ANSWER: Your query does not include a time and location. Your contact information suggests that you wrote to Sun Spots from Atlanta, Georgia. If you visit www.friendlyforecast.com you can find the weather by location and by date. That day saw a light rain, fog/mist which changed to heavy rain at times with temperatures that started in the mid 60s and dropped to the high 40s in Atlanta.
DEAR SUN SPOTS: I read your column daily and have seen a number of letters from people seeking classmates for reunions of various years and I am hoping your column will help us as well.
The Roosevelt Grammar School reunion committee for the school in New Vineyard, Maine is currently in the planning stages of another reunion. Our last one was in 2000 and we do not have current addresses other than the ones we used in 1997. We will be mailing place and date information to those addresses we think may be current.
If any student who attended Roosevelt Grammar School does not receive this information by June 1, 2015, and wants to attend, please contact Rebecca Heath Medcoff at 207-645-3591 after 5 p.m. week days or email gmedcoff@roadrunner.com. Or contact Tellis Fenwick at 207-265-2337 with your contact information.
If you taught at this school and would like to attend, please send us your contact information as well. Thank you Sun Spots for your column. — Sincerely, Rebecca Medcoff.
DEAR SUN SPOTS: We wish to express our appreciation for all the responses to my husband’s daughter’s letter to Sun Spots. My husband, who is an Air Force veteran, has had MS since 1998. He was in need of an electric lift-recliner. A BIG thank you to Paul and his wife, who had one of these chairs, was willing to give it to him and even deliver the chair. May they be blessed for their generosity. Very grateful for this column and those who read it. — Very thankful, No Town.
DEAR SUN SPOTS: This is a response to the inquiry of March 30 regarding Maine towns named after famous places. Several years ago, I researched the names of Androscoggin County towns. Briefly, this is what I found for towns with “foreign” names:
Leeds, England, was the ancestral home of the Stinchfields, the first settlers of Leeds, Maine.
Similarly, the town of Wales was named to honor John Welch, whose ancestors were from Wales.
Lisbon was originally named Thompsonborough in recognition of General Samuel Thompson, but the residents complained about the length of the name and Thompson’s unpopular views, so Abel Nutting suggested Lisbon, “for no apparent reason, other than its shortness.”
Durham was originally named Royalsborough for Col. Isaac Royall, but possibly because of the length and his status as a Tory, the residents petitioned for the name of Sharon or Bristol, but the legislature chose Durham, possibly for Durham, England, but the reason is not known.
Poland allegedly was named, not for the country, but for Representative Moses Emery’s favorite psalm tune by Isaac Watts.
Auburn was named by Mrs. James Goff, the wife of the state representative, for a fictional English village, the subject of Oliver Goldsmith’s “The Deserted Village.”
I look forward to any corrections or additions. — Doug Hodkin, historian.
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