(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

10 years ago – April 10, 1998

CASTINE – If Maine is the way life should be, then Estonia has a lot to look forward to.

Like Maine, the northernmost Baltic republic has some 1.4 million people, hundreds of miles of coastline and an economy that has traditionally relied on fishing and forestry. Estonian and American marine officers discovered the surprising similarities through a series of exchanges that began this year between Maine Maritime Academy and its counterpart in Tallinn, Estonia’s capital.

Like MMA, the Estonian Maritime Academy has about 620 students, from regimental ship officers for the Navy and Merchant Marine to oceanography majors.

Maine Maritime Academy has long swapped students and faculty with Russia’s maritime academy in St. Petersburg. But since January this year, it also has developed a relationship with Estonia, a small, forested country that juts out into the Baltic as though perched uncomfortably on Mother Russia’s shoulder.

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BANGOR – In Gold’s Gym on weekday afternoons, Jen Smart and Hallie Tyler are about as conspicuous as a pair of ballet dancers in the late-night dance clubs.

It’s not the amount of weight they are lifting – though they may be curling reps of 65 lbs. It’s not their gear – because other women don leotards more revealing than their workout tops.

It’s the muscles.

No one at the gym – not the men, not even the few college athletes working out – have muscles the size or definition of Smart and Tyler.

When Smart flexes, her bicep takes the shape of a miniature Mount Katahdin, giving some indication that the two women are after more than burning calories.

Smart of Old Town and Tyler of Bangor are training for the Ms. Maine Bodybuilding Championships.

25 years ago – April 10, 1983

HAMPDEN – He cradled his dulcimer in his lap as his fingers danced lightly up and down the fret board. The music was sprightly, seeming more suited to an elfin glen than a deserted classroom. His song done, he looked up, calm, complacent.

“There’s nothing nicer sounding in a dark room than to put one across your lap and play it. It fills the room,” said Gifford Stevens, folklorist and musician.

An 86-year-old woman rode from Houston to Houlton to learn dulcimer making from Stevens. Hampden Academy students needn’t travel so far.

Stevens, who has taught folklore there for three years, began the class in dulcimer making this term. Stevens supplied the wood for the dulcimers made by the Hampden Academy students. Exotic hardwoods such as mahogany, he orders from out of state. The cost of materials for a dulcimer made of Maine wood is as little as $7, he said.

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ORONO – Eilene R. Fox, coach of women’s basketball and tennis for the past eight years, has been appointed an assistant to David Ames, director of intramural activities, with the responsibility for organizing and supervising intramural and recreational activities at the University of Maine.

Fox will relinquish her duties as women’s basketball coach but will continue to coach the women’s tennis team and teach in the physical education program.

Fox came to UM as women’s tennis and basketball coach Sept. 1, 1975. In eight years, her basketball teams have won 118 games and lost 50 and won the Maine State Championship six times in the eight years. The other years her teams finished as runners-up.

50 years ago – April 10, 1958

BANGOR – City planning and business expediency clashed over Kenduskeag Stream in City Hall. The result, a compromise, could mean parking for 700 cars, not 350 as now proposed, plus the elimination of the dilapidated warehouses on the stream bank, ridding the city of its central eyesore.

The idea was that the city, through the power of eminent domain, should purchase the warehouses on both sides of the stream – on the Exchange Street side almost everything from the alleyway to the stream from State to Washington streets, and on the Broad Street side from Washington Street to about halfway up the block.

The buildings involved are all the tumble-down wooden warehouses which can be seen from either of the bridges. In addition, the city would purchase the Byrnes block in the Pickering Square area. The total assessed valuation of the property involved is $650,000.

The plan is to tear down the buildings and use the land for parking, getting the same amount of space as the city would get by covering the stream.

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BANGOR – Bangor people will be interested in an article in the current issue of The Saturday Evening Post written by Milton and Margaret Silverman, titled “Those Amazing Island Medics” – interesting to local people because it tells of the work headed by Dr. Harrie Eugene MacDonald with the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands as chief doctor.

MacDonald, a Bangor native, is the son of the late Mr. and Mrs. Harrie MacDonald of Bangor. He graduated from Bangor High School and the University of Maine, where he was a classmate of Rudy Vallee.

MacDonald went to the Medical College of Virginia and was offered an internship in Panama. He interned at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he studied brain surgery. He returned to Maine in 1933 and began a practice in Portland, where he became well-known throughout the state.

He combined a lively and successful career as a neurosurgeon with a personal battle against tuberculosis. In 1951, while recovering from chest surgery, according to The Saturday Evening Post, he spotted a classified ad in a medical journal that said “Wanted: Doctors to sit under palm trees in the South Seas.” MacDonald applied and months later a secretary from the Department of Interior telephoned him from Washington about the position.

100 years ago – April 10, 1908

BANGOR – Three new pictures are playing at The Nickel today – “An Avaricious Father,” “In the Days of Louis 14th,” and “A Romance of the Fur Country.”

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PROSPECT FERRY – Frank Harding is home from Stonington and will resume his place on the Bismark as soon as she returns from Bath.

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CARMEL – Mrs. Rosabell Hunt, the village milliner, has been to Boston lately and has purchased a fine line of goods.

Mrs. Keys, an aged lady of the village, had the misfortune to fall on her kitchen floor and received a painful injury to her hip last week.

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BANGOR – With the ceremony beautiful and impressive, the Right Rev. Monsignor Edward McSweeney was elevated to the position of domestic prelate in St. John’s Catholic Church before a congregation which occupied every pew, filled the choir gallery and even overflowed into the aisles.

The solemn occasion, the like of which had never before been witnessed in Bangor, won’t soon be forgotten. With the dignity and earnestness which characterizes the ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church, the distinguished rector of St. John’s received the honor, one fitting in every sense.

Recently, Monsignor McSweeney was appointed permanent rector of St. John’s Church, and following closely came the notification of his elevation to the position of domestic prelate. On all sides, the news was received with gratification. Especially were the parishioners pleased, for during the 34 years of labor among them McSweeney had gained a place in their affections which is given to but few pastors. Other residents of Bangor, irrespective of creed, are gratified for in public life. McSweeney has always been looked upon as a clergyman of ability.

An hour before the opening of the ceremony, people commenced to arrive and from that time on there wasn’t a let up. The handsome edifice with its artistic array of electric lights presented a brilliance bewilderingly beautiful.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin