Biography

Do you remember the character "Owl", in Winnie the Pooh? He's a loquacious old bird, who enjoys retelling the tales of generations past, his Great-Uncle so-and-so and the Great Storm of such-and-such a year. If you know about Owl, then I think you might know about my father. The only difference between the two is that the stories my father tells are real stories about real people, real storms, and things that really did happen. Well, and the feathers (Of which he has none).

His name is Thomas Edward Elliott (named after his oldest brother's two imaginary friends), though if you know him from childhood, you might call him "Tommy". He was born in Waterville, Maine, to Norman and Edna Elliott and grew up in the nearby town of Freedom. Those parents seem to have passed a few hobbies on to him including the constant pursuit of all things genealogical (his, my mother's, yours, mine, it doesn't seem to matter) and seeking out the history of small-town "Mainers". But that's not all that his parents passed on to him. Fifteen or twenty thousand 3" x 5" cards indexing Waldo County cemeteries were inherited by him, which wait to be alphabetized and ever-so-slowly (we like to call it "methodically") entered into these pages.

He doesn't have an aunt who laid a seagull's egg by mistake, like Owl does, but he does have a pretty good story about being "chased" by a cow. He also has no portrait of an Uncle Robert hanging over his fireplace, but rather his Great Uncle Jim and Great Aunt Kitty look down from above the computer, where he spends so many hours maintaining this site. His Aunt Minnie played the "bones", and his mother played piano during silent movies at the Grange Hall. His grandmother had hair that was so long it piled on the floor when she took it down, and every night she got down on her knees and prayed before going to sleep, despite the fact that she couldn't get back up on her own. I've heard she made some pretty good molasses cookies, too. He once shot his brother in the behind with a BB gun (not exactly on purpose) and I'm sure his brother paid him back more than once (or was this payback for something else?... who's counting?).

And those are only among the stories that I can recall. There are so many more that I hear anew each time I see him. I tease him for repeating a few, but I don't really mind. His rocking chair squeaks and so does the grand-baby that lays against his chest while he carries on about the people and town he loves so very much. That town of Freedom, Maine.

Your stories are welcome, too. Please take a few moments to share some of your meaningful moments with us.

Rebecca Elliott-Akens

Proud daughter of a born and raised Mainiac

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