Colcord: wrote of childhood experience on the sea

Capt. Lincoln Alden Colcord and Jane French Sweetser Colcord, two newlyweds from Searsport, sailed the bark Charlotte A. Littlefield around the world. When they returned home three years later, they were parents of two children, Joanna “Nan” Carver Colcord, born in 1882 in the South Seas, and Lincoln Ross Colcord, born in 1883 during a storm off Cape Horn.

Sharing similar experiences with other children in 19th century maritime families, Nan and Lincoln spent much of their childhood and adolescence at sea on various ships. Joanna photographed some of their adventures, including one trip in 1899 when Joanna accompanied her father on the State of Maine on a voyage to China.

The Penobscot Marine Museum’s collection includes many photos taken by Joanna Colcord during trips to places such as Asian ports. Some of them may be viewed on www.penobscotbayhistory.org. A University of Maine graduate, Joanna Colcord earned an undergraduate degree in chemistry (1909) and a master’s degree in biological chemistry (1909). Her theses may be viewed at www.library.umaine.edu or through the URSUS online library system.

She then made a major career change and studied at the New York School of Philanthropy and became a social worker.

After successful administrative careers in New York and Minnesota, she became a department director from 1929 to 1944 for the Russell Sage Foundation, which currently describes itself on its Web site as “an operating foundation directly involved in the conduct and dissemination of social science research. Colcord retired in 1944 for health reasons.

In 1950, Colcord married longtime colleague and widower professor Frank J. Bruno in Bangor, but Bruno died in 1955. Colcord’s complications from diabetes forced the amputation of one of her legs. She moved to Indiana to live with a stepson, where she died in 1960, according to Jeff Hollingsworth’s “Magnificent Mainers.”

Colcord was nationally known as a scholar, administrator and writer who published numerous articles in professional journals. Her brother also became a writer and was a journalist.

Among her social welfare books are “Broken Homes: A Study of Family Desertion and Its Social Treatment” (1919); “The Long View: Papers and Addresses by Mary E. Richmond” (1930); Joanna Colcord selected, edited, wrote biographical notes; “Community Planning in Unemployment Emergencies: Recommendations Growing Out of Experience” (compiled by Joanna Colcord; 1930); “Setting up a Program of Work Relief” (1931); “Emergency Work Relief, As Carried Out in Twenty-Six American Communities, 1930-1931” (1932); “Community Programs for Subsistence Gardens” (1933; with Mary Johnston); and “Cash Relief” (1936).

During the Great Depression, Colcord was a strong advocate for some type of social security and health insurance programs.

Colcord, like her brother, never forgot family stories and her own experiences at sea. She wrote two books, both with introductions written by Lincoln Colcord “Roll and Go: Songs of American Sailormen” (1924); and “Songs of American Sailormen” (1938). Her third sea book is “Sea Language Comes Ashore” (1945), a dictionary of words and phrases whose origins are found in the sailing world.

An excerpt from Colcord’s article “Domestic Life on American Sailing Ships” (American Neptune, July 1942) is reprinted on Maine Public TV’s “Home: The Story of Maine” page.

A book on both Joanna and Lincoln Colcord was published in 1999, titled “Letters from Sea, 1882-1901: Joanna and Lincoln Colcord’s Seafaring Childhood” by Parker Bishop Albee.

Sources: Waterboro Public Library’s Maine Writer’s Index at www.waterborolibrary.org; Russell Sage Foundation at www.russellsage.org; Penobscot Marine Museum at www.penobscotbayhistory.org; “Magnificent Mainers” by Jeff Hollingsworth, Covered Bridge Press, North Attleborough, Mass., 1995; University of Maine’s Fogler Library at www.library.umaine.edu.

The Bangor Daily News, in cooperation with the Maine

Historical Society’s online museum Maine Memory Network, the Maine FolkLife Center and others, will highlight a different woman each day throughout March.