A familiar face

Gladys (Wagner) Hall, 88, of Scarborough said she was one of the students pictured in the Gorham Remembered photo on page 2 of the Nov. 16 American Journal.

The photo of the third and fourth grades in 1925 was taken at the then-junior high school, which also had elementary grades. The school on School Street was later named Charlotte Millett School. Hall is third from the right in the front row in the photo.

“It brings back memories,” Hall said about seeing the photo.

Hall, a retired teacher, grew up on Dusty Hill Farm on Libby Avenue. The late Nelson Wagner of Gorham was her brother.

Hall first attended school at Corthell Hall on the campus of the present day University of Southern Maine. Hall graduated from Gorham High School in 1934. She recalled that some students from Cornish attended the high school.

Hall graduated from Gorham Teachers College, a forerunner of USM. Beginning in 1938, she taught one year at the school where the photo was taken.

She remembered riding on trolley cars to attend the Gorham fair.

Seniors Christmas dinner

Senior citizens will have their Christmas dinner at noon on Wednesday, Dec. 14, at St. Anne’s Church, 299 Main St.

Louise LaLiberty, who heads up the meals program, said the dinner would be ham with all the fixings including mashed potatoes, marinated carrots, peas, cranberry sauce, pickles and celery with pie and ice cream.

Eleven volunteers usually serve up to 150 people at a weekly meal each Wednesday. “If you have gray hair, you can eat here,” said Roger McGee.

McGee, 86, of White Rock is the eldest on the volunteer staff. “Because I’m the oldest, they work me the hardest,” McGee said with a laugh last week while frying sausage in the kitchen at St. Anne’s last week.

All the meals are home-cooked. LaLiberty said she does the shopping but has a lot of help cooking and serving the meals.

Besides McGee and LaLiberty, other volunteers include Carol and Norman Gallant, Rubye and Pat Grady, Norma Peters, Nancy Brown, Virginia Beagle, Mary Maxwell, Lorraine Afthim and Sylvia Brown.

Last week, the staff laughed while preparing the seniors’ meal. “If we can’t work and have fun, we might as well all go home,” LaLiberty said.

LaLiberty has been overseeing the meals for 16 years. “When they asked me, I said I’d try it for a month,” she said.

Baxter reminder

The Baxter Memorial Library, 71 South St., and the adjacent Baxter Museum will host its annual holiday open house from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, Dec. 10.

Festivities include refreshments along with crafts and gift ideas. And Santa will be there, too.

Knoop calls Billy

Billy Hamilton of Dow Road, who was a pitcher with the Milwaukee Braves organization in the 1950s, recently had a call from a former teammate, Bobby Knoop.

Knoop was reviewing his Christmas card list at home in Arizona when he ran across Hamilton’s name. The former three-time golden glove award winner at second base picked up the phone and called Hamilton.

Hamilton’s wife, Vicky, answered the phone and was surprised when she asked who was calling.

Knoop signed with the Milwaukee Braves in 1956. He played with the California Angels, Chicago White Sox and Kansas City Royals. Knoop was an all-star in 1966.

U.S. taxpayer debt

The Bureau of Public Debt reported on Tuesday, Nov. 29, that U.S. public debt was $8,097,704,867,901.38.

The public debt was $7,596,165,867,424.14 on Dec. 31 last year. The debt jumped up to $8 trillion on Oct. 18.

Roger McGee, 86, will be one of the volunteer cooks, preparing Christmas dinner today for senior citizens at St. Anne(Brown and Beagle) – Nancy Brown and Virginia Beagle fix garlic bread last week for the seniors meal at St. Anne’s Church in Gorham.