Beyond the South End: Hometown Royalty Continued

These were your sea princesses for 2010. The first picture up top became the Sea Goddess, Emily Benner. I have a few other pictures to show you this time. Some I will need help with in identifying the girls. (See the rest of the 2010 princesses in a separate blog)

It is the tradition that girls graduating from area high schools will join the ranks of the sea princesses for that summer’s pageant. In 1959, the year I graduated from Rockland High School, we had ten girls enter the pageant. They were (by their maiden names): Dotty Childs, Mary Cole, Mary Soule, Priscilla Newbert, Marie Gardner, Sandra Stinson, Joan Knowlton, Judy Carver, Earlene Sayward, and Louise West. The Southenders in that group were Dotty, Marie, Sandra, Judy and Earlene.

There were 22 girls in the pageant that year. None of my classmates were chosen as Sea Goddess. The other girls who entered were: Nancy Arey, Lauretta Shields, Joyce Gregory, Janet Kaler, Sharron Peacock, Gail Makinen, Evelyn Eaton, Raeberta Jordan, Nadene Sawyer, Donna Howard, and Mary Curran. Of those, Nancy Arey was chosen as Sea Goddess. This is the only picture I have of Nancy. If you have a better one, please email it to me. I assure you that if this project becomes a serious endeavor that all the pictures will be top notch. That’s a promise.

I gleaned Nancy’s picture from a newspaper clipping I cut out for my high school scrapbook. On the back side of the page that pictured all the princesses for 1959, I ran into this photo. I must assume it is from the year previous, 1958. It seems that our royal courts were sometimes used in advertising. Don’t you love the transistor radios they’re holding. More importantly, do you know who these girls are? Email me that information if you know it.

Here are the rest of the pictures I was able to find. Some of them came from the Rockland History page on Facebook. I highly recommend that page if you’re looking for Rockland history facts. The Sea Goddesses I was able to identify were for the following years. I don’t have photos of all of them:

Elizabeth Poisson, 1957; Nancy Arey, 1959; Judith Spear, 1960; Megan Ranquist, 2007; Bryson Cowan, 2008; Callie Lynne MacQueston, 2009; and Emily Benner, 2010. Emily is the granddaughter of one of my former classmates, Linda Goodnow (maiden name). As you can see, there is a gaping hole here.

This program came from the 1951 Lobster Festival. Do you know the Sea Goddess here?

This was the Sea Goddess for 1957, Elizabeth Henkel Poisson. She submitted this photo on the Rockland History Facebook page.

This was the Sea Goddess for 1960, Judith Spear. Photo submitted on Rockland History FB page by Carolyn Meserve Pilbrook.

These were some of the Sea Princesses for 1960. I don't have names for them. It looks like they were trying to save gas that year by putting more than one girl on a convertible in the parade. Either that, or they couldn't find enough convertibles to use. This one looks like a Cadillac. Am I right? Can you identify these girls? Main Street Hardware is now the Rockland Cafe. The photo was submitted by Carolyn Meserve Philbrook on the Rockland History FB page.