Beginning with the 19th century map of town and a lively introduction, I knew I was going to like the latest in Arcadia’s Images of America series – “Orono.”

With the help of the Orono Historical Society and several town residents, society president Scott D. Peterson has done a fine job bringing the Penobscot County town’s history alive. Peterson uses every angle he can find of Monument Square to show how the center of the village has changed over the years.

The section flows nicely into the chapter “Why Not Trade in Town.” Of course there’s Pat’s Pizza, but dozens of other businesses, from Leveille’s jewelry store to Park Hardware and variety stores to Hillson’s Cleaners and Byers Manufacturing. And what a great photograph of the employees of grocery store Sailor & Sons, all clad in striped vests.

For the mill history of Orono, Peterson turns to several pictures of millworkers, including millwrights in front of Orono Pulp and Paper. One of their number, it is noted, was named John Bapst King, no doubt in honor of the high school in Bangor or the priest who was its namesake.

School photographs range from a winter carnival dance in the 1940s to a production of “Mighty Casey at the Bat” in 1946-1947 to the only St. Mary’s School Orchestra in the mid-1920s.

A book on Orono would be incomplete without a chapter on the University of Maine, and this one includes subjects such as the 1895 library in Coburn Hall, an elegant buggy full of faculty members and the North Dorms constructed just after World War II to handle a growing enrollment.

There’s even a picture recalling the great student strike – not those of the late ’60s or early ’70s, but the 1909 protest over student suspensions after a night of illegal hazing.

My favorite in this group is the 1930s aerial photograph showing the UM campus before Fogler Library, the Memorial Union and some of the buildings along the Mall were constructed.

Other subjects in the volume range from sports teams to the Knights of Columbus, the American Legion and the 1888 world champion Eagle Hose Co. team at the old Orono racetrack.

Look for “Orono” in area bookstores.

While we’re on the subject of the Images of America series, I want to mention “Around Ripley,” compiled by Frank Spizuoco last year. You may remember Spizuoco as author of “Our Neighborly Neighbors: 200 Years of Rural Life in Rural Dexter, Maine, 1800-2000.”

Well, “Around Ripley” really is around Ripley, including as it does photographs not only from Ripley, but also from Corinna, Cambridge, St. Albans, Harmony and Dexter.

Having just spent a delightful afternoon with the Corinna Historical Society, I’ve been perusing those pictures in particular. I couldn’t believe the picture of Pearl Shepherd trying to fish on Main Street after the flood of 1936. I also have to admit I didn’t recall that Burt Standish, author of the Frank Merriwell books, actually was Corinna native William George Patten. Small world.

The Daughters of Union Veterans will meet at 3 p.m. Sunday, May 23, at the Abbot town hall on Route 15. Those who plan on marching in the Memorial Day parades will practice after the meeting.

The Penobscot County Genealogical Society will hold an open research night at 6 p.m. Wednesday, May 19, at Bangor Public Library. Get help with that sticky wicket, or learn about library resources.

The staff of the Bangor Symphony Orchestra will continue the tradition of planting flowers before the grave of Abbie N. Garland, honoring her memory and the vision of a symphony that she nurtured more than 100 years ago, at 3 p.m. Friday, May 28, at Bangor’s historic Mount Hope Cemetery.

Garland, a popular piano teacher and composer, conceived the idea for a symphony orchestra in Bangor in 1896. She shared the first year’s management of the organization with its first conductor, Horace Mann Pullen. She recruited the musicians for the second year’s performances and the third year she sponsored the subscription sale.

Garland was born in 1852 and died at the age of 90 in 1942. She and the two sisters who survived her, Mabel and Jennie, remained unmarried and lived in Bangor together for most of their lives.

Given Garland’s legacy to the city of Bangor – a symphony orchestra that has played uninterrupted for 108 years – the BSO staff thought it appropriate to institute the tradition of honoring Garland each Memorial Day weekend. You are invited to join the tradition.

For information, contact the BSO box office at 942-5555 or 800-639-3221, or at bangorsymphony.com/memorial.htm.

Send genealogy queries to Family Ties, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor, ME 04402; or send e-mail to familyti@bangordailynews.net.