Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1924-11-26
"MOTHER STANLEY"
Proprietor of the Stanley House at
Southwest HarbOr.

above the flr trees on 1tS rocky
point, the one familiar landmark we
were sure to recognize from any
mountain top or distant island to
which our mentioning fancy had
lured us.
And we always came back at sun
set time, as eager for Mother Stan
leys welcoming hello as for her
steamng mackerel and baked beans.
Resting on her old-fashioned sofa be-
side the cracking birch fire, she
would listen to our raptures about
surf and cliff and appetite, so genial
and sympathetic that it was hard to
realize that she had heard all this
before, not many times, but every
evening practically since she left
her lighthouse thirty-fve years ago
and came to the mainland to help the
better vacation movement.
Thirty-five years a landlady-and
still going strong. At sixty-nine she
runs the ranch alone, maintaining a
vigorous good humor in spite of err
rant chambermaids, milk boys too
late for breakfast and the thousand
and one trials that beset the head of
vacationing household. Is a camera
lost? Ask Mother Stanley. Is there a
iitney to the foot of the Cliff Trail?
Is ii going to rain tomorrow? When
is the next mail? Ask Mother Stan
ley.
1t is forty-tive years since the first
summer people began coming to that
rocky point that juts out into the
green-blue waters, and you have not
been an hour in the homely old house
before some one points out a dark
speck on the water.
There he is, out in his boat, the
professor. He has been here every
year for forty-five years, except one
when he had to go to Europe"
But, of course, Mother Stanley was
not there those first few years when
her fisherman father allowed the city
folks to spend their vacation with
him. All, no; she was out on her is
land then, scrubbing her white paint
and her small boys with equal thor
oughness, we may be sure, and pom
dering in her mind the problem that
beset her as mother of a lightkeep-
er's children. Where should her lit
tie sons get an education? Ten miles
of rough water cut them off from the
nearest little red schoolhouse, and
this was rendered further inaccessi-
BILE by the fact that those selectmen
on the mainland refused to take the
lightkeeper's children into the school
save by payment of large tuition
fee.
So one day Mother Stanley voyaged
across the bay in her dory, left the
children somewhere with cousin
and took the train to Washington.
She would like to see the President
of the United States, please.
What name?
Mrs. Stanley, of Duck Island Light.
Well, it took time. Remember,
this was forty years ago, and Presi-
dents even then were inaccessible to
unexpected visitors, from unheardof
lighthouses. But, somehow or other,
Mother Stanley secured her interview
with the President memorable
interview, famous still in the legends
of the Maine coast the interview
which really began the movement for
the education of those hitherto
neglected little wards of the nation,
the children of the lights.
IF you do not educate our chill
dren they will grow up to be paupers
and criminals" Mother Stanley in
formed the President. The chill
dren, as future citizens, are just as
much your concern as the lightkeep-
ers themselves. You ask the women
and children to go live in the lights.
Why? For the sake of the keepers
to make them contented and happy
on the islands; but if you want
worthwhile men to guard your
lights you will have to make some
provision for the education of their
children"
A good argument, which sounds ia
miliar even to-day, but it took
Mother Stanley and her little COM
mittee of gallant women-this was
before the days of woman suffrage
though they had their ideas about
that, too-many years before the
matter was adjusted. Then it was the
State of Maine, not the United States
government, which decreed free edu-
cation in any town for the children
of the lights, making it possible for
| the lightkeeper to send his children
to the mainland to live with relatives
during the school year without
| further drain on his meager salary.
Mother Stanley tells us all this, as
she sits watching the flames, her fine
| old face lit up again with the indig-
nation of forty years ago. And she
| hints that she is not through yet.
| No, sir. Not till every child of a
| lighthouse keeper, not only in Maine,
| but up and down the entire coast, is
| given a thorough education under
proper supervision.
| And then one afternoon Mother
| Stanley is gone. Nobody knows
where anybody elses camera is, and
the grandchildren brings kittens in