Open house honors Atkinson woman

ATKINSON — More than 150 Piscataquis County residents and out-of-state visitors honored Helen Speed Kinney on Saturday at an open house in honor of her 90th birthday held at the Atkinson United Methodist Church.

Mrs. Kinney was born Sept. 14, 1901, in Atkinson, “the day President McKinley died.” She has the newspaper announcing that news to the nation among the memorabilia she has collected and cherished for 90 years.

The oldest of eight children born to the late Hattie and Hartwell Speed of Atkinson, attended Atkinson schools and graduated from Foxcroft Academy in Dover-Foxcroft in 1921. She taught in the Culter elementary schools.

On Sept. 7, 1922, she married Wilbur Kinney, also an Atkinson native. He worked many years as a maintenance road patrolman for the Atkinson, Charleston and Sebec areas before his retirement.

The couple have three living children. A fourth child, Calvin Kinney, is deceased. Children are Bernard Kinney, retired and living in Ontario; Phyllis Smith of Atkinson and Wayne Kinney of Worcester, Mass. She has 14 grandchildren, and 20 great-grandchildren, the latest one born Thursday, Sept. 12, Max Orfanidis of Vermont.

Mrs. Kinney, now widowed, has spent her life taking care of her home and family. She is a member of the Atkinson United Methodist Church, the former Penquis Rock Club, which she said was “involved with minerals, not the modern kind of music”; the former Atkinson Extension and Atkinson Farm Bureau; and the former Atkinson Mills Grange.

She enjoys crafts and is known for her quilting, which is displayed each summer at the UMC Quilt Show. She has completed many hooked and braided rugs. According to many Atkinson residents, “She still makes the best apple pie in the County.”

Asked to what she attributes her many years she said “hard work and love of family.”

Mrs. Kinney was presented a proclamation from the citizens of Maine and the state Senate, many flowers and cards, and a birthday cake.

Guests attending were from throughout the area, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Vermont and Canada.