Columnist Hapgood dies at 94 ‘Clearing House’ written for Portland paper

PORTLAND – J. Frances Hapgood, who for 32 years wrote the popular Clearing House column in the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram, died Friday at Mercy Hospital. She was 94.

Referring to herself as Ye Ed, Hapgood used the daily column to help people help each other with the big and small problems of daily life.

“She lived for it. She loved the people; everybody that sent her a note or a letter, she responded to,” said her nephew, David Small.

Hapgood’s tall, eccentric hats made her easy to spot among the thousands of people who gathered at Thomas Point Beach in Brunswick for the newspaper’s annual Clearing House picnic.

A Harrison native, Hapgood went to work after high school in the credit department at Mobil Oil. But she had an interest in journalism and took a course at the YMCA. Armed with an understanding of reporting, she applied for a job at the Press Herald and was hired in 1946 as a society reporter.

It was a job she loved and devoted all her energies to. “I put my heart and soul into it,” she said in a 1989 interview in the Maine Sunday Telegram. “But I wanted to do more. In the summer, you got to do features and I really liked that.”

Her push to do more was rewarded in 1952 when she started writing Clearing House. The column, which began as a forum for exchanging housekeeping ideas, soon turned into a powerful tool for helping those in need.

Hapgood used the column to launch Christmas Caravan in 1957. The goal of the program was to provide clothing or toys to children who might not otherwise receive gifts. Readers took to the annual appeal, contributing countless handmade items.

Hapgood’s Clearing House column also created a group called the Friendship Club – people who wrote to the column and wanted to meet each other.

Hapgood was active in the Maine Wing of the Civil Air Patrol, serving as a lieutenant-colonel.