It’s that time again! The biannual fundraiser of the Long Island Community Library. Where else can you buy books, flowers, and baked goods, as well as bid on artwork and purchase raffle tickets for beautiful themed baskets created by island organizations and individuals. There were even opportunities to listen to great music and create paper flowers. Mostly it’s a fine time to gather with island friends and neighbors and celebrate our wonderful island library, on a gorgeous July (20th) day.
Karen Boss, the new curator of the small glass case in the library, has created a brilliant new exhibit for our enjoyment: Who is who? 55 photographs of islanders as babies or children are on display – and it’s up to us to figure out who is who! Prizes will be given.
Come on down and see this wonderful exhibit!
I was recently introduced to a trilogy of books: Seashell Bay novels. While in the genre of romance novels, Long Islanders would be interested in reading this series that takes place on an island in Casco Bay called “Seashell Bay” (which seems like kind of an odd name for an island, but whatever).
Written by V. K. Sykes ( the husband and wife duo of Vanessa Kelly and Randy Sykes) the first book, “Meet me at the Beach” is dedicated “For Phil and Anne Kelly, who showed us the way to Seashell Bay.” In the acknowledgements, they write “Seashell Bay is a fictional place, of course. But there is certainly a Casco Bay, and it provided us with much inspiration for our series. Grateful thanks go to the residents of one small island in particular, especially Bob Stack, Liz and Robin Walker, and Harriet Davis and her two wonderful girls, Claire and Annie (thanks for finding the missing angel, Claire!).” Turns out Vanessa is the daughter of Phil Kelly and his first wife Flora. As most of you know Anne’s sister is Liz, and her niece is Harriet. So, the Davis family was Vanessa’s introduction to Long Island, and inspired her setting her trilogy on our fair island.
Reading through “Meet me at the Beach” is great fun for a Long Islander, trying to glimpse familiar places. In some ways Seashell Bay seems to be a bigger island, perhaps more like a Peaks Island. But there are common themes to Long Island – dances, the VFW, trying to control development, local kids leaving home to get as far away as possible from the island, local kids who choose to stay, the lobstering life, family feuds, generations of Irish American families, alcoholism, a Catholic Church, and the pros and cons of having a car ferry. I’m eager to read the other two books in the series: “See you at sunset,” and “Summer at the shore,” both of which follow the story of two of the friends of Lily, the heroine in the first novel. It’s always fun to read about your hometown, even under the guise of romance novel/beach reads.
Bunnies are a folkloric figure and symbol of Easter, as well as of spring. Here on Long Island bunnies abound on the Bunny Hop Road. This is our tribute to the Bunny Hop Road, through photographs of some of our favorite bunnies, along with bunnies from the collections of Ann Caliandro, Penny Murley, and Meredith Sweet, and bunnies featured in books from the Long Island Community Library.
We welcome your stories about the Bunny Hop Road!
Curated by Erin Love and Nancy Noble
Long Island Community Library, Winter-Spring 2016
Well, it may not officially be winter on the calendar, but on Long Island winter has arrived, with snow on Thanksgiving. So, to celebrate the season, we have a lovely winter exhibit of snowmen, collected over the years by Penny Murley. Stop by the small exhibit case, between the library and small meeting room, and say hello to this wonderful collection of snowmen.
Word is out – the 1924 tax records, owned by the City of Portland, are now available for research! Just go to the site (available through the Maine Memory Network, a site of the Maine Historical Society) to find your house or favorite building on Long Island:
http://www.mainememory.net/search/ptr
Probably the best way to see them all is to type in “Long Island” into the keyword search box.
You can limit the search by street address, owner, etc.
You will be able to see a picture of the building, as well as other information.
The Portland, Maine, 1924 Tax Records were created as part of a city-wide tax reevaluation. The 2 3/4″ x 4″ original black and white photographs provide extraordinary documentation of the appearance and condition of every taxable property in the city at that time. The accompanying tax forms provide equally valuable information, including the use of the property, the original building materials and finishes and the property’s assessed value as of 1924. On the back of each form, a pencil sketch illustrates the size and shape of the building footprint on the property.
The collection consists of 131 books containing approximately 30,000 pages, each page recording a single property (properties with more than one building will generally have a page for each building). The records were kept in a cabinet in the Portland tax assessor’s office in City Hall until 2009.
Having these records available online has created quite a buzz all over Portland and Casco Bay, and great fun for researching houses, although some are no longer or unrecognizable.
This was a joint project between the City of Portland, the Portland Public Library, and the Maine Historical Society.
The Red Dory – a Long Island Book
by Chris McDuffie
It is not only the new books in our library which are interesting. I signed out The Red Dory by Hazel Wilson recently because I knew its author had spent a lot of time in her family’s cottage next to ours in Beach Cove, the one now owned by her grand nephew Greg Brown. Hazel Wilson published about 20 books, mostly for young readers, and The Red Dory was her first, published in 1939. It presents the summer adventures of a boy, Donald, living with his grandparents on Long Island.
In this book Wilson changed the name of Long Island to Pine Island, but there is no doubt as to the real location when she talks of Harbor de Grace where Donald lives, catching a lobster thief off the Stepping Stones, and taking summer people fishing off Outer Green Island.
Pasted in the back of the library’s copy there is a note from Hazel Wilson to a Mrs. Hewey which says, “The old captain in the book is partly modelled after Captain Ben Woodbury, whom I knew as a child. None of the happenings are really true, but his character was kind and dignified as I made Captain Eben in my book.”
The “happenings” (like the day a swordfish takes Donald and his red dory for a “Nantucket sleigh ride”) are things she may have made up to appeal to her young readers, but the book is so rich in details about the lean circumstances of a fishing family on Long Island in the 1930s that I think anyone who loves Long Island, as Hazel Wilson did, will find this a fascinating read.
There’s another Hazel Wilson book at the library, Island Summer, and again it is set on Pine Island (Long Island to those of us in the know). That’s going to be my next read.
