to History of Islesboro, 1893-1983, “efforts were made to change the name to Warren’s Landing, and a sign stood on the wharf for a long time bearing the name Warren’s Landing. It never caught on seriously, and is now nearly forgotten.” Not nearly forgotten by Pauline Byrd, however, who ordered me in no uncertain terms to refer to the wharf as Warren’s Landing.
In the horse-and-buggy days of Pauline’s earliest visits to her Grammy Coombs, Pripet – Islesboro’s northeastern up-island community – was a place sufficient unto itself. Even trips across the narrows to the down-island side of Islesboro were rare occurrences for most pre-automobile islanders. The separate communities were much like neighboring towns, each with their own stores, churches, and post offices. Lydia T. Pendleton, a long-time Pripet resident, relates in History of Islesboro, 1893-1983, that “If on occasion one wanted to go down island for any reason, it was an all-day trip … We had to carry the horse’s dinner of oats and hay with us. Someone was kind enough to give him a drink of water. How glad we were to get back to our own bailiwick.” It’s not clear where the name Pripet came from – Pauline reports that the only reference ever found refers to the Pripet Marshes in the country of Poland – but the US Post Office accepted the name on its postmark. Today it is a much sought-after postmark for stamp collectors.
Pauline’s memories of idyllic summer days on the island include picking luscious blueberries – but not from Grammy’s special patch, located behind the carriage house. She and her siblings would take their time walking to Beckett’s to pick up milk – which cost about ten cents a quart in those days. Pauline can still see the large snake with a toad stuck in its mouth that her mother, who was terrified of snakes, had to kill behind the house. Pauline also recalls an eerie horse-and-buggy ride to attend a chowder and dance at Ryder’s Cove, where the clip-clop of horses’ hoofs was the only sound heard in the pitch-black island night.
Pauline married Sophus Carl Bakkan in 1929, and lived in Minnesota and then South Dakota, where her daughter Nancy was born. Pauline’s second marriage, in 1954, was to a marine engineer, Harold Thomas Byrd, who worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad on tugboats which ran from Cape Charles to Norfolk, Virginia. Pauline also worked for the same railroad for nine years prior to her remarriage.
Shortly after marrying Harold Byrd, he retired and they moved to Islesboro. Despite being a southerner, Harold liked the cold – even though he and Pauline arrived in January and spent the next six weeks unable to go ashore. While holed up, Pauline and her husband started a Byrd Pripet tradition, making hot cross buns and delivering them to neighbors on Good Friday. Pauline still makes her neighborly rounds on Good Friday, and still drops off hot cross buns. After Harold passed away in 1960, Pauline moved to Portland to live with family. She retired in 1981 at the age of 70, and moved back to Islesboro, where she has been ever since – and where she will celebrate her 92nd birthday next month.
Pauline’s second retirement has been anything but idle. She divides her time between weekly bridge games, church, and the island’s popular sewing circle. She says that in order to be happy on an island, a person needs to take an interest in island activities. Of particular interest to Pauline for many years now has been the preservation of the up-island Free Will Baptist Church, originally built in 1843. Pauline’s ancestors were active members of the church, which numbered about 60 members at its peak in 1908. It is believed that the beautiful stenciling that adorns the church’s walls – carefully preserved all these years – is the work of an itinerant French painter, who reportedly did the work in 1847. An up-island sewing circle, known as the Free Will Baptist Circle, was formed (possibly as early as 1894) to keep the church in repair. Their annual fair is held the third Wednesday of August, and although the number of members has dwindled drastically, the fair is still an ongoing feature of the island’s summer schedule. Pauline was instrumental in forming the Society for the Preservation of the Free Will Baptist Church, which has raised substantial funds to preserve the church in its original state.
Music has always been an important part of Pauline’s life, beginning with violin lessons at the age of eight. She was mistress of her high school orchestra and soloist at her high school graduation. She played for over 20 years in the Portland, Maine Symphony, and continued playing regularly until she was well into her eighties.
Her love of music and strong organizational skills led Pauline to organize Islesboro’s annual talent show for ten years, taking over from David Lewis, who started the popular event. The show is held on a Wednesday night in June, and if you wanted to perform during Pauline’s tenure, you had to show up on Tuesday night for an audition. Pauline’s motto was, “nothing goes on the stage that I don’t see.” She made sure participants knew they had to dress appropriately for an event of such magnitude, and she’d set the tone by appearing in an evening gown.
Although she never knew who would show up for those Tuesday night auditions, Pauline would scout out talent throughout the year leading up to the event. Many a potential performer would innocently glance up to see Pauline steadily approaching, finger raised, to announce quite pointedly that “YOU ARE going to be in the talent show.” She wouldn’t take no for an answer, and usually everyone complied.
Having retired to Islesboro over 20 years ago for a more peaceful life, Pauline believes that nowadays too many people come to the island for the peace and quiet, while still expecting a full array of services such as the mainland offers. She finds this an unrealistic approach to island life: people need to realize that there are certain inconveniences inherent to living on an island, like waiting in a line for the ferry if you don’t have a reservation, just like everyone else. The advantages to living on an island, according to Pauline, are that you don’t have the opportunity to spend a lot of money and that you can live independently.
For a person so intent on living independently, Pauline has a keenly-developed sense of community. She finds the idea of a committee to keep track of people who live alone to be unnecessary, because people naturally care for each other in their island neighborhoods and check regularly on their welfare. Summing up her thorough enjoyment of island life, she says that the key is to be content with what you have and to think about your friends. After all, according to Pauline Byrd, that’s the island way.