Joe Seigars, 86, and Joan Gregoire, 87, sat in chairs in the empty Village School at Puddledock, in the small midcoast town of Alna. They talked about their days learning in the one-room schoolhouse — both the knowledge they absorbed there, and the larger shadow that World War II cast over that time of their lives.
It’s now been exactly 150 years since that Alna schoolhouse was built, and the two alumni were gathered there last week to share their own memories after it was recently placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The listing is the result of two years of hard work by Doreen Conboy, the town’s archivist. To do so, she had to provide the National Parks Service with records, facts and figures demonstrating the school’s historic status. Its preservation was part of a broader effort by a local organization to repair and preserve historic buildings in town.
The schoolhouse is now one of several buildings in the town that are listed on the historic register, which will help the community to secure grants for their protection, Conboy said.
At the same time, she hopes the new distinction can help more people to learn the school’s history. It joins over 100 other schools in Maine that are listed on the registry, including the Center School in Alna. There are two other historic schoolhouses in the town, but they have been greatly altered and converted into residences, according to the Maine Historic Preservation Commission.
The Village School at Puddledock stopped offering classes in 1962, and served as the municipal office until 1998, according to the town’s website. It’s still used for events, meetings and yoga classes.
While it smells old, it is well-preserved, and stepping through its door can feel like moving through time.
For Seigars and Gregoire, it’s where they learned how to write and pay attention to detail through third grade. There are still cursive letters above the blackboards. Gregoire still has her report card from 1943.
But what the two lifetime Alna residents recalled most was their own inclusion in the war effort, even if they didn’t quite understand it at the time.
Seigars said he remembers going out behind the school and collecting milkweed with the other children. The U.S. government encouraged children to collect and bag the milkweed pods in 1944, which was prized for its buoyant floss used in lifejackets for soldiers. He also would collect the metallic lining of chewing gum wrappers with his friends, rolling them into balls that were used as scrap metal for the military.
“I do remember these big balls of aluminum, and how proud we were to have our ball getting bigger and bigger and bigger,” Seigars said. “We knew that somehow, this ball of tinfoil was going to be helping overseas. What manner of help that became, I have not a clue.”
His childhood home was yards away from the schoolhouse entrance, where now there is a square, barren lot. He could step outside and go right to school. But he remembers laying in the backyard, hands behind his head, watching war planes fly across the sky in formation, so close he feared they would touch, on their way to Europe.
The schoolhouse also reminded them of more ominous aspects of the war, such as the death counts on the nightly news, or the need to close window shutters at night in case any potential enemies were out searching for population centers.
Still, they smiled when they recalled their memories of the Village School — of their shared favorite teacher, lessons in the Palmer method of handwriting, and how their mothers went to work at Bath Iron Works while the men were at war.
“The discipline was very strict,” Gregoire said to Seigars, laughing. “Remember that?”
“All too well,” Seigars replied.
