YESTERDAY …

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(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

10 years ago – April 24, 1998

BREWER – A raging fire tore through a 110-year-old barn on North Main Street, destroying several antique cars and some macabre set pieces used in the movie “Stephen King’s Graveyard Shift.”

The three-story gray, 50-by-100-foot building and its adjacent Colonial-style farmhouse are something of a landmark in the community.

Throughout the afternoon, dozens of horrified onlookers, kept at a distance by the intense heat, stared as the crackling flames ate away at the walls of the barn, ebbing and swelling like waves on a beach. Embers flew through the air, landing on a tree here, a patch of grass there.

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BANGOR – It cost her a stripe, a demotion from sergeant to corporal, but in China during World War II, Annie McNeil McCarthy dated a first lieutenant anyway. She refused to give his name so he wouldn’t lose his wings.

Forbidden to dally either with officers or local populace, the daring young member of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps then accepted an irresistible, illicit invitation from a Hindu prince in India. That time, she didn’t get caught. But, lesson learned, she never saw him again.

McCarthy, 77, a Bangor native who ended up marrying a Bangor police officer, can tell lots of stories about risks taken in far-off places, risks most women of her generation never dreamed of taking.

She ate water buffalo in India, picnicked unknowingly in the private gardens at Gen. Chiang Kai-shek’s summer house in China and buzzed the Taj Mahal in a C-54 cargo plane.

25 years ago – April 24, 1983

BRADLEY – For just a few minutes, 11-year-old Shannon Brown was in the cold water of Otter Stream, hanging onto some low lying branches.

Her body temperature plunged to 93 degrees and she had resisted the current just about as long she was able.

Henry Baker, 74, was watching from the window of his School Street home.

He watched as Shannon tried to ride her bike across the main road, which was flooded by heavy rains draining from the Sunkhaze watershed.

There was too much stream trying to get into not enough river in too short a time. But the 18-inch-deep water running across the road didn’t look dangerous to an 11-year-old.

Baker and his son, Garry, a Gardiner schoolteacher on spring vacation, ran to the boat and started across to Shannon to rescue her.

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ORONO – A timely anthology of poems protesting nuclear involvement has been edited by a Maine Public Broadcasting Network radio producer and a member of the English department at the University of Maine. Virgil Bisset of the MPBN staff and Constance Hunting of the UM English department have produced the anthology, “In a Dark Time.”

The book has hit the bookstores just as the debate is raging whether this country should establish nuclear warheads in Europe.

50 years ago – April 24, 1958

BANGOR – The State of Maine Chapter of the American Academy of General Practice will hold its spring meeting at the Eastern Maine General Hospital.

The morning session will be given over to a clinic to be conducted by staff physicians at the hospital. The afternoon program will be given over to lectures by outstanding local physicians in the Bangor area: Dr. John Woodcock, Dr. Allan Woodcock, Dr. Robert J. Barrett Jr., Dr. Robert O. Kellogg, Dr. Donald Coulton, Dr. John E. Burke, Dr. Magnus F. Ridlon and Dr. Carl E. Blaisdell.

While their husbands are at the EMGH hearing about the latest in medicine and surgery, the wives will not be neglected. There will be a luncheon at the Bangor House, and Fred Perkins of Rockland will address the group. Mr. Perkins was technical adviser for dialect and dialogue for the movie “Peyton Place” both during the filming in Camden and during the final work in Hollywood.

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BANGOR – More than 150 friends, family members and business associates turned out for a testimonial banquet at the Pilots Grill in honor of the Schiro shoe family, celebrating their 50th anniversary.

Mrs. Cyrus Schiro, wife of the founder, beamed at the head table as friends from all walks of life paid tribute to the business acumen and community spirit of Albert and Sidney Schiro, president and treasurer respectively of the Schiro shoe business, the largest independent retail shoe operation in Maine.

Speaker after speaker paid tribute to the family whose shoe business was founded in 1908 in Bangor by the late Cyrus Schiro, an immigrant, who literally peddled his wares from a knapsack on his back in the early Maine days.

100 years ago – April 24, 1908

BANGOR – Under the direction of its new leader, A.W. Sprague, the Bangor Band of 25 pieces gave a concert in City Hall followed by a hop.

If a company of cherubim had dropped down onto earth and had played harps and lutes, the audience would have undergone no more surprise than it did with the opening number. For the Bangor Band is undergoing a metamorphosis.

Six weeks ago Mr. Sprague took the band. He found splendid material, but lack of interest and concentration. He took the material in hand, aroused enthusiasm, demanded concentration, added a fragment of genius of his own and the result is nothing short of startling. Bangor people will certainly have a big surprise in store when the organization gives its first open air concert in Center Park. The music the band furnished included “Quartet” from “Riggoletto,” excerpts from “Carmen,” selections from “The Merry Widow” and Sousa’s “Washington Post” march.

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ORRINGTON – Preston Wood was kicked by his horse and broke his right leg below the knee. Mr. Wood and Charles Atwood with Mr. Wood’s horse and jigger took a load of mason’s materials from East Orrington to Orrington, and returned home about 4 p.m. The horse was quite frisky and several times kicked up. When they were in front of Austin Johnson’s house, they turned out to let a team pass. The horse kicked up and struck Mr. Wood in the leg. Both gentlemen were sitting on the front end of the jigger and Mr. Wood received the whole force of the blow. He was taken into Austin Johnson’s house and later removed to his home in East Orrington where Dr. Wheeler of Brewer and Dr. Robinson of Bangor reduced the fracture.

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EAST ORLAND – George G. Gray has leased the Globe Hotel at East Orland to G.H. Leach. After he has made a few repairs Mr. Leach intends to serve dinners for F.P. Minson’s mill crew. The hotel was so badly damaged by the fire that it cannot be run in the elegant manner that it was when Mr. Gray was proprietor. It will probably be closed again in a few months as the mill only runs a short time. It will be a great comfort to the people to be able to see the blue smoke coming from those chimneys once more.

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BUCKSPORT – An entertainment called “An Evening with New England Poets” will be held in the Methodist Episcopal Church vestry on May 1. Fancy articles, May baskets and candy will be on sale. Buy May baskets for the children instead of making them. The proceeds of the evening will go to the YMCA to send a delegate to Silver Bay in June.

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BREWER – Mr. Frank Oakes is making quite extensive repairs on his motorboat the “Grace.” He expects to have the boat ready for launching about the first of May.

Mr. Fred Thomas is having his boat painted and will soon have her ready for use.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin