Sanford woman pleased with PBS appearance

SANFORD – A woman who grew up in Sanford and appeared on the PBS special “Frontier House” says she was pleased with the way the show turned out.

Kristen Brooks, 28, had no idea what was included in the final version of the program until she watched the three-part series last week.

Brooks and her husband, Nate, were married on the program – which featured three families living on a re-created 1883 Montana homestead – and had been waiting for the show since filming ended in October.

“I was so nervous,” Brooks said. “I remembered some of the stuff I said on camera and was worried. But I was really pleased. I was pleased with the show as a whole. The way they covered it really showed my mood.”

“Frontier House” featured three modern-day families who lived for five months in the Montana wilderness as it was 119 years ago. The families traveled in horse-drawn wagons, built their homes by hand and cooked over open fires.

Brooks didn’t arrive in Montana until the others were there for nearly two months, and her husband-to-be had built a log home with his father for them.

When the show aired last week, workers at Norlands, Maine’s living history museum in Livermore, watched for both entertainment and professional curiosity.

Judy Bielekci, the museum’s executive director, said she was interested in historical details, such as whether the costumes were accurate and how well the houses were built.

“If the idea was to show how different life was from our 21st century, I think they achieved that, certainly,” she said. “We take so much for granted in our lives today, just the availability of food, the ability to go to the store. It’s a show that certainly has everyone talking.”

PBS officials said the program had far more viewers than they had anticipated – it had three times the average number of viewers for a typical PBS program.

“The numbers were through the roof as far as PBS is concerned,” said Beth Hoppe, executive producer of Thirteen/WNET New York, which created the show. “I was hopeful it would make a splash. A lot passion went into it. People might not have liked every character … but they were absolutely glued.”