Say Bob Benner's name to someone who grew up in Waldoboro and you might get, "Hmmm, I don't think I know him." Yet on both sides of Bob's family, he is descended from stock that arrived on those first German ships. The original Benners settled in Nobleboro. Over time, Bob's family purchased land in Waldoboro and established a small dairy farm. That is where Bob grew up. But geography is powerful. Though in Waldoboro, the farm was further down Route 1 than Dow Furniture. From first grade almost until the end of high school (when he bought a car), Bob and his siblings walked all the way to town for school. And back. As far as his classmates were concerned, he might as well have been from away. Bob will freely tell you that he is a loner. Was and always has been. And that explains why you might not have met him. But what a loss! At 88 years old, he is able to recall a treasure box of anecdotes, one after another, about Waldoboro, his life and that of his parents. Counting the lives of his parents, it's easily more than a century of our town's history. So have patience -- more to come after this one.
In Memoriam
Robert Alan Benner, Feb. 3, 1936-July 3, 2025
I have lived here 88 years in this one house. A silly little story I’ll tell you: when everybody else was gone and it was just me left of the children, because I was the youngest, one night at the kitchen table, my parents asked, “Well, when will you be leaving?”
And I said, “Oh, I like it right here, just the way it is.” I laugh. I never left. My parents never left either. They were the first generation in this house, but this house is also part of an old house that’s down the road where my line of Benner’s lived in from 1792 to 1992. Two hundred years. And this land here was bought by my third great grandfather James Benner in 1823. I’ve got the original deed. It’s beautiful.
My mother’s mother was a Kastner living out on the Kastner Road and she married a Jackson. My mom was born in Auburn. Her name was Ida. I don’t think there was probably another woman that ever worked so hard as my mother. She never had a washing machine until sometime in the early 1940s. She washed everything by hand, the old-fashioned way with the wringer. She had her days. Monday was Wash Day. Tuesday was Ironing Day. But that was just part of her day. She was forever scrubbing the house. And she had us kids. She was a great cook. Mum canned everything we ate. Or she salted it down, like the meat, because we never had an electric refrigerator until 1948. We were one of the late ones.
And if anybody got sick, she could go days taking care of them, and waiting on them. And sometimes the whole house got sick. Maybe Mum was sick, too, but I don’t remember her stopping to be sick. But I’m sure there were times, like when we were throwing up. She was probably throwing up, too. But she was always right there to take care of us, no matter if it was one or all of us that had the flu or something.
I don’t remember her ever sitting down. And I don’t remember if she even went to bed. She made all our presents for Christmas. We had one present. Usually, it was something to wear but sometimes it was one other special present.
I always wanted to have a chicken dinner for Christmas. You see, we had chickens, but they were for eggs. And all I wanted was the neck. And the little tail. And the gizzard. Nothing else. That’s crazy, I know. They’re the parts nobody wants. But the neck is the sweetest and most tender of any chicken.
Anyway, the night before Christmas, we’d all be asleep. And when it turned 12:00, she’d start playing the piano and we’d all run down. And that’s when we opened our presents!
But I know Mum didn’t have a good life like we did when she was a child. I loved my grandparents, but in the past few years I’ve been thinking it over and how hard her life was.
But Mum’s father had a hard life, too. His own father was a Civil War veteran who’d gone blind and was mostly living in bed. So, Mum’s father went to Lewiston and Auburn when he was fourteen, because back then, in the early 1900s, everybody was going to Auburn and Lewiston for jobs. There was no jobs around here.
Her father got a job in a stable because at that time it was horses, not cars. And I think he went up to better jobs, but I can’t remember what. He met my grandmother from back when he was in Waldoboro. She was a teacher. Very intelligent. She graduated at sixteen, and she was valedictorian of her class. And she was a wonderful grandmother. She was very religious, too. She would preach on the street corners and even in the jails. But as far as Mum was concerned, she was not a good mother. But Mum never said anything about that.
Anyway, they came back down here when my mother was thirteen, and for a year, her father was still up there, coming home once a month or something. So, it was my grandmother and the children and the house, and my grandmother had no idea about domestic work. Or taking care of her children. Mum had to stop and take care of all the younger kids. And of course, there were long periods of having little to eat because Granny didn’t know anything about cooking either.
My grandpa returned because he got a job at the Button Factory. But then he got laid up because of the dust in his lungs. So, they put my mother to work there, not that she saw a check. She was fourteen, and when the inspectors come, they would put the young ones like her out the door and then bring them back in when they left.
Mum met my father Otis Bryan Benner, Sr. A friend introduced them. The first place Dad took Mum to was to a dance. But he didn’t like to dance so he just sat there while she danced. And my Mum said to herself, “Oh, he’s got a car. I like that.” She was still working at the Button Factory and walking all the way from Kastner’s. She was making probably five dollars a week, and it was a long week.
Then Mum looked over at him and thought, “Gee, he’s sort of handsome.” Well, it went along. My father courted her. He would come to the house, and they would sit in the kitchen while her parents retired to their bedroom – it was right next to the kitchen — and take the cat with them. And when it was time for him to go, they’d flush the cat back into the kitchen. They married Christmas Day in 1924.
Mum was 52 when Dad died. For more than four years before he died, my father was bedridden, and my mother waited on him better than any nurse could have, all that time. I don’t know how she did it.
After, a couple of men came to call on her, and some wanted to marry her. But when they went to kiss her, she would say, “I’m not ready yet.” And to us kids she’d say, “When you’ve had the best, you don’t want anything more.”
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