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.

This is Sea Goddess for 2008, Bryson Cowan, being crowned by Lt. Cmdr. Thomas Crane of the United States Coast Guard. Photo is from the Coast Guard.

Sea Goddess for 2009, Callie Lynne MacQueston, taken from last year's Festival brochure.

Sea Goddess for 2007, Megan Ranquist. I believe this picture came from the Rockland History FB page also.

Hometown Royalty

2010 Sea Goddess, Emily Benner

 We all enjoyed watching the royal wedding of William and Kate recently. However, lest we forget, we have our own local royalty in the form of the Sea Goddess of the Lobster Festival. The best part is we get to see a new pageant every year and see the crowning of a new Sea Goddess. 

In 2010, our Goddess was Emily Benner. For a look at a YouTube video of Emily walking on the Festival grounds, copy and paste this link into your browser. If it tells you they can't find it, just hit google search and you will see the listing for the video. The title of the video is "Lobster Festival with the Sea Goddess August 2010."

http://youtube/MrpOlSWV2xg

As far as I know, there is no book, pamphlet or other written history of the Sea Goddess Pageant. Therefore, what you see here will have gaping holes that will need to be filled at a later date. I think this subject deserves a broader look and I will certainly entertain that project in the future. For now, I'll give you what I have and hope that you will help me fill in the gaps.

I believe that this pageant is long overdue for an historical account to be written down about it in some form. That will be a project I may possibly undertake at a later date. For now I will give you what I was able to scrap up from one source or another. You will notice huge gaps that will need to be filled in. I’m hoping you, my loyal readers, will assist me in this task. More on that later.

Let’s start with King Neptune, a focal personage of this pageant and of the festivities over the course of the Lobster Festival, which takes place the first weekend that falls at least partly in August. 

Whoever thought of making King Neptune part of the festivities was brilliant. From the time he comes up from the sea and arrives by boat down at the landing with his most recent Goddess, he is on a big stage that covers the whole city.

Here’s the mythology that goes along with King Neptune, God of the Sea. Neptune is a Roman God, his Greek counterpart is Poseidon. Both have also been called the God of Horses. Neptune is also God of fresh water.

As mythology tells us, the world was divided into three. Zeus was God of the earth and sky; Hades, was God of the Underworld; and Neptune or Poseidon, God of the Sea.

Neptune has been paired with Salacia, possible Goddess of Salt Water. Poseidon’s wife was Amphitrite. Maybe we should therefore rename our Sea Goddess, Salacia. What do you think?

There was a festival called Neptunalia or “Festival of Neptune” which took place on July 23. It was a time of general free and unrestrained merrymaking. That date is not far off from our Lobster Festival celebration. We do partake of much merrymaking, however, our local police force likes to keep the unrestrained part to a minimum. Overall, I think our activities would make King Neptune proud.

2008 Sea Princesses file onto the pageant stage.

O.K. so you want to sign up for this year’s pageant. Unfortunately, deadline for this year was April 15; but keep these guidelines in mind for next year or for any young lady who will be eligible and interested in the coming years.

The pageant accepts 20 young ladies for the pageant. You must submit a completed application with a sponsor contribution of $500. For more information on applications, contact the Maine Lobster Festival, Coronation Committee, P.O. Box 552, Rockland, ME 04841.

Here’s a brief recap of the eligibility rules:

1.    Applicants must be a single lady, a high school (or GED) graduate, not more than 21 years old.

2.    Contestants can only participate in the pageant once.

3.    A Sea Princess is required to volunteer a minimum of 4 hours before the Festival opens on Wednesday.

4.  Sea Princesses must mingle on the Festival grounds a minimum of 2 hours a day wearing appropriate dress and sash.

5.   Explain the benefits of participating to your sponsors and that they are helping pay for your gown and other necessities. Your sponsor will be advertised in everything you are a part of for the Festival. It is suggested that at least one of the sponsors be fish industry-related.

6.    The young lady chosen to be Sea Goddess and Crown Princess have these duties:

a.    Attendance at all hometown affairs representing the Maine Lobster Festival.

b.    If the Sea Goddess cannot appear at any given time throughout the year, the Crown Princess my represent the Festival in her stead.

c.    Daily attendance on the Festival grounds wearing your crown and sash is required. Also mingling with King Neptune and others of his court; having pictures taken; handing out rewards for competitions like the Lobster Crate Race.

(see the video of last year’s Sea Goddess, Emily Benner, above)

The Sea Goddess is also expected to attend other festivities like parades and other Maine festivals and expositions in New England throughout the year. She is also expected to attend opening festivities for the following year and to give a small speech on stage at the pageant; and ride in the next year’s Festival parade.

So there you have it.  Next week I will have more pictures to share and hopefully you can identify some of the people in them. If you think back to the year you graduated from one of the area high schools, see if you can remember who was Sea Goddess that year and send me the name and a picture via email if possible. We’ll all do this together, O.K.?

Thanks for listening.

South End Authors Appear in RHS Class of 1952 Newsletter

This is as big as I can make this type. If you know of a way to enlarge it more, please do.

Honor Thy Mother

My mother, Evangeline, at age 60

One of the Golden Rules (don’t ask me which one) instructs us to honor our mother and father. In the month of May we traditionally honor our mothers. As my own mother died several years ago, I now honor her memory and remember how much she did for me growing up. Her birthday was also in May, so I have two days this month in which to honor her.

I would also like to honor and remember some other women who acted as my mother at different times in my life. Some of them stepped in when my mother was sick and in the hospital; some were neighborhood women; and some were special women I met later on in life. I have written about many of the neighborhood women in a previous blog which is on the blog CD. It is called “The Real Housewives of the South End.” Check it out.

My mother, Evangeline Lana Winchenbaugh Sylvester, was a typical 50s housewife when I was growing up. Her world was her family and taking care of them. She gave us a clean environment, good food, and support for our endeavors.

We were a middle class family who may have had a little more than some of our South End neighbors as my Dad was a machinist at the Cement Plant in Thomaston. If we were underprivileged we didn’t realize it. We didn’t get everything we wanted in our young lives, but there were times when our mother would save her dimes in a special bank to buy something we really wanted. Sometimes it would take her months to do so.

We never went hungry in our house. However, everything we ate was usually made from scratch by our mother. We didn’t have a lot of store bought candy in the house. We either had fruit or homemade brownies and cookies to munch on. When my father came home from work, dinner was on the table and we all sat down together to eat it. He was a meat and potatoes man, therefore most of our meals were of that variety. If you gave him something a little different you had to explain exactly what was in it.

When our mother wasn’t able to take care of us, we often had a substitute live-in mother in the persons of my Aunt Alice or my Great-Aunt May. Alice was really a cousin, but she grew up with my dad. She would leave her own eight children at the farm up in Orrington to come and take care of us. Great-Aunt May was my Dad’s aunt. Her real name was Mary Sue Emery and she was a former nurse and served in the Army-Air Force in two world wars. Both of these women were also excellent cooks, so we never went hungry when they were in residence either.

There were other women in the neighborhood who also stepped in when necessary. I would like to honor Thelma Small and Mrs. Pomroy in particular.

When I was away at school we had “house mothers” who often took care of us when necessary. I remember one house mom who nursed me through black fly bites on my eyelids by putting warm teabags on them to soothe them. I also lived one year with a woman named Effie, a maiden lady who boarded two of us girls at the teacher’s college down east. We didn’t eat there, but at the college, but she was always pleasant to us and so enjoyed our company.

As an employee of the Atlanta Jewish Community Center for eight years, there were many instances when those special women came to my rescue. I remember one particular time when my boss made sure I got health insurance because I couldn’t afford it at the time. Another woman made sure I had something to eat when I was very broke at one point. There were many special women at the Center who accepted this “goyim” among them with open arms.

I have been nurtured and loved by many mothers in my life. These are but a few examples. I miss my own mother often and wish I could just call her on the phone and ask her opinion on something like I used to. I will remember her this Sunday and later on in the month on her birthday.

Meanwhile, my 100-yr.-old aunt, my mother’s sister, Aunt Virginia Poletti, who was not able to have children of her own, is now my mother. I remember her every Mother’s Day the same way I would remember my mother in years past. Evangeline would want it that way.

Thanks for listening.