I’ve Danced My Life Away

I Grew Up On Pearl Street

I was born in 1908 on Willow Street in the house that my father had built, and my sister Ruth was born there. Ruth died last year at 93, and I am 93. I just had my birthday.

We moved to Pearl Street after my grandfather died. He had built that larger house on Pearl Street because the family had grown considerably. We were 4 kids then, and my grandfather James Alexander lived with us too, so we moved up there where there was more room. It was a 10-room house. I don’t remember anything really about living on Willow Street, but I remember playing in the street. We could also play in the street anywhere on Pearl Street because there weren’t very many cars then, you know. At night after supper I remember all the kids in the neighborhood used go out and play tag. There were big trees that were all around there. We had a wonderful time!

In the winter we usually did all kinds of things. We went snowshoeing and sliding. We could slide from our house down to Free Street and walk over Free Street and down Mechanic Street or down Elm Street, and we could go down to the Camden National Bank from our house by walking just a little bit. They used to block off Chestnut Street from any traffic so that the kids could slide on it. We could start on a sled or something from Limerock Street and go down around the corner to Bayview Street. That was fun! Of course we weren’t allowed to do it, but we did it!

They didn’t sand the roads then, you know, they just sort of rolled them down or something, so sliding was good. They had a big wooden roller they hauled with horses, and it flattened down the snow.

Oh, it was fun! We used to go skiing, too. We skied anywhere around we could, but mostly we went up on Marshall Hill on John Street. That was pretty good because that was quite steep and there were always big crowds there. We used to skate up on the bog that was off of Park Street, and we used to go punging - everybody had horses then.

I remember when the [Bay View House] hotel burned down on the Village Green. I don’t remember too much after that though. I remember when they used to launch the ships over on Sea Street. I wasn’t allowed to go over there, but I did go over once and got punished for it because I was just a little kid. Kids weren’t allowed to hang around downtown. It wasn’t considered nice. Jim Maloney’s rum shop was down behind what is now Cappy’s Chowder House. We weren’t allowed to turn our heads going by!