Hanover

Oxford County Commissioners listened to comments from Hanover citizens and town officials at their meeting on Jan. 22 in South Paris. A petition to open South Shore Road for winter maintenance brought the two groups together to discuss the situation. The town had never plowed South Shore Road in the winter. The landowners pay a private contractor to plow the road. There are now 38 homes on South Shore Road with seven presently used all year. The contractor for the remaining town roads say South Shore Road with its dirt surface is too narrow and dangerous for their larger equipment. The Town of Hanover was asked to find more documentation regarding the 2003 road closing notification and tabled the discussion until their Feb. 19 meeting.

Former area resident H. Howard Dunn, age 80, died January 12, 2013, at Ellsworth where he had recently been residing. He grew up in the Ellsworth area and after college he became a teacher at Kimball School in Rumford Point. He resided in a house in Hanover and later lived many years at Rumford Point. He stayed with the Rumford School system and eventually retired after years as Superintendent of Schools. His wife Freda, five children and their families survive him. We extend sympathy to the family. Those who wish may donate in his name to the American Cancer Society, New England Division, Hancock Unit, PO Box 476, Brunswick, ME 04011-0476.

We also extend sympathy to the family of Frederick “Fred” Flaherty who died Dec. 23, 2012, in Ventura, Calif., where he lived with his sister Bea. He was born and grew up in Massachusetts and became a veteran of the Air Force as a First Class Airman during the Korean War. Fred worked for 20 years in the paper company in Rumford. Eventually he owned and operated Flaherty Heating and Plumbing for 25 years. In 1954 Fred married Kitty Ross. She died in 2010. Four children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren survive them. For years Fred and Kitty lived in the farmhouse on the long turn on US Route 2 at Rumford Point.

It has been reported to us that the horror movie being filmed in a Hanover farmhouse has completed its local work. Readers may recall our telling that the house was also thought to really be haunted. Several other homes are suspected of harboring ghosts or aberrations of some sort. Someone asked if I had ever seen spirits at the cemetery. Well…um…yeah. Having spent many hours working at Hanover Cemetery there are some things that just cannot be explained. Like the time a 500-pound cemetery stone moved 60 feet from its base in mid winter with no tracks or slide marks showing. Sometimes you can just feel a presence nearby and glance up and see someone watching you. Look down and then up again and it is gone. Sometimes it is an old man holding a tool of some sort or it might be a woman complete with a colorless apron. This has been a cabin fever story just to ponder over and wonder “if.” I wonder, too.

Donna and Clem Worcester traveled to Brewer last Sunday with Freeman Farrington of East Andover to attend a Knights of Pythias Grand Lodge meeting.

Let’s hope the cold weather is on the way out of here. January has been colder this winter than we recall in recent years.