schools and graduated from Waterville High School. As was the norm for the early 60’s, I married right out of high school at the age of 17. I had my first child at the age of 18 with a total of four children by 24 (two boys and two girls). The photo at the left was taken a couple of months before I was married.

After my third child was born, I did shift work at a manufacturing plant for a year to save the down payment for our own home. We were living in an apartment that my parents owned where the rent was real cheap but we wanted our own home. I swapped shifts with anyone who would swap, as I needed to work the graveyard shift so I could take care of the three babies during the day until my husband got home from his job. We bought our home in 1965 and moved on the Fourth of July.

When my youngest was a year old, I went to hairdressing school in Skowhegan, which was about 20 miles from where we lived. That was a long, hard 1500 state required hours. When I finished I had to take a State Written and Practical exam and was so scared to death when the results came in the mail that I hadn’t passed. When I finally mustered the courage to open the envelope I had passed with a 98 on the written and 96 on the practical.