CALAIS – For years, Nancy Gillis wondered whatever happened to her grandmother’s recipe for Christmas pudding.

She had asked family members, including aunts, about the recipe, but none seemed to have a copy.

Then a story in the Bangor Daily News last month, about the city’s plan to celebrate its 150th birthday later this month, put Gillis, a member of the Calais School Committee, back in touch with her grandmother’s recipe along with nearly 60 others from her grandmother Mary’s neighbors and friends.

Former mayor Judy Alexander said that shortly after the story appeared, she received a telephone call from Rachel Burden of Presque Isle telling her about the recipe book she had received years earlier when she had lived in Calais.

Burden and her husband Frederick lived in Calais from 1960 until 1966. She was a teacher, and he was principal of the high school. When the Burdens announced they were leaving, Fred Burden’s secretary, Edith Pomeroy, decided to do something special for them, so she collected recipes from teachers and parents. She put them in a book, and that is the book that found its way back to Calais 35 years later.

After the article about the city’s birthday bash, Burden contacted Alexander and told her she would like to share the content of the recipe book with Calais residents.

Inside the book, Rachel Burden wrote, “Our six years in Calais were very happy ones. People were so accepting of us and so very friendly. By sharing the cookbook, I feel that I am thanking Calais people for their kindness to the Burdens,” she said.

Calais resident Cindy Richendollar went to Presque Isle and picked up the book.

Alexander has been busy reproducing it. She has enlarged the print for easier reading.

She showed the book to Gillis, who was interested in selling copies. “So I just flipped through the original book, and I came to this page and saw the signature. I thought, ‘Oh my God that’s my grandmother.’ Then I looked up on the page and I saw ‘Christmas pudding.’ It’s the recipe we thought was lost for years. …We had looked through my father’s things and my mother’s things and it wasn’t there. So it was pretty emotional, I started crying. Here it was in my grandmother’s own handwriting,” she said.

Gillis said she bought four books for her family. She said she was eager to make the recipe this year. “You have to have real homemade whipped cream, no Cool Whip stuff. It’s got to be the real thing. I am not going to milk the cow however,” she said with a laugh.

The book also includes recipes for oatmeal bread and chocolate pie, as well as a recipe for porcupine meatballs and Texas hash. All of the recipes carry the names of the authors who submitted the tasty delights.

Alexander donated two copies of the cookbook to the Calais Free Library. Librarian Marilyn Sotirelis said she remembered Frederick Burden because he was her high school principal. “He was such a strong personality,” she said. “He was a special principal, he really was.”

Sotirelis said one copy of the cookbook would be available for circulation, and the other would be kept in the Maine collection safe storage section. “They are wonderful old recipes, and although the cook book has historical significance, it is also something useful,” she said.

Some of the recipes could date back 150 years, because traditionally, recipes are handed down from mother to daughter. Sotirelis said the recipes carry some of Calais’ oldest family names including Beckett and LaPointe.

The recipe book can be purchased at area stores for $5. Proceeds from the sale will be used for the city’s 150th birthday celebration.