Stories of coastal Maine from 1900 to 1950 compiled from oral history interviews with ten individuals raised in this Penobscot River town, reflecting the experiences of childhood during a time when families closed off Route 1 so children could sled a mile-long hill, when pranks were planned not for Halloween, but the Fourth of July, a time when a dory crossing of the wide Penobscot River was not uncommon. Farmers, sailors, clammers, bus drivers, and more tell stories of an era when cars, electricity, phones, and indoor plumbing were first coming into rural Maine.

The stories recall an intimate community, a life that required brain and brawn. "It was such a privilege to connect with these men and women. In each interview, there would be a time when I could watch the years slide away, and the person I was talking to—whether in their seventies, eighties, or nineties, would return to their childhood, thinking of sledding, swimming, or the delicious aroma of Stockton smokehouses. In their faces I’d see the memories of adventures; for some, too, I’d see the sting of limitations and longings,” says Gold, who runs Personal History, an enterprise helping families and communities record their stories.

"Probably growing up on the farm were the best years of my whole life,” says Phyllis West Hall (1922-2014), who later directed the ambulance services in Stockton Springs. “We didn’t know about anything different, so we didn’t miss anything.”