A Child’s Life 90 Years Ago features wonderful stories

Earlene Ahlquist Chadbourne’s book, A Child’s Life 90 Years Ago, is a fascinating look back at the lives of her father Earle and his sister Florence, as they grew up in Scarborough, Maine, on a rural farm from 1923 – 1946.

Earlene has a talent for putting you right there, experiencing life without indoor plumbing, electricity, or the other comforts which we take for granted today. Even as they traveled in a horse and buggy, I felt like I was riding right along with them.

This was a tough one for me, because I was reading it during the NCAA basketball playoffs and I almost missed a key game because I couldn’t put the book down!

Throughout the book Earlene shares a lot of her family recipes which made me very hungry. And the book includes wonderful photos of the family and farm.

I thought I grew up in the good old days – the 1950s and 60s – but I had no idea what a wonderful life was available to the hard-working people of the early 1900s.

In the last two years of their life, Earle and Florence lived in two separate nursing homes, and Earlene went back and forth, recording their wonderful stories and memories for this book. They lived through the depression and World War I and II. Earle was badly injured in World War II, but fought his way back to life.

I enjoyed the early stories the best as the kids grew up and worked hard on the farm, went to a one-room community school, and experienced lots of things that improved their lives including the arrival of electricity.

You might actually think from reading some of the chapters that life was pretty tough back then. One chapter titled Challenges and Gaining Strength tells us about a severe drought that  destroyed 22 acres of corn. The children all had bouts of measles, chickenpox, and other childhood maladies. And the mother developed pneumonia. But their whole extended family and friends rallied to help them.

The family was very religious and prayers were an important part of their everyday life. It was a long ride to church but they went as often as they could, and one pastor agreed to come to their house twice a month and conduct church services there.

You can purchase this great book at Scarborough Historical Society, Maine Historical Society, and on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Childs-Life-Years-Ago-Recollections/dp/1892168235

 

George Smith

About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters. Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014. In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.