This time of year brings back so many good memories. The last weeks of June and the first week of July is when my parents, my brother and I had our turn to use the family summer house on Little Cranberry Island. For the rest of the summer it was either occupied by my grandparents, or my aunt, uncle and cousins.
The preparation for our trip to Maine, from Rochester, New York, began as soon as school was out. Our mother took us to the library, and to Chilson’s drug store for comic books, pencils, paper, Lifesavers, and Dramamine. However, we did not have access to any of these goodies (except the Dramamine) until after we had been in the car for at least one hour.
On the night before the big trip to Maine, my father would pack our old Plymouth Valiant station wagon, while our beagle, Penny, would hop in and out of the car, her nerves frazzled at the sight of the suitcases. On the day of departure, Dad rode to work with his carpool buddies for a half day at his office at Eastman Kodak.
No sooner did he leave, then my mother, my brother and I would take all of the bags out of the car and rearrange them, positioning the suitcases to create the coveted “lying down spot” in the center of the luggage area. The drive took about 14 hours and we did it in two days. We picked dad up after lunch, and drove until we reached Springfield, Massachusetts for the night. Penny, who got to ride up front with my parents, was so afraid to be left behind that she would not even leave the car to pee until we got to the island and she reached the lawn in front of the Islesford Museum.
My father’s summer travel attire was a white shirt, a seersucker suit, and a bow tie. He also wore white bucks between Memorial Day and Labor Day, which caused a few people to mistakenly refer to him as “doctor” on these trips. Maybe it was because we picked him up from work in those clothes, but he wore them both days in the car. One very hot summer we convinced him to wear shorts. He was so uncomfortable sitting among the other businessmen in their suits at the restaurant the next morning that he never traveled in shorts again!
The bridge between New Hampshire and Maine was a special landmark for us. If it was a sunny day, Penny would duck her head as each shadow of the crossbeams passed through the car; thinking she was about to be hit. Crossing the “ducking bridge,” meant we were in Maine.
Dad would call Elmer Spurling when we stopped for lunch, and he would be there to pick us up in the Hobo by the time we reached Southwest Harbor. Once on the island, Emerson Ham would take our luggage by truck while we walked the path to our house, first crossing the museum lawn.
My brother and I would run through the house absorbing all of the familiar and longed-for smells of Islesford. One of the first things we did was to flush some paper down the toilet and race out to the beach to watch it come out through the sewer pipe.
During the next three weeks we would sail and row as much as we could, toss bottles out to sea and bomb them with rocks from the beach, walk to the store in the early morning to pick up freshly made donuts, fish for pollock with hand lines from the Islesford Dock, and spend quarters at the long glass penny candy counter in Emerson and Hildegarde’s store.
We always hoped we would be on Islesford at the right time in June to see the biplane flying just above the treetops as it sprayed DDT over the islands to control the mosquitoes. It was quite a thrill.
Once I was old enough, it became an annual event to pack a lunch and circumnavigate the island. The trek is about four miles over rough rocks and pebbly beaches, and one must plan to hit Marsh Creek at low tide, or suffer wet feet for part of the walk.
My sister-in-law, Kelly, describes one of her favorite summer routines as when her father would call up from the dock, after a day of lobstering, to ask her mother to bring him a clean shirt, a pack of cigarettes, and his wallet. This meant the family and assorted friends would be going over to Great Cranberry in the Mother Ann to have dinner at the Cranberry Cove Restaurant.
It was run by the Bunker sisters, Ada, Leona, and Polly, who were some of the best cooks around. Kelly’s sister Karen, remembers being in “Wits and Nitwits,” the annual Ilesford variety show, as a summer highlight. Sarah Corson recalls as a young girl, finding a cave in the woods with candy in it, left by elves. Generations of children from the Lord family and others have found the elves’ cave and pulled up the heavy rope to find a surprise.
Some of the island activities of my youth have gone by the wayside. Thankfully, all of the houses on the island have septic systems now, and the town voted to stop spraying with DDT in 1963.
Despite the annual onslaught of mosquitoes, kids still spend most of their time outdoors. They play flashlight tag, fish from the Co-op dock with hand lines, look for sea glass, ride bikes with freedom, jump off the dock to swim, and lie down outside at night to watch for meteors. Some are lucky enough to live here, but many of them have traveled for hours by car to spend a few weeks on Islesford following their favorite summer routines.