100 Years Ago: 1925

A crippled telephone operator gave her life while alarming the countryside of fire in the business section of Brooks early Friday morning. Her assistant sustained a broken arm. Six business buildings were burned with an aggregate loss of at least $50,000 and other property was barely saved by a fire on the Main street of this town.

The fire broke out from an undetermined cause in the grocery store of Williams Brothers, on the corner and quickly spread to the next building, in which was located the post office and on the second floor the telephone office of the Waldo and Penobscot Telephone Co.

Mrs. Carrie Johnson, who has been the telephone operator for many years, and Miss Alva Ingraham, her assistant, were awakened and immediately began sending  emergency calls through the  switchboard, including a summons to the Belfast fire department, which responded with valuable aid.

While they were still performing their duty the fire communicated with their building and their escape by the stairway was cut off. Mrs. Johnson, who was unable to get around except in her wheelchair, urged her companion to save herself as she could do nothing then for the crippled operator.

Miss Ingraham jumped from the second story window, breaking one of her arms. Mrs. Johnson was burned to death, as the building was soon consumed.

The fire then swept through Ryder’s meat and fish market and the general store of D. B. Plummer after which it jumped across the street and burned Hutchinson’s Hardware store and practically ruined the drug store of A. R. Pilley where it was stopped.

The residence of A. E. Kilgore, one of the finest in the county, caught fire several times, but was saved as was other property through the efforts of the local volunteer firemen and those from out of town. The motor engine from Belfast was sent over the 18 miles of rough roads in 45 minutes. It was believed that nearly everything in the post office, of which Everett Brown is postmaster, was burned.

50 Years Ago: 1975

Up at 6 a.m., off to school at 7, home at 4 p.m.; followed by four or five hours of studying, a busy day for anyone.

But this student isn’t just anyone, she’s Annette D. Carbonneau of 182 Webster Street, Lewiston, mother of nine, a senior student at the Central Maine General Hospital School of Nursing.

An easy-going, warm, intelligent person, Mrs. Carbonneau has been coping during the last 15 months with the sudden responsibilities of a school regimen and academic atmosphere, coupled with on-the-job training required of nursing students, and her family with the “loss” of a fulltime mother always there before.

She credits her family, husband Richard, who is assistant director of the York County Counseling Center at Saco, and friends with “encouraging, even pushing” her toward her goal of becoming a
nurse.

25 Years Ago: 2000

If you order soup in January, your server’s thumbs should be visible at all times.”

So reads one of eight Fine Dining Tips posted prominently at the entrance of Knuckleheads. Fear not; both the soup and the service are fine. The restaurant is just having a bit of fun. And that’s only the beginning.

Step inside the dining room and you’re greeted by such legendary funmongers as the Three Stooges, Groucho Marx and Charlie Chaplin, captured in larger-than-life-sized caricatures on the walls. Surrounding you are five television screens playing nonstop the vintage shenanigans of the Stooges, Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello and others.

“I’ve always loved these guys,” says Chris Shaw, owner of Knuckleheads, one of Auburn’s newest dining establishments. When he took over the place last spring (it formerly housed the Muskrat Tavern of the Frog Rock Café), he decided he wanted to “do something a little different” to draw people out to the restaurant, situated as it is on the outskirts of town at the Auburn Inn, by Exit 12 of the Maine Turnpike.

To make it family-oriented, he decided to focus on his favorite old-time comedy heroes, which have truly multi-generational appeal. “Their humor is ageless,” he says; “When kids see “The Little Rascals” today, they laugh,” just like their parents and grandparents did before them. And Shaw loves to see people laugh.

The material used in Looking Back is produced exactly as it originally appeared although misspellings and errors may be corrected.