CHESTERVILLE — Around here, Anne Lambert is considered a “blessing.”
Anyone who wants to know about the town’s history needs just to ask her.
She has volunteered hours of her time researching road history, developing spreadsheets for town departments and compiling data.
“If you need an answer, call Anne, townsfolk fondly say,” Selectperson Linda Bauer wrote in a text.
“She is great at digging into old records to find facts that are pertinent to today’s issues,” she wrote. “She has amassed a wealth of knowledge around town meetings, warrant articles, spreadsheets and statutes. She’s spent recent years compiling valuable data for the select board. Five years ago, Anne created a comprehensive list of town roads with information dating back as far as the early eighteen hundreds. She is a blessing and a huge asset to the running of the town of Chesterville and I understand other towns want their own Anne Lambert!”
Anne Lambert holds her Spirit of America Foundation award Friday afternoon in the Chesterville Town Office. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal
Lambert, 64, likes history.
“I don’t do it to be recognized. I do it because I enjoy doing it,” she said about her research.
“I made two binders at the Town Office. I went through all the research in the safes back to the 1800s and made a second binder on Franklin County decisions on roads (such as discontinuances),” Lambert said.
If there is a question at the town level, she does the historical research to make it easier for a board to make a decision.
“I am on the Budget Committee,” she said. “I really like working with figures,” and over the years has made many a spreadsheet for the town’s Highway Department, Fire Department and Transfer Station.
Lambert, who has also once served as a selectman, now spends her free time volunteering.
Before retiring, Lambert served 15½ years as secretary to the county district attorney. She also worked from November 1986 to 1994 as assistant clerk and associate clerk for the Franklin County Superior Court.
“I then decided it was time to stay home with my children,” Lambert said. “I just wanted to be home with my children.”
She is a 1976 graduate of Mt. Blue High School in Farmington and a 1978 graduate of Husson College in Bangor, where she took a two-year office science course.
Years ago, she helped at the Clearwater Food Pantry in Industry, and also helped out then with now retired county Register of Probate Joyce Morton with a preservation project.
Once her two sons were grown, she was a caretaker for her parents.
And, “for the past few years I worked part-time at Robin’s Flower Pot in Farmington,” she said.
Lambert and her husband, Thomas, have been married for 42 years. Besides their sons, they have a grandson.
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