Faithbook: Our Story, Our Song

My name is Jo-Ann Barton. I was born on March 1, 1938, and I grew up in Littleton, Maine. Life was simpler then. We didn’t have much, but we had family, and that meant a lot. There were three of us kids in my family—a brother, a sister, and me. I was the oldest, though people often thought I was the youngest. I don’t know why, but that’s how it seemed. With my mother and father, that made five of us all together. My father worked on a farm for his cousin. He worked very long hours, often late into the night. Because of that, we didn’t see him very much during the week. Usually we would see him on Saturdays and Sundays. He was a good man and good to us kids, but since he worked so much and wasn’t home a lot, I remember feeling a little shy around him. When you only see someone a couple of days a week, you don’t always know them the same way you might otherwise. My mother was different. She was the one who kept everything together. I always say she was a little crazy—crazy in the good wa...

When I was a child, I lived in Washington, D.C., in a big house with a lot of people. My grandparents were there. My mother and father. My sisters. For a while, even my aunt and her kids. Everyone lived together. It felt like my family went on forever. As a kid, I thought I had more family than I could ever meet. And honestly, it was good. We were close. That was how my grandmother wanted it. My grandmother was the center of everything. She led with what I’d call a stern tenderness. She was loving, but you didn’t argue with her. She knew what she was doing. If you listened to Grandma, things went well. If you didn’t, well—don’t mess with Grandma. She loved us fiercely, and she wanted us together. Always together. Eventually, D.C. started getting dangerous. There were some close calls with crime, enough that my grandparents decided it was time to move. They sold the house, and when I was about five or six years old, we all moved together to Florida. Once we got to Florida, we sett...

I was born in Connecticut, but Maine is where my story truly begins. My father was in the Army. While he was away serving, my mother found herself far from her family and the support she needed. She made a brave decision. She brought us back home to Hodgdon, to a place called the Jackson Settlement. That move shaped my whole life. Not long after, when Dad returned from the service, he bought a house up the road and fixed it up himself. That became our family home. I lived there all through my school years, until I married Gerald. When I think of my childhood, the first word that comes to mind is outside. We were outside kids. Our mother had to fight to get us inside at night. Bedtime was never easy. Times were different then. We didn’t roam miles away, but we were everywhere—yards, woods, corners of the neighborhood. We were free, and we were safe. Faith came into my life early, too. An aunt—Darlene Blackie’s mother-in-law—started us in Sunday school. She was a very strict Baptist. We ...

I was born in Presque Isle, Maine, and I have lived my whole life in the same house in Blaine. I am only nineteen years old, but in some ways, my life feels much older than that. Roots do that to a person. When you grow up in one place, with the same roads, the same seasons, and the same people, you begin to notice how time shapes you. My childhood was simple and steady. My parents did their best to give my siblings and me good lives. They wanted us to try things, to explore, to grow. I tried drawing, karate, sports and explored other things. We stayed busy. One of my clearest memories is snowmobiling with my father. Winter after winter, he took me out on the trails. There was the sound of the engine, the cold air on my face, and the sense of moving forward together. Looking back, that mattered more than I realized at the time. Faith was part of my life early on, though not always in a consistent way. My parents and grandparents attended a Pentecostal church. My grandmother, however, ...

I was born in Mars Hill, Maine. Some of my earliest memories are rooted right here, even though my family moved away for a short time when I was very young. When I was about four or five years old, during World War II, my parents moved us to Connecticut. My father worked at Pratt & Whitney, building aircraft for the war effort. I remember starting kindergarten there. We walked to school every day. At the time, it felt like a very long walk, though it was probably only about half a mile. Still, to a little girl, it felt like a journey. Before my younger siblings started school, we moved back to Mars Hill. We lived on ACI Street in a house without running water. That is something I remember clearly. Bath night came once a week. We bathed in a big galvanized tub, probably on Saturdays. Life was simpler then, but it was full in its own way. Later, my father bought a farm on the Presque Isle Road. For a while, he grew potatoes, but eventually he stopped and began raising turkeys. We had...

When I look back on my life, my earliest memories are very simple ones. I remember my mother and father, and my two brothers. I was the oldest. We were not a rich family, but we had what we needed, and we had each other. The first place I remember living was an old farmhouse way out in the country. My father worked for his brother. They farmed with horses back then. We had no running water, no bathroom inside the house, just an outhouse. We got our water from a brook. At the time, it didn’t seem strange. It was just life. I remember riding on the wagon with my father, sitting up high while the horses pulled us along. They planted a few acres of potatoes, nothing like the big fields you see today. Life was hard work, but it was also a happy time. Later, my father began working for different people, and we moved into Mars Hill. Before that, we had lived in Robinson, a very small town. Mars Hill felt big to me. We moved into a house with lights and running water, and that felt like a grea...

When I look back on my life, the very first memory that rises to the surface is church—walking beside my grandfather, hand in hand. He was my beloved grandfather. He meant the world to me. My grandfather had a hard beginning. He was an orphaned boy from England, sent to this country when he was only six years old. He never saw his mother again. Life did not give him much, but he became a strong and faithful man. He had one child—my father—and I was his oldest grandchild. I thought very highly of him. I still do. One of my fondest memories is going to church with him when I was very small. That memory has never left me. He died when I was eleven years old, in Monticello. His death was my first deep loss, and even now, many years later, I can still feel it. I was born in Houlton, but I grew up in Monticello. Church was never optional in our home. My mother made sure of that. Every Sunday, without question, she took us to church and Sunday school. My father came on special occasions—Chris...

I was born a twin, and I always thought that was the greatest thing in the world. From the very beginning, I had someone who understood me, walked like me, thought like me, and always had my back. My sister Nancy and I were as close as two people could be. People said we were identical twins, but I never quite believed that. We looked alike when we were little, but as we grew up, we began to look more like sisters than identical twins. We grew up in Weymouth, Massachusetts, on a piece of land where my father grew vegetables. We had goats and chickens, and life felt full of simple joys. Our neighborhood was a mix of old Yankees, Lithuanians, Irish, and Syrian families. Everyone got along. But when my parents separated and my mother moved us to Quincy, everything changed. Suddenly, we weren’t welcome anymore—because we were Italians. When we went to knock on doors and ask if friends could come out to play, their parents would say, “Oh no, she’s sick today.” We didn’t understand why we we...

I grew up in Hingham, Massachusetts, about twenty miles south of Boston, just a mile from the Atlantic Ocean. I was born and raised on a small farm—just a few acres—but it was full of life. We had chickens, pigs, goats, and sheep. I remember plowing the garden with horses before we ever had a tractor. Everything we did was by hand—just like the Amish people. We didn’t have chainsaws or power tools, just axes and two-man saws. We worked hard, but we also grew everything we ate. The only thing we had to buy was milk because we didn’t have a cow. That’s the kind of life I had as a boy—simple, tough, but good. My father came from Italy, and my mother was born in Massachusetts, though she was also of Italian descent. We were a close family. My earliest memories are of playing with things you don’t see today—pedal cars, bicycles, little scooters. I loved anything that had wheels or made noise. By the time I was twelve, I was already driving around on homemade tractors made from old trucks....

I was probably three years old the first time I can remember getting into real mischief. I was sitting in a baby carriage, rocking it on purpose until it tipped right over. Looking back, that says a lot about me—I liked to test things, to see what would happen, to explore. I was the youngest of five children. My mother had what she called “two batches” of children. Three came early, and much later, Angel and I were born. By the time we were young, the older brothers and sister had already moved out into careers and marriages. Still, they stayed connected. We would visit them, and sometimes they would come stay with us. My brother Buzzy lived for years in Pleasant Valley, raising horses and chickens, and his family became part of my childhood landscape. Home life was shaped by my parents. Dad worked for Bower Memorials, selling gravestones. He always had a big briefcase full of papers in the car. If you rode with him, your feet rested on it. He was a kind man, and he passed on one main ...

Good morning, Stetson Memorial Church family. If you had told me just a few months ago that I'd be standing here, actively participating in church, perhaps even joining in church karaoke, I might not have believed you! For years, I would have found every excuse not to attend. I always felt a quiet tugging at my heart, a sense that there was something more, but I constantly ignored it. Sometimes it was because I didn't feel like I fit in, or I was simply embarrassed to admit how I truly felt. But today, with a humble heart, I share that I am genuinely embracing this journey. After some significant challenges in my life, God, in His grace, led me to find peace where I needed it most. I now feel a deep peace I longed for, the profound love of forgiveness I desperately needed, and for that, my heart is beyond thankful. I remember the profound love and bond I felt when I became a mother – a love unlike any other. I was raised in a Christian home, attending church every Sunday, Chris...

A new day, a new beginning, a new blessing, a new hope. That is what my testimony will be—sharing what my life was like, what happened before God’s intervention, and how my life is today.   Growing Up I was born and raised in a city in Massachusetts, in a French neighborhood and schooling. Everything looked good on the outside, but behind closed doors it was another world. At home, my father was very strict. At the dinner table, we weren’t allowed to laugh or even speak. Punishments could be harsh. I remember being hit with a Navy belt or forced to kneel in a closet for an hour. My two older siblings left home as soon as they could, leaving me and my younger sister behind. By six years old, I had my first drink. By twelve, I was drinking and using drugs. By fourteen, I was hanging out with a gang. Anything to numb the pain. Much of my childhood is missing from my memory bank. The trauma was too painful, so I blocked it out. Sometimes other family members would bring something up, a...