“You might want to go with boats, water, steamers, piers...” Alan Burnett writes below his Sepia Saturday prompt photo...
Here’s the passenger boat from Boston steaming into Linnekin Bay in East Boothbay, Maine
Lots of boats, but it’s that steamer that lifts my heart!
Every summer it carried my grandfather’s family from their home in Boston to Maine ; it also transported my grandmother’s family on the final leg of their journey from Tiona, Pennylvania to their summer house on the same shoreline– a trip that involved trains from Tiona to Boston , then the steamer from Boston to Maine
My grandparents met here in East Boothbay ; they courted here, married, then spent every summer of their lives here, bringing their children and, eventually, their grandchildren. We still own a house here – there have been five generations of us to summer on Murray Hill!
This is the old Gould summer home; the young boy sitting on the top step is my grandfather. The house looks amazingly the same in 2013, although there are houses packed close on either side of it now.
So there you have it: boats, water, steamers, piers.
I’m on board with it...
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A lovely evocative family story and it brought back memories of my own holiday in New England and taking the ferry from Boston to Salem. I would ahve loved to have sailed further up the coast to Maine.
ReplyDeleteWow! Wonderful postcard and lovely home. I'm so glad that you guys still have it in your family. What a piece of history.
ReplyDeleteKathy M.
A lovely bit of the family story and a fine photograph. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great way to travel and spend the summer!
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful legacy to spend summers in the same home for 3+ generations!
ReplyDeleteWhat fun times and memories to treasure for a life time!
ReplyDeleteGreat photographs to accompany your family memories - thanks for sharing them.
ReplyDeleteA reply to ALL of you: actually, the house my family still owns isn't the one in the photo -- it's the one my grandmother's family owned, about 10 houses down the bay from the old Gould summer house -- I promise I'll throw in a photo of it sometime! Thanks to all for your visits, your comments!
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you didn't include a present day shot of your house hemmed in by the others. A coincidence, I know, but I am currently readind a David Baldachi book based in Maine - the story it tells is nowhere near as idyllic as yours.
ReplyDeleteI've read quite a few of David Baldacci's books -- and I either like them a lot or dislike them! Never had that experience with an author before (love/hate). It's interesting...
DeleteWow. What a special place with so many memories attached!
ReplyDeleteLooking at that first old photograph, so much seems to have changed. I know the land is still there, the water is still in the same place... but so much time has gone and left its mark on the scene.
ReplyDeleteSuch a majestic steamer and what wonderful family memories spending your summers at the summer house. So much of that Americana is gone now.
ReplyDeleteSpot on with that lovely old steamer and an interesting story to tell too.
ReplyDeleteTravel was such an adventure back then.
ReplyDelete