Sandra and Bill--A Love Story

Yesterday, February 18, I read a shorter version of this story, via phone, to Sandra and Bill at their 50th Wedding Anniversary celebration in Machias, Maine. I wanted the story to be a surprise which is why I haven't posted it till today.

The year was 1962 when I arrived at Washington State Teachers College, now University of Maine at Machias, in Machias, Maine, as a Freshman/Sophomore. I was placed with another girl named Sandra Kinney and a third roommate, who moved out shortly after we all arrived.

It was a suite really, with another small bedroom, two beds in the main room, and our own bathroom, including tub. It was the primo room at Kimball Hall.

Sandra and I hit it off right away. As our birthdays were March 5 and 11, we clicked as two Pisces. As I was a class crossover student, I was about exactly two years older than she. She was like another kid sister to me and I enjoyed seeing her engulf herself in the collegiate scene.

We both came from the South End of things, so to speak; she from the South End of Eastport, Maine, a downeaster; and me from the South End of Rockland. Eastport, at that time, however, was a rather depressed area. Not many tourists find themselves at the very easternmost point in the country very often. Their claim to fame was in fact that it was the most out-of-the-way eastern point. It is the very Eastport you hear referred to as “Eastport to Block Island” when you hear the weather report.

Sandra didn’t come from a big family. Her parents’ marriage was beginning to fall apart. Sandra worried about how her mother was doing down in Eastport without her trying to run an old run-down hotel by herself. Sandra had only a baby sister and an uncle, besides her folks, to call family. Even though Eastport is a mere 45 miles or so down Rt. 1 as the crow flies, Sandra didn’t have transportation and had to rely on rides with others when she could. Her mother, likewise, could not take time away from trying to make a living to get up to the college.

It seemed like hundreds of miles away to Sandra sometimes; a girl who had never been away from home before. I tried to make her feel at ease as much as I was able to.

However, Sandra, a beautiful Freshman coed, was not about to be alone for long. Soon all those college boys starting circling around her. “They were comin’ round the mountains” so to speak.

The boy Sandra was attracted to right away, was a senior, a local Machiasport boy by the name of Bill Prescott.

They were both downeasters and a whirlwind romance ensued rather quickly. In a mere five and a half months they were making plans to marry.

Money was tight of course. Bill tried the best he could to get a scholarship for himself to help ease the burden. I must explain here that our president at that time was a man we called “Mac” Sennett. He was a strict disciplinarian and never gave the “town” boys much of a break. He couldn’t keep them under his thumb as well as he could the rest of us who lived on campus.

Bill had to go in to see Mac to get his scholarship approved. As WSTC was a small college, everyone knew what everyone else was into most of the time. We had no secrets. So when Bill asked for Mac’s consent for his scholarship, Mac replied, “I ain’t paying for no damn wedding!” Nice, huh?

So Bill basically told Mac what he could do with his scholarship, that he’d find another way, and walked out. Remember that it was the 60s and things were really starting to escalate over in Vietnam. The guys did everything they could to stay in school and avoid the draft. As long as they were in school, they could get a deferment from serving. 'Nam was not a war young men  then wanted to become involved in unlike the big war, WWII, when young men enlisted in droves after the attack on Pearl Harbor. In the 60s, however, if your grades slipped, or you left school for any other reason, it was more than likely that you'd be swallowed up by the draft process.

When Sandra told her mother about Bill’s proposal, she had this advice to give which Sandra wrote to me in a letter the day after he proposed. Here’s the gist of that letter:

Bill stayed last night till 11:00 then he went home.

Mom invited him down Saturday to stay till Monday. I’m so happy!

When Bill left, Mom and I had a talk. I was planning on waiting until today but I couldn’t.

I started out. Do you like Bill? She loves him. She thinks he is wonderful. So then I said I love him. She said she was glad, that she thinks he is the right guy and she is proud of my choice. Then I said, He has asked me to marry him. She was happy. She said when he comes down this weekend we are going out to dinner to celebrate. She is going to talk to us both then. She didn’t tell me NOT to get married she only said, Don’t marry for anything besides love. Make sure I love him. And never interfere with any of his education he wants to get.

She nor I said anything about when it would be, but she wouldn’t be mad if I marry him now. I’m sure.

There are so many things I’ve got to buy and I’m so broke. I’ve been thinking—maybe one of the girls at the dorm would have a white dress or something I could borrow to wear so I wouldn’t have to buy anything. Do you think that would be alright?

Sandra’s Mom was smart to realize that a young couple starting out needed a solid background to begin with, such as an education. Bill had no intention of dropping out of school, even though Sandra did after the marriage. He finished his education, in spite of Mac, and went on to have a great career in the field of education. In fact, he ended up his career teaching Math as an assistant professor at UMM, where he had begun his own education.

Even though money was tight Sandra asked for two things for her wedding which was planned for Feb. 16, two days after Valentine’s Day: a white dress and to be married in a church.

She did manage to borrow a dress from another girl and the ceremony was arranged to take place at a local church by the minister of that church.

The ceremony was planned for the evening, just after supper time at Kimball Hall, which also contained our dining hall. The center stairway going up to our rooms dumped into the hallway going into the dining hall. There was no other way to exit. Everyone knew about the wedding of course, and when Sandra came down the stairs in her borrowed white dress, those just coming out of the dining hall, cheered.

I think they all felt like they were part of the wedding too. It was the campus event of that winter. Even though those in attendance at the church were only the bride and groom’s parents and the witnesses, I and another Bill, Bill Kennett, a classmate of Bill's, we all felt the presence of the student body. As the wedding party consisted of two Bills and two Sandras I was quick to remind the minister; however, to be sure he married the correct Sandra and Bill.

Sandra and Bill recently celebrated their 50^th wedding anniversary. They have had their adversities through the years.

When Bill and Sandra married, Sandra’s mother asked her to take over the care of her baby sister, then about one-year-old at least for that summer after Bill graduated. Bill got a job in Lincoln and they moved there with Vicky.  Sandra's mother paid them $15 a week for her care. They were happy to do it. So the young couple, Sandra only 18, started out with another person to care for from the very beginning.

Sandra’s mother died at 48 of cancer. Vicky lived with Sandra and Bill after that and was enrolled at school where they lived. One day, Sandra’s father came and took Vicky out of school. They didn’t have any guardian rules like they do today when it comes to picking up kids from school. A custody battle ensued, which Sandra’s dad won. He had remarried and they moved with Vicky to Massachusetts.

Understand again that Vicky and one uncle were now her only living relatives. So then she had no one. Relations between the sisters were estranged until they were older.

Meanwhile, throughout this dark period, Bill’s family enfolded Sandra into the love of their family.  They loved Sandra from the very beginning and they did indeed become her family.

Vicky and Sandra are now friends and sisters again. Vicky is married, lives in Eastport, and has six children of her own. Sandra and Bill have three children and two grandchildren. So she and her sister have reestablished the family again. Their dad died at age 57.

I still proudly call Sandra and Bill my friends. Sandra would go on to serve several terms as a State Representative and Bill had a stellar career in education. Kudos to you both.

So this month, the month of love, we celebrate the 50^th Wedding Anniversary of Sandra and Bill Prescott. May they have many more happy years together.

Thanks for listening.


Wedding Album

Left to Right: Bill Kennett, best man; Sandra's mother, Groom Bill Prescott

First picture: Sandra with her folks in our dorm room just before she came downstairs. Second picture, Sandra and Bill at his parents' home after the wedding.

SPECIAL NOTE: They made me leave that beautiful room after Sandra was married. I roomed with Diane Longstaff, who also became a good friend and whose wedding I also participated in. Guess what? She also married a local student, Lyle Huntley, who hailed from Jonesport, near the school.

I also was a member of the wedding party for classmate and later roommate after school, Lucille Valiante. She also married a Navy man who hailed from Calais, another downeast town. She had to go to Japan to meet him though when he was in the Navy and she was teaching American children in Japan. Ironically she had dated his best friend, John, while John and Lucy were both students at the school. I’ve written about her before.