Charity group donates files to Bangor library

BANGOR – When the Great Fire of 1911 decimated a good part of the Queen City that spring day, who even knew how to help – where to start?

Thank goodness for the women of Associated Charities, the community organization started by 19 churches back in 1883 and forerunner to today’s Community Health and Counseling Services.

“This association was able to render considerable assistance to the Relief Committee,” wrote organization President John Wilson in 1911, “not only in the actual work which its officers, especially the ladies, did but perhaps even more in suggesting plans and methods, for after the first few days it was evident that there must be system and method in the distribution in order to prevent fraud and do justice to all. It has, I believe, become evident to many who thought previously that the methods of Associated Charities were at least unnecessarily systemized, that it is just this systemized method which must be used to deal properly with any relief work.”

That work of Associated Charities was just one of the accomplishments celebrated as CHCS turned over its archives for 1883-1966 on Wednesday to Bangor Public Library.

The volumes – both in book form and on microfilm, represent “a history of Bangor that cannot be replaced,” CHCS Board President Chip Hutchins told board and community members gathered for the occasion at the library.

Those attending included representatives of several of the founding churches, “because without your great vision, we would not be here today,” Hutchins said.

The collection includes handwritten notes, budget information, newspaper clippings and information about the organization and the community, explained Sharon Brasslett, chairman of the Preservation Grant Project Team. The project was funded by the Maine Historical Records Advisory Board for the Historical Collection Grant Program with funds from the National Historic Publication and Records Commission.

Associated Charities was formed after the Civil War, at a time when “people had a consciousness of those less fortunate,” explained Bill Cook, special collections librarian at BPL. “This is the way women were emerging. It was their Christian duty to do it.”

Considering the anti-Catholic attitudes prevalent at the time, pointed out the Rev. Dr. James Haddix, pastor at All Souls Congregational Church, “it was remarkable the way the women of the churches had included everybody. It was sort of the beginning of an ecumenical coming together.”

An exhibit history of the organization, dedicated to the memory of longtime board member Charles Bragg II, also highlighted work such as aid during the Halifax Harbor Explosion of 1917 and the influenza pandemic of 1918, as well as the World War I relief effort.