PRESERVING A LEGACY At her Route 1 store in Searsport, Colleen York has been stocking her own line of james and jellies for five decades

Necessity is the mother of invention, goes the old adage. Sixty-six years ago, Colleen York proved that one right.

In 1941, at the end of the Great Depression, young Colleen wanted a new dress and pictures for her high school graduation, but she couldn’t afford them. She grew up raising vegetables and livestock with her family in an old sea captain’s home near the Searsport-Stockton town line. She and her father devised a plan to help her get ready for the big day.

“My father said, ‘There’s a whole field of wild strawberries,'” she recalled. “‘You pick them and I’ll give you 100 pounds of sugar and you can make jam. Whatever money you make, you can keep.'”

She got her dress and her pictures, thanks to a simple family recipe that has remained unchanged throughout the years: hand-picked wild strawberries, sugar, pectin and water.

She enjoyed making jam so much that she kept with it, through the lean years of World War II when sugar was rationed, through the 1950s, when she and her late husband, Robert, raised their children. She has made jam and jelly up until the present day, running her store, A Touch of Country, from the same location on Route 1 in Searsport where she opened the shop 50 years ago this year.

York opened for business this year on Memorial Day, after months of preparation. She says business starts out slow, but picks up after school gets out. Some of her devoted customers already have reserved their purchases for the year.

“One of my customers buys up some strawberry jam, and then she saves it and eats it all herself. She gives Smuckers to her family,” she said, chuckling. “Though Smuckers isn’t that bad! I’d eat it if I didn’t make my own.”

Next door to the shop is York’s home, surrounded by a red wooden fence, hanging planters full of geraniums and windswept rhododendrons. She and Robert built the house and the shop in the 1950s. Inside, a dining room table is set with a pot of African violets, and a little wood stove chugs away through most of the year, keeping the place cozy and comfortable.

She’s a petite woman, with ginger-colored hair, bright blue-green eyes and an inviting manner. No one leaves her house without at least sharing a cup of tea with her.

“I love to meet people,” she said. “I’ve met people from all over the world – Hawaii, England, Germany.”

In the first years of her business she sold just her classics: wild strawberry, raspberry and blueberry. She has since expanded to 32 varieties, including blackberry, elderberry, cherry, orange marmalade, mint jelly (which she makes with mint grown in the backyard), an assortment of chutneys and a wickedly delicious raspberry chocolate sauce.

In the past few years she has introduced Queen Anne’s lace jelly, made from the ubiquitous white wild flowers, as well as raspberry zinfandel, champagne jelly and the delicately flavored strawberry rose petal.

“I’m always experimenting,” she said. “Next I’d like to break into making sugar-free jams, but I’m still working on that.”

York’s favorite jam remains her original: wild strawberry, which she sells at a premium to her devoted customers.

“Wild strawberries are getting scarce,” said York. “There used to be strawberry fields everywhere. They’d be on the side of the road. Now, I only have a few places to go. I go up the back roads, making note of all the patches of blossoms. Customers order them ahead, but I try to keep a few on the shelf. They are liquid gold.”

Her shop features two rooms displaying her products and the gift baskets she and her daughter put together. York also sells jewelry and pottery from local artisans, as well as candy, maple syrup, collectibles and – as the sign outside attests – lupine seed.

York’s career in the fine art of jam and jelly making has taken her all over the state to find berries. Colleen and Robert would travel along the coast and up north in search of the elusive wild strawberries.

“We’d go clear up to Greenville to find strawberries, and you know if you’ve ever picked wild strawberries how damned tired you can get,” she said. “He’d drive us back, and I’d sit in the car and hull strawberries all the way home.”

York is a busy woman, on top of her jam business. With the exception of six years in the early 1970s, she has been secretary for the Searsport Historical Society since 1964. She goes to the United Methodist Church in Belfast because services start a little later. That way, she can still get her jam making in during the morning – York gets up at the heroic hour of 3:30 a.m. to start cooking.

“Before it gets hot out,” she said. “By 5 or 6 o’clock [a.m.] I’m done. I close [the shop] at 4 p.m., and then I go out and pick all my berries for the next day.”

York said her secret is to make it fresh, keep it simple and to enjoy every minute that she’s making her jam.

“It’s good. It’s made fresh. No preservatives,” she said. “You don’t get rich, but you’ve got to like what you do.”

Since Robert’s death 12 years ago, York has been picking and preparing her berries on her own. Though now she might not move with the speed she once did, she’s showing no signs of stopping.

“I can’t sit on my butt. I love to do it. I never get tired of it,” she said. “And I have good relatives, and good friends. God has been good to me.”

A Touch Of Country is located on Route 1 in Searsport, near the Searsport-Stockton town line. It is open through mid-October. Emily Burnham can be reached at eburnham@bangordailynews.net.