As a previous treasurer for many years, Sue Betts has been one of the mainstays behind the scenes at the Waldoborough Historical Society. But you’d be wrong to think she’s all Waldoboro. Sue only arrived in 1999, after spending decades working in computer programming, back as far as the time of punch cards. It took her from New York City to southern California and back. Her parents were the first Betts to arrive in Waldoboro, in 1972. They were retiring, and they bought jeweler Mary Gage’s building on Friendship Street (where Midcoast Conservancy is today). They opened a gift store-gallery and called it Betts House. Her father, an illustrator/painter, worked in the back in a studio overlooking the river. Five or six years later, Sue’s sister Pat Kristiansen followed and settled with her family in one of the houses on top of the hill on the other side of the river. Sue, herself, was the latecomer, moving here once Hazel Flanders’ house came up for sale. It was the house next door to her sister.
I’ve lived in Waldoboro for almost 25 years. But sometimes I still think of myself as a New Yorker. I’ll tell you a story. I was living and working in Portland when the World Trade Towers were hit, and it felt very personal for me. That’s because every day I used to cross the South Tower on my way to my next subway.
People from away, people who have never lived there, they don’t understand the love we New Yorkers have for New York. I think it’s kind of how people here feel about people from away – they feel you can’t understand that kind of love.
You feel it, though, at the Historical Society. That was one of the first things my sister did – get me involved with the museum. But our parents had been involved there almost right from the beginning because they were friends with the Totman’s who had started it four years earlier.
There’s a picture of my aunt there, standing in front of the Bogg’s Schoolhouse when they first brought it down to where it is today. They have things my dad painted. And there’s our store sign ‘Betts House’ in the barn.
Did you know that the museum’s barn is about 200 years old? It used to belong to the house across the street. Back then, there wasn’t a road here…maybe a dirt road or something. And then, before the museum purchased it, and after the road was built, it housed a toy museum.
You learn things by being there. Gus Hauk raised the money to build that house in the middle along with my parents, the Totman’s and others. It’s built out of cinder block to be a fire resistant. But that created all kinds of dampness. We used to take the rugs and the most valuable things to send up to storage. But the newspapers that were stored in one of the closets pretty much turned to pulp. Finally, we raised the money to put in heating and that’s helped to preserve our artifacts.
For a while, it was just Pat and I keeping the place together. We were two crazy older ladies, opening and closing it, and helping to keep it going. We couldn’t even change some of the lightbulbs because they were so high. Thankfully, we had helpers. Pat’s son did a lot of work, and her husband, too. And there were others. They’re how we have the dormer on top, and the back section with the doctor’s stuff, and the whole renovation inside the Hauk building. They even did the front of the building because we decided it didn’t look so good.
And then, some years later, Jean Lawrence joined us because she’d taken on a book project about the history of Waldoboro’s legislators and that brought her inside. She fell in love with the place and did a lot for it. Stan Bailey loved it, too, and he’s the one that left the money.
I became the Vice President pretty quick. But when Tom Jordan became President, they needed someone to take over as Treasurer. That was a job that was more up my alley than anything else, so I took over from him.
I have my ways to get people interested and joining. I think once you start handling the stuff, and learning about the stories, you get attached. I’ll tell you a story about Moody’s.
They had never been inside, and the museum didn’t have anything from them. But Kathie Hills waitressed there. So, Kathie asked them if they’d donate a few things, some old artifacts and stuff. When they came in to see their stuff on display, they did the same thing that Jean had done. They fell in love with the place. And when you sit at the front desk, just being there, you do fall in love with the stuff.
But it’s like I tell everyone: it isn’t about the stuff. It’s about the people. And the stories.
One day, this old guy who was walking around, comes up to me and asks, “What do you do with duplicates?”
I said, “Actually, the ones we like the best are the ones where we know whose it was, or where it was.”
He was Edwin Benner. The next thing I know, all this stuff that had belonged to the Benners and Creamers turned up at the Historical Society. One of them was a spinning wheel, something we’d already had a few of. But this one came with a piece of paper saying how his grandmother used it to spin the wool that she then knitted into mittens for all the local kids. That made this spinning wheel particularly valuable to us.
I think the Waldoboro rugs are my favorite. We didn’t used to have a lot of those rugs that were hooked in the style unique to here, where the rug is almost sculpted by the wool. But somehow, Waldoboro’s rugs have found their way back here. Pat used to work for a lot of people including Frances Storer, and she had some Waldoboro rugs. Frances gave us two of hers because she wanted Waldoboro to have them, and those rugs had never been walked on.
Mary Lou Meyer gave us one when she died. Another woman, Jacqueline Hansen from Scarborough, who hooked rugs and taught the craft, gave us another four or five rugs when she was downsizing. And I’ll tell you another story.
There used to be a textile museum in Lowell, MA, and they had to close; they had to de-accession every single thing, too, in their collection. It took a couple of years, but two ladies came up themselves to give us in person three other rugs. They were so pleased that those rugs found their way home.
I’ll tell you one more story. My father was visiting me in New York years back, and one day we went to the American Folk Art Museum. And we came across a rug that says, “Waldoboro Rug.” I said, “Dad, does that have anything to with our Waldoboro?”
And he said, “Yes.” That’s why the rugs are my favorite, because of all the stories inside of them.
I think the Historical Society is the reason I’ve come to love Waldoboro so much. More than New York! Every time I’m there, my love for this place and people grows. I want everyone to have that.
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