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My parents wedding day 1942.

My Mother and Father, Wedding Day 1942

They were married during the Second World War and because gasoline was rationed they had to hitch hike on their honeymoon to my Dad's parent's cottage on a lake called Lakewood, Maine. My Mom would laugh remembering that they rode on the back of a farm truck with their legs hanging over the edge of the back.
Lakewood had an Inn and Summer Theater and was quite grand in it's day, many well known actors and actresses would perform in the theater and enjoy the lake as well with their families. My father said he played tennis with Humphfrey Bogart.

They had no regrets and loved each other deeply through thick and thin.

I was born in 1947, my father was 47 years old and I was his first child, to their surprise they had my brother Peter the very next year. My mother had two sons by her first marriage and they were almost grown when I was born.

My father was an optometrist and my mother was a beautician, they both had their business in the house we rented on Maple St. It was hard to find housing then when all the G.I.'s were returning back to the states and rents and housing were scarce. They were so happy to find this house, were they both could work. My Mom remembers it as the best years of her life.

My oldest brother was a prisoner of war during the Korean conflict and he was only 17 years old. He escaped and walked almost 200 miles in his bare feet to find his buddies on the other side of the LINE (the 28th Parrarlel).
Concidered a miracle, his story was written up in magazines and many national newspapers. My other brother also joined the army when he was old enough and visited the same place in Korea, he sat on the steps of the church where my older brother was held prisoner and cried like a baby in memory of his brother's escape.

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Taken about 1920.

Paternal Grandparents, Lucy and John Thomas.

My grandparents on my father's side lived in Skowhegan, Maine on the Kennebec River. They came there from St. Georges, Quebec,Canada. They were of typical French Canadian descent and very Catholic. There was also some Canadian "Indian" blood relation and also I believe Welch blood .

My grandfather John Thomas Dumont was a carpenter contractor,
he built the homestead, a gorgeous old house and barn. My father as the youngest boy use to have to go to the "commom field" on the outskirts of town to get the family cow, each family shared a field, a custome in those times. My Grandfather was known about town as the "stingiest man there was". They would say "he was so tight with his money that he squeaked when he walked" but that is how he got ahead. Very stern man with old New England thriftiness.

I believe he paid another young fellow to take his place in the Civil War, thus that man was killed on the front. Interesting story. He also was connected to ship building in Wiscassett, Maine on the coast, making the staffs of the ships .

My grandmother Lucy Genevieve Breton was a "woman extroidinare", gave birth to 12 children; twins, one stillborn the other had epilepsy, another stillborn, one child she lost to drowning in the river during her pregnancy with my father, whom she named "Dolor" which means "sorrow". A strong aggressive woman who made extra money by taking in other people's laundry, she saved her money in an old teapot, with that money she bought another house, with the rent money from that house, she bought property and my grandfather built her a cottage on a nearby lake (Lakewood). A woman before her time. In her spare time she braided woolen rugs and won first prize at the local fairs.

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Great-Grandparents 1880.

My Great Grandparents on my mother's side.

Again of French Canadian descent, from the Leilette section of Quebec on the Gaspe Peninsula. They came and settled in the Waterville, Maine area.

He (Wilfred Norman) and she (Mary Burgess-Bolduc) also were devout Catholics, and had five children. One being my grandmother Evelina Marie.

He was also a carpenter builder and she a homemaker. They lived in the Jewish section of town, and all the neighbors would help each other get along in their strange new surroundings. My grandmother and aunt learn to speak Hebrew (Yiddish), and I loved to hear them speak it when I was a young girl. Of course in time the Jewish folk owned most of the stores in town, and the French remained part of the working class people, working mostly in the local industries of iron, paper, wool, cotton and shirt making (Hathaway, Arrow Shirts).

My grandmother was very beautiful and very rebellious, she would run away from school and work in the mills until they established the "child labor laws", she was also an actress and singer and would perform in local productions. She met my grandfather, a Colby College student in the early 1900's, she was a "townie", he was from a well to do Jewish family who owned a furniture business in Bath, Maine. Unmarried, the family of my grandfather (Ira Mikelsky 'later Michaels') bought my grandmother off and severed all connections to my mother, Dorothy.

Another part of my maternal ancestory included Native American Indian. A fascinating story.......in the 1600's Jean Baptiste Castine was a French officer who settled on the Penobscott River, and fell in love with and married the Penobscott Indian princess. It was a political time (French & Indian War) and the coastal town of Castine was established after him where there is now a naval academy. (Maine Maritime).

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First Portrait..Deborah Anne 1947

My First Portrait 1947.

I was born on August 9, 1947 in Waterville, Maine to Dorothy Norman Mikelsky and Dolor Breton Dumont.

Being the first girl in the family, I was the "princess" and very spoiled.

I am an official "Baby Boomer" born after World War II. As my generation got into their teens and early twenties we were the "Hippie" movement. It was a time of "free love" and "do it if it feels good". It was an interesting and rebellious time......but it left me wondering "what were we thinking"?

Today is a time in history that made our "worries" and "rebellions" miniscual in comparison with what the youth have to face now.

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My brother Peter and I in the 1950's.

My Childhood memories always included my Brother

This photo was taken on a rock on the top of Catillac Mountain at Arcadia National Park, near Bar Harbor, Maine, with my brother Peter.

We went on lots of outings with our Mom and Dad. They were older parents and really enjoyed their children.

My childhood consisited of "care-free" days playing with my younger brother Peter. My older brothers were away in the Korean War, and then married.

It was a family tradition to climb into my dad's huge car and ride standing up on the back seat, going to the ocean or the lake to swim and have a picnic. We also took weekly trips to visit my aunts who live on the old homestead in Skowhegan, Maine every Sunday afternoon after Sunday dinner and church. Then it was a rush home to watch Sunday night Disney on t-v. The only consolation that the weekend was over and we had to go to school the next day.

School consisited of going to the local convent schools, ours being Sacred Heart School with the Ursaline Nuns. I had my palms hit with a ruler a few times, but now that I think about it, it was the humiliation that hurt the most. Something I did not want to experience again. Maybe we need that back in our schools. Boy...I sure did respect that "ruler". And I never felt bidder about it, I am almost glad someone cared enough about me to correct me that way. It is the only language kids understand.

Recess was active fun of playing hopscotch or skipping rope or throwing a ball against the school wall reciting catchy songs as we did it. The boys played marbles and were very serious about it. and also kick ball. Then we would line up in rows, boys on one side, girls on the other. Perfect silence when walking back in....ahhh..can you imagine that now.

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Growing up in a mill town on the Kennebec River was probably different than most....but we had strong family and church, each part of town a certain nationality. The northend..French and Irish who went to Sacred Heart Church. Midtown, was French and Lebanese who went to St. Francis DeSales or St. Joseph's Menonite Church, then the Southend was French who went to Notre Dame Church.

The Jewish lived in the Ticonic St. Area and then eventually moved up to "Mayflower Hill", the more prospeous part of town on the way to Colby College. The Levines stayed in town where they started but their house stuck out like a sore thumb in the poorer class neighborhood.

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Me and my High School Sweetheart at our Prom. 1964

High School years in the 60's

I first attented Mt. Merici Academy a high school for girls, and became friends with the foreign students from Venezuela. That summer I was invited to go home with one and thus began my first real travels.

High School was great a time. Dances at the YMCA, Pep-rallies before football games, basketball and hockey were big sports then. On weekends we would all go skiing or ice skating or sledding. So much to do. Good fun. High School Sweethearts......Parties, Rock-n-Roll, the Beatles. Folk Singers.
Those were good times...with many fond memories.

The 1960's were a time of Equal Rights Demonstrations, Assassinations of Martin Luther King, President Kennedy and his brother Robert Kennedy....it was a time of the "Vietnam War" and college demonstrations and National Guard killings of college students at Kent State Ohio. A time of social reform and the "hippie" movement of free love and drug use.

But it was also a time that when you are young you feel like you can conquer the world and be whatever you want to be.... that was what the 60's was really about.

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Ski Bums at Sugarloaf Mt. Maine.

The late 60's ....Ski Bumming and Working.

After I graduated from high school, I did not have the opportunity that others had to go to college, but I did study at a hospital to become a Medical Lab Technician.

I worked hard then, being on call and the responsibility of the type of job I had in the medical field...........but I played hard also, went on many adventures like staying 10 days on top of Mt. Washington, camping and skiing at Tupperman's Ravine.

I "ski bummed" at Sugarloaf Mt. in Kingfield, Maine where I worked at the "The Red Stallion Inn" as a bar maid, got my lodging free in an un-heated loft attic and with my tips bought a ski lift ticket the next day. And even before I got my own car I use to hitch hike (horrors) up to the mountains or catch a ride with my other ski-bum friends.

My friend Marcia Morrison and I (in photo at left) had lots of fun...those were some of my favorite times.

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I'm on the beach at Big Sur, California.

Early 70's...coming into my Womanhood.

The 70's was a time that I continued to travel and explore when I could. My father died when I was nineteen and I had to keep the household going with my job at the local hospital. My brother Peter went to college and studied Marine biology and Geology and commuted from home to Unity College, Maine. My Mom was ill and could not work at her Beauty Salon like she use to.

It was a hard time but also a good one....I do not regret it. Sometimes after all the bills were paid I would have a dollar left to spend on myself. Usually I would go dancing with my friends and buy myself one beer for the night with that dollar. I felt very rich.

I later met my husband and we married and moved to his home area in Upstate New York in the Catksill Mts. I have been there ever since and visit Maine at least once a year. I really enjoy sailing with my brother Pete on his sailboat in Rockland Harbor, Maine.

During my travels I went from Maine through all the states on Route 95 to the Key West with my friend Marcia. I drove with another friend from Boston to California. I took a trip with a camper including my mom and boyfriend through New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Gaspe, and Quebec, Canada. I climbed Mt. Washington and camped there. More recently I travel to Ireland. Planning my third trip this fall. (2005)