FORT FAIRFIELD JOURNAL

                                  Real.  Educational.  News.

 Fort Fairfield Journal     About Us     Contact Us    Advertising Rates      Subscribe       Distribution       Bible Reference     Our Library

By: David Deschesne

Fort Fairfield Journal, January 14, 2009, p. 1

Mary “Dolly” Shaw was recently recognized by the Fort Fairfield Sesquicentennial committee as Fort Fairfield’s Oldest Citizen.

Born in Fort Fairfield in 1913, Shaw is still a very sharp, chipper 96 year-young lady. She attended Fort Fairfield schools completing the eighth grade at the Grammar School which once stood where the parking lot at Hillcrest Estates is today. “Eighth grade was as high as they went then, we didn’t have grades nine through twelve then.” At that time, education was much more focused and efficient, with an eighth grade education being equivalent to today’s first year of college.

Mary and her husband Joe operated a farm for her uncle Dwight Dorsey on the Dorsey road for forty years.

“We raised cows, chickens and potatoes,” said Shaw. “Every spring we’d turn out around 100 chickens. In the Fall we’d separate the roasters from the egg layers, slaughter the roasters and I’d spend about a month canning chicken. We had all the chicken stew we wanted through the winter.” Shaw says they usually kept around 50 hens to lay eggs throughout the winter.

Shaw remembers life on the farm as being quite a bit different than today’s easy, “luxury” lifestyle. “We’d be up at 6:00 in the morning and I’d go out and help my husband harness the horses. Then I’d work around the farm with the animals and potatoes during the day and wash laundry at night.”

While the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is developing guidelines to keep horses out of potato fields for fear of E-coli outbreaks, Shaw figures that’s just a bunch of bureaucratic foolishness. “We used to plant, cultivate and harvest our potatoes with teams of horses up to their ankles in potato dirt. Nobody ever got sick from eating potatoes harvested by horses - you’re supposed to wash them off first, anyway!” The Shaws didn’t start farming with a tractor until the 1940’s.

Needless to say, the Shaw family lived most of their young adult lives in a lifestyle very similar to the Amish on Forest Avenue today.

“We never had a fridge or washing machine. There was an ice business that cut the ice out of the brook at Puddledock and stored it through the summer. We’d get a big block of ice for our ice box a couple times a week. But, a lot of our fresh fruits and vegetables were stored in the root cellar where it was cool year round.”

Ms. Shaw has seen a lot of progress in modern technology and household appliances. She witnessed the rise of the telephone, in-home electrical wiring, in-house plumbing, radio, television and washing machines. “My favorite invention was the washing machine. I used to scrub clothes every night by hand on an old scrub board in a wash tub. That’s probably why I have arthritis so bad in my fingers these days.” Of all the modern inventions, radio and television interest Shaw the least. “There’s nothing but trash on television, nothing worth wasting my time watching. The only time I use the television is to watch a Mass once a week when it’s on.” Radio doesn’t rate much better with Shaw. “I have no use for a radio, either. You can’t understand any of the music they play. I guess they call some of it ‘Country Music’ but it ain’t like no Country Music I ever heard.”

Dolly was an avid cook, making everything from scratch and baking homemade bread daily up until the early 1970’s when her arthritis got too bad. “I can’t believe people go to grocery stores and buy that junk processed food when it’s so easy to make and prepare it from scratch,” said Shaw. “People eat out too much, they don’t know what it’s like to eat at home.” Part of the secret to Dolly’s longevity is that she stayed away from the “progress” in foods. “I only eat real butter, not that fake margarine. I also used lard in all my cooking, never that artificial vegetable shortening.” Cooking on a wood stove was Dolly’s primary job in feeding the family. “There were no temperature gauges, you just had to guess when the heat was right.”

Cookies of all kinds were special treats made by Dolly for friends and family. “I’d like to have all the cookies I’ve baked in my life.”

After forty years of farming, the Shaws bought a house on the Houlton Road and Dolly took a job at the A&P Plant on High Street (now Atlantic Processing). “A&P was a nice place to work. It was the first time I had ever worked a job away from home. I had a lot of friends there who were very good to me. When my husband, Joe died, they all supported me.”

The Shaw family consisted of nine brothers and sisters. Dolly has 22 grandchildren, 51 great grandchildren and 4 great great grandchildren. “I was good to my kids and now they’re good to me.”

After the death of her husband, Dolly moved to Fields Lane where she still lives today. “I was the first one in the newly built Fields Lane 2 building. I have such great neighbors here at Fields Lane. Somebody is always bringing me over cookies, or cake. I even had a fresh trout last night.”

Shaw reflects on a good life. “I had a really hard life, but it was a good life.”