Jim Letteney

Jim Letteney lives on the original Storer property on Storer Mountain in North Waldoboro. One part of the Storer clan, the Leavitt Storer’s, used the mountain to harvest lumber for shipbuilding, while the other side of the clan, the George Storer’s, traveled upriver to farm as far back as the 1600s, according to papers and records Jim and his wife Lynda have found. In fact, they live in a house built in 1790. But our conversation starts in 1871 with the birth of Jim’s grandmother Etta Harding Storer, the first daughter of Guilford N. Storer and Ada Estelle Newbert. Etta marries John Fisher Jones and has two children with him, Homer Leslie Jones and Audrey Viola Jones (who went to Massachusetts to work in the mills and dies of blood poisoning.) Etta is devastated. For whatever reason, she divorces John Fisher Jones and goes to Boston. Not long after, in 1909, she remarries Wells Tuttle Letteney. Imagine the social stigma! She is never welcomed back to Maine. In Boston, she adopts Jim’s father. She also writes secret letters to her sisters back in Maine which Jim and Lynda will eventually find tucked away in a drawer. Meanwhile, Jim’s father starts a family and Jim and his siblings grow up in the greater Boston area. Despite Etta’s own exile, the family connection to Waldoboro does not break: Jim spends his summers on the farm. He calls it “Disney before Disney,” because Storer Farm is a working farm with pigs, a hen house with about 100 laying hens, turkeys, a team of draft horses, and twenty or so dairy cows plus beef cattle, and Storer Pond below. When he grows up, Jim returns to Maine to study at UM Portland Gorham and earns a degree to teach industrial arts. It’s part of his commitment to passing down his knowledge to the next generation. Soon after, he meets Lynda, also a teacher. He proposes and offers her his grandmother’s engagement ring, a glorious wedding cake of a jewel. Together they begin a life of teaching and family; and when Jim inherits the Waldoboro farm, they set their roots on Storer Mountain. In July 1978, they move into Jim’s great-grandfather’s 1790 farmhouse.

We move in even though the house is filled to the brim because my family saved everything.  We hadn’t been there long and we’re getting ready for bed.  And Lynda, like she does every night, takes off her watch, then her rings which she sets inside the circle of her watch strap.  It’s the night before school starts.   

But when we wake up the next day, her engagement ring is gone.  Our hearts sink.  We figure with the full moon, it was a mouse who spotted and took it.  And with a basement full of mouse holes, it doesn’t look good.  But we don’t give up hope.  We just take more care in our sorting and shake everything out.  Maybe the ring will fall out. 

Three years go by.  The downstairs is finally cleaned out.  My mother and Lynda are up and down the stairs for more clearing and cleaning and I’m outside cutting wood.  Suddenly I hear Lynda scream.  And I think, “She’s found the ring!” 

And she had!  It was in an empty liquor box, wedged between two pieces of cardboard, standing straight up, and all we can think is, “That was no mouse.  This was placed there.”  And then we think, “Poltergeist.”

Well, Lynda calls her mother because her mom’s best friend has studied poltergeists.  Linda is to go upstairs again and look again. Poltergeists always leave a gift. 

So she goes back up.  Now she knows every box up there will all the cleaning.  But she finds a box she’s never seen before.  It’s a big, sealed, box postmarked 1929, and inside are two crocks so new they could have come from Sears.  So, we kept one and gave the other to my sister.

Now, a couple of weeks after finding the ring, I am panning for gold up near Rangley.  That night at the hotel, by chance, I meet Kay Mora, a psychic the police sometimes consult with.  At this point, I’m so curious about all the things we’re finding that I ask to make a date for us to see her when she’s in Boothbay.

When we’re finally face to face, Kay asks for something old, so Lynda pulls off Etta’s engagement ring.  Kay examines it and says, “This is very old.” Well, we already knew that.  But then she says, “The interesting thing is that neither husband gave this ring to her.”

So, we head right back to ask my mother what she knows.  And she says, “That was an ugly rumor.  The doctor had nothing to do with it!” 

You never know where history can take you.  It’s my heritage, and it keeps me on my toes.  It’s drawn me back to Waldoboro.  Sometimes it’s so real I can almost touch it.  History is what connects us to this place.  And my responsibility is to pass it on.

For the past few years, I’ve been substitute-teaching.  Each time I’m before a new class, I give them some of my own background.  I want them to know my history.  And to know the history of this community, because it’s a history we share.  I think this creates a referential setting for students.  It puts them at ease. 

I believe it’s a way of encouraging more respect for one another and the people around them.  Because I want them to become good citizens.  I want them to contribute to the community. 

I was proud of my own work with the Medomak Valley Community Foundation when we raised all that money to build the ballfields.  I am proud now to serve on committees like for Waldoboro Day, the Sylvania Planning Committee and the Recreation Committee.  That’s why I’m an associate of the Waldoborough Historical Society, too.

But you can contribute in private ways, too.  I’ve never forgotten the time when Don and Virginia Jackson took me in to live with them the year I inherited the farm.  The house had no running water, no bathroom and just a scant amount of electricity.  I couldn’t live there, but I needed to work on it.  They became like second parents to me.

Lynda and I have done the same for others.  I remember one couple nearby in difficulties, and they needed to separate for a while.  We invited the wife and her children to stay with us while she figured things out.  I think if you can help someone, you should. For us, family is paramount.  My sister Audrey Ennamorati and her family now live over the hill on the farm.  My son and his wife, Jim and Jacque live right below us on the farm.  There’s even a family cemetery down by the pond on the farm.  So, we are not leaving.  Lynda and I will be buried here.  Who knows? Maybe we’ll even be poltergeists.