But you still need to activate your account.
It’s fair to say the women of Matinicus Island Plantation know how to get things done.
After 100 years, the women figured, it was about time to install a plumbing system in their beloved Matinicus Island Church to replace the garden hose running from a neighbor’s home. The church is used for religious services, concerts, community suppers, weddings, funerals, bingo and more.
So they are raising the cash and maybe a few eyebrows with a cheeky 2007 calendar.
The calendars are selling briskly around midcoast Maine at $15 each, and production costs of $5,000 have already been recouped. Now, the women will use profits to modernize the kitchen.
Any extra proceeds will go toward fighting breast cancer.
“This whole thing was [Peggy Murray’s] idea,” said Ms. June, Suzanne Rankin, earlier this week.
At a social gathering, some of the island residents were pondering ways to pay for the church renovations, Rankin said.
Murray, Ms. November, suggested a take-off on the 2003 movie “Calendar Girls,” she said.
In the movie, members of the prim and proper Women’s Institute decide they need to add a new twist to their traditional calendar fundraiser. So behind the usual baked goods, the apple pressing, and the flower arrangements are the club women – nude!
In the 2007 Matinicus Island calendar, the props are not chocolate chip cookies and brownies. They’re lobster pot buoys, a guitar, and garden flowers. The calendar is titled “What Do You Women DO All Day?”
Ms. February is depicted standing in a wooden outhouse and is strategically covered by The New York Times. Ms. April has two lobster pot buoys masking her bare chest. And Ms. December is behind a guitar she is strumming on a sandy beach.
“It just seemed like such a fun idea,” Megan Cafferata, 44, of Camden and Matinicus, said Tuesday.
The Congregational Church of Matinicus started out in the 1880s as a Baptist mission, Rankin said. During its formative years it became a Methodist-Congregational church and in 1906 was dedicated as the Congregational Church of Matinicus. Now, it is a United Church of Christ congregation, she said, but it is truly nondenominational.
“Everyone on the island is a member of the church,” she said. “We embrace everyone.”
After 100 years, the women figured, it was about time to replace the garden hose running from a neighbor’s home to their beloved church with a plumbing system. The church is used for religious services, concerts, community suppers, weddings, funerals, bingo, and more.
Rankin credited area fishermen for paying for mechanical parts for the project. “We couldn’t have done it without their contribution,” she said.
The women admit the calendar is a bit bold, but say it is tastefully done. They say the cause outweighs any hint of defiance.
One calendar girl, who couldn’t make the photo shoot, Margret Maloney, 74, of Bluffton, S.C., sent a picture of herself in an old-fashioned black hat and ankle-high shoes, raising a glass of wine. That photo was digitally altered so she appears to be sitting in an Adirondak chair outside Rankin’s house with a poster covering her midsection. The sign reads: “Women’s Christian Temperance Union – wine – medicinal purposes only!”
Cafferata, Ms. October, is holding a large pitcher over a water bowl on the beach. An age-worn table is decorated with Sisters Soap, which she makes from goats’ milk and herbs, old bottles, a brush and a beach rose. A hand towel covers one side of her chest and the pitcher the other.
Her parents honeymooned on Matinicus in 1950, she said, and her grandparents bought property there shortly thereafter. Later her family bought a couple of rental cottages, which she continues to operate.
Some of the calendar girls offered first names only. Their ages range from 40-something to 80-ish.
Eva Murray, Ms. May, wears a lot of hats on the 750-acre island, located some 20 miles east of Rockland, but not in the calendar. She’s the town clerk, treasurer, assistant to the assessor, EMT, teacher, baker, blacksmith, a certified teacher, writer, columnist and more. At 42, she’s the youngest model.
Ms. December, Peggy Booth, 46, is a psychology professor at a Midwest university and speaks Swahili. She says she figured the group “might not make much money with these bodies,” but it was worth a try.
Rankin, 63, is mostly hidden behind a rose bush on the late Betsy Burr’s property with Condon’s Cove as a backdrop. Wearing a string of pearls, her left shoulder is bared.
Several of the calendar shots by photographer Sarah E. Sutter of Lisbon were taken on the Burr family land, and many were taken at Condon’s Cove.
Burr “made her place almost into a park,” Blair Clement, 65, said of the deceased islander’s garden prowess.
Clement, who is Ms. September, is behind some red Bee Balm wearing only eyeglasses and two gold necklaces with a Celtic cross dangling from one.
A retired registered nurse, Clement used to commute to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor from the island. A few years ago, she bought a house in Thomaston. In her spare time, she used to mow as many as 28 lawns on the island with a push mower. She still cuts three small lawns and the Matinicus Cemetery.
In 1967, she visited the island with her schoolteacher father.
“We came out here and I fell in love with it,” she said.
Clement was all for the calendar fundraiser.
“We knew what we were trying to do it for,” she said. “We also knew it was not going to be stark naked. We felt comfortable about our ages, our sizes, our differences. I think it was done beautifully.”
The calendars are available at the Second Read bookstore and the Island Institute’s store Archipelago, both on Main Street in Rockland. Copies may be ordered by writing to Calendar, P.O. Box 215, Matinicus Island 04851 or e-mail sisterssoap@verizon.net.
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