Faithbook: Our Story, Our Song

I was born at home in Houlton, Maine, but I grew up in Bridgewater. That’s where my roots are. I was the middle child—two sisters, one older and one younger. You could say I was the “sandwich” between them. We were a local family. My father was from Bridgewater, and my mother was from Houlton. Life was simple back then, but it was good—steady, honest, and close to the land.   What I remember most about growing up is the farm. We lived and worked on a potato farm. I loved it. I really did. There was something about being outside, working the soil, and seeing the results of your labor over time. It wasn’t always easy work, but it was meaningful. It taught me how to stay with something, how to be patient, and how to take responsibility.   For a long time, I thought I would come back and farm. That was the plan. I even sat down with my father and talked about what it would take to get started on my own. We came up with a number—$25,000. That was a lot of money back then. I didn’t ...

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...