Yesterday …

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(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

10 years ago – April 28, 1995

HOLDEN – Kristine McHugh, 10, of Holden wants to be a veterinarian, a career not many girls chose a few years ago. A pupil at Holbrook Middle School, the youngster said she is proud of the fact that girls can pick any career they want.

McHugh was one of thousands of girls in the country taking part in the third annual “Take Your Daughters to Work Day.” McHugh helped her mother, Brewer mail carrier Barbara McHugh, load her car and deliver mail to homes in the Twin City.

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BANGOR – The violin played its haunting melody at Congregation Beth Israel, and Holocaust survivor Helen Goldman raised her hand to light the candles, six of them – one for each million Jews exterminated by Hitler’s Nazis.

Earlier in the day, air-raid sirens in Israel blew for two minutes to mark Yom Ha’Shoah – Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The annual event sponsored by the synagogue and All Souls Congregational Church is always moving, always tear-filled, but this year there was a special understanding so soon after the bombing in Oklahoma City. Hate didn’t die with Hitler.

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BANGOR – When Kay Carter was a girl, a choir director told her she couldn’t sing. Come to the group, he told her, but mouth the words. It was the type of advice that silences a child in unfathomable ways. These days Carter isn’t silent and she isn’t mouthing the words any longer. As a member of Women With Wings, an all-women’s chorus in Bangor, Carter has found her voice.

“I was uncomfortable at first,” she says. “I didn’t think I could sing. But here I can sing.”

And sing she does with 30 to 50 women who meet once a week in the basement of the First Universalist Church on Park Street. They sing exclusively and uninhibitedly. They beat drums and shake rattles. They clap and dance and raise their arms in witness to the spiritual empowerment they feel.

25 years ago – April 28, 1980

CASTINE – Graduating seniors at Maine Maritime Academy were urged to help contribute to efforts to revitalize the U.S. merchant marine industry.

Speaking to the 140 members of the Class of 1980 who graduated at the commencement exercises held at the MMA field house, Walter J. Amoss Jr., president of the Lykes Bros. Steamship Co., said the nation’s current ranking as sixth in the world in maritime fleets suggests “we are a passive maritime nation.”

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BANGOR – Cool, overcast skies that produced intermittent rain, heavy at times, and low water conditions prevailed at the 14th annual Kenduskeag Stream Canoe Race, as did 31-year-old Jeff Wren, who paddled his 14-9 Leiser King kayak home in 2:07:10 to pass the best time among the record 277 crafts.

Wren, the University of Maine at Orono’s women’s swim coach, was using the Leiser King – a recent birthday present from his wife, Rae – for the first time and captured the K-1 Long class with it. He beat rival Reinhard Zollitsch by 10 minutes and 19 seconds. The victory was Wren’s fourth straight – although he didn’t race a year ago – and it was the third straight time the graduate of William and Mary has recorded the race’s best time, including his course record time of 1:55:20 two years ago.

50 years ago – April 28, 1955

BANGOR – Ten young musicians from high school bands in the Bangor area who will sit in with the U.S. Navy Band were announced by Norbert X. Dowd, executive secretary of the Bangor Chamber of Commerce.

The boys and girls selected are Donald Thomas and Peter Anderson of Bangor; Connie Tierney and Barbara Field of Brewer; Richard Sibo of Old Town; John Dudley of Lincoln; Pamela Brockway and Jerry Briscoe of Orono; and Sandra Bowden and Nancy Ashmon of Bucksport.

The concert will be highlighted by the appearance of guest conductors Francis Shaw, director of the University of Maine and Bangor Bands; Samuel Harris, Bangor High School’s music director, and Kay DeWitt, local singer.

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BANGOR – Brownie Troop 19 held a Mother-Daughter tea at the Jewish Community Center. Approximately 30 Brownies and their mothers were present.

An entertainment was provided by the girls: Erica Segal, Gail Segal, Rosalind Striar, Kathy Solomon, Ann Dresner, Betsy Gottlieb, Sharon Goodall, Sheila Lynch, Linda Hamel, Lorraine Boulier and Lynn Glazier.

Refreshments were served from beautifully appointed tables centered with colorful floral arrangements. Pourers were Brownies Sheila Striar and Mindy Michelson.

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BANGOR – Bangor Theological Seminary, one of the oldest institutions of its kind, had taken a 60-day option to purchase the estate of the late Hayford Peirce on Cedar Street, according to Dr. Frederick W. Whittaker, president of the seminary.

The property was purchased more than two years ago by the Penobscot-Oriental Lodge, IOOF. The Odd Fellows planned to move there from the present hall at 43 Park St., which the organization owns.

Due to an edict by the Bangor Zoning Board, the organization was not permitted to move its lodge activities into the large brick building and for more than two years has had the property on its hands.

The seminary proposes to convert the lovely old residential building into 12 apartments for married students. Half of the 81 students now enrolled at the seminary are married, Dr. Whittaker pointed out, and the need for additional housing is acute.

100 years ago – April 28, 1905

BANGOR – Hundreds of salmon were in those days taken with the fly from these Penobscot River pools, and thousands were taken in the weirs along the river below Bangor. Now the salmon is so rare in these waters that the taking of a single fish is an event of such interest as to call for a mention in the newspapers. The open season for salmon began April 1, and in the first three weeks this year just three fish were taken. One was caught with the fly in the Bangor pools, one was hooked then shot, while the other was caught in a downriver weir.

Two principal causes are assigned for the disappearance of the splendid sea salmon, which were once so plentiful in the Penobscot – the pulp mills and the weirs. About 15 years ago, when the pulp mills began to rise along the river above Bangor, the effects of the contamination of the water by acids and other waste from the mills were at once apparent in the diminished run of salmon.

The Penobscot salmon, big and strong as he is, is the daintiest of fishes, very particular about his food and shunning all polluted waters.

Still another enemy has the salmon – the lawless dynamiter. When in early summer, a few of the returning salmon have reached the spawning waters – lakes and streams far up the Penobscot – these lawless types kill scores and hundreds of the fishes by exploding dynamite cartridges in the water. In that region a salmon is not worth much, although in Bangor it would bring a good price – in New York much more. Some of the dynamited fish are used for food, while many are thrown away.

The rocks along the river at Bangor pools and below are white with acid from the pulp mills, and for many years the river water had been considered unfit for drinking.

An old fisherman said, “If human beings, who can stand Maine whiskey, won’t drink the water, it is no wonder that the salmon – the fussiest and cleanest of fish – won’t either.”

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BREWER – The double-tenement house known as the Goodrich property at the corner of State and Holyoke streets had been sold by Mrs. Nellie G. Olin to Drusilla and Ada L. Russell of South Brewer, who are planning to make the house over into a hospital. The Misses Russell are trained nurses and graduates of the Maine General Hospital in Bangor. It is expected that the hospital will open on June 1.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin