Maurice's Memories

By Xlibris US

This book is the true story of the life of eighty-seven-year-old Arthur Maurice Neal. Maurice was in the navy, and when he was discharged from the navy, he married Corinne Crosby, and she has been by his side during all the challenges of life. We celebrate our sixty-sixth wedding anniversary this year.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499083422

Book preview

Maurice’s Memories

Corinne Neal

Copyright © 2014 by Corinne Neal.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2014918383

ISBN:                  Hardcover                      978-1-4990-8341-5

                            Softcover                        978-1-4990-8343-9

                            eBook                             978-1-4990-8342-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 10/10/2014

Xlibris LLC

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

663426

CONTENTS

Acknowledgement

Chapter 1     Early Years In Ripley, Maine

Chapter 2     Navy Deployment

Chapter 3     Marriage

Chapter 4     Home In Guilford

Chapter 5     Newport Funeral Home, Newport, Maine

Chapter 6     Skowhegan Home, Skowhegan, Maine

Chapter 7     Heading West

Chapter 8     Osburn, Idaho

Chapter 9     Kittitas, Wa

Chapter 10   Juigalpa, Nicaragua

Chapter 11   Small Is Beautiful

Chapter 12   Village Of La Libertad, Nicaragua

Chapter 13   Buena, Washington

Chapter 14   Home In Dexter, Maine

Chapter 15   San Gregorio, Nicaragua

Chapter 16   Dexter Café

Chapter 17   Cemetery Report

Acknowledgement

Thank you to:

My children:

Sheila & Steve Heneise

Peter & Laura Neal

Nina & David Speed

Wanda & Gerald Weymouth

Special Thanks to:

Nina Speed for typing and editing

Sheila and Steve Heneise for allowing us to be part of their missionary ministry

Peter Neal for keeping my computer running

Wanda Weymouth for material saved over the years

Amanda Bermudez for her input on written material

Pastor Deen for his input and encouragement

CHAPTER 1

Early Years In Ripley, Maine

T here is a small village called Ripley with approximately 20 families located in Somerset County in the State of Maine.

Wow! Have you ever been to this small village in Ripley, Maine? If you visit, you will find a very friendly town, with friendly people. You are in for a treat, especially if you travel through on a cool fall day when the sugar maples are at their best in bright yellow, red and orange. You will be saying Wow and stopping the car, retrieving your camera, and taking many pictures. When you travel down Main Street, the only street, and a relatively short street, you can look to the right and you will see a beautiful pond. It is known to most people as Ripley Pond, but I see it as my Golden Pond. This pond is spring fed, clean and cool. Now doesn’t that give you the urge to pull up a lawn chair and enjoy the fresh coolness of the air and the pleasant surroundings?

My name is Arthur Maurice Neal but when I was a child I was always called Mossie because my brother couldn’t pronounce Arthur. I was born in St. Albans, Maine. My parents moved to Ripley when I was a small baby, and we lived in the center of town across from the Grange Hall. When I was twelve, my parents purchased a farm on Woodcock Hill. We moved to the farm with my three brothers; Sheldon, George, and Clayton and my little sister, Gladys.

I was a young boy during the great depression, and times were very hard for families. My mother cooked and sewed, making most of our clothes. My father worked at many jobs.

We did not have indoor plumbing at our home and we drew water from a well beside the house. The out-house was a two-holer located in the wood shed.

My father built a box trap to catch rabbits. The box trap had a hole at each end and when a rabbit entered to get the carrot, which was the bait, the trigger was sprung and doors closed and the rabbit was fathers. Father took two seven foot skis and made a sled to haul the rabbits out of the woods. He collected the rabbits and when he had quite a few, one of his neighbors transported them to the Boston market. I can remember when mittens were knit and a piece of rabbit fur was sewn on the back of the mitten and this would keep the hand a lot warmer in the cold winter. Sometimes when father was out hunting rabbits, he would see hedge hogs up in the trees. He would shoot the hedgehogs, cut off their nose and four feet and turn them in to get a bounty of twenty-five cents.

We had a large garden in the village and mother canned vegetables and meat. Father sold vegetables at his stand by the side of the road and was famous for his potatoes. We had three cows and many hens. We took milk, eggs, and butter that we had churned, to the general store and exchanged them for coffee, sugar, flour and other necessary items

I was sick a lot when I was young and stayed in the house and my mother taught me to knit and I made mittens for the family.

We purchased flour in 25 pound bags. These flour bags were made of printed cotton and some of the bags were made of plain material. My mother cut some of the plain pieces into 12 inch squares. She taught me to embroider and I can remember embroidering butter fly’s on the flour bag pieces that were later made into a quilt.

Do you remember the ice box? It was a marvelous invention before the refrigerator. Well, my two brothers and I helped my father cut ice on the Ripley Pond for the ice boxes. Father would hire two or three other men to help cut the ice. The ice saw that was used was about 6 feet long and six inches wide with 2 inch teeth and the saw blade was about ¼ inch thick and at one end was a wooden handle. We would cut the ice into blocks of about 16 inches square. Sometimes they would be 12 inches thick and sometimes as much as 2 feet thick. The farmers in town would drive their horses onto the pond pulling racks to haul the ice. The farmers made their own racks which consisted of two sleds with a flat section in the middle for the ice. Racks would be on either side of the flat section. Everyone had an ice house and the farmers would haul the ice to the ice houses and pack the ice with layers of ice and sawdust. The sawdust would keep the ice from melting during the hot summer days. There was an ice house behind the town hall and this was storage for the general store.

In the summer, father had us help him load slab wood on the wagon and we piled it in a field across from the store. The general store was in the center of town and the saw mill was behind the store. The saw mill would cut all four sides off a log. Another man