100 Years Ago: 1924

Three trains from Montreal, one from Quebec and another from Sherbrooke have been chartered to bring the Canadian Snowshoe Union members to Lewiston for their annual convention on February 7th and 8th. In this group of Canadian snowshoe, ski and skate artists there will be 100 members of the Tramways Employees’ Union of Montreal which has one of the best bids in that city. Hundreds of tourists from Canada, outside of the union members will take advantage of the special rates that will be allowed them by the railroads.

But those from above the border will not be the only ones to flock to Lewiston. There will be railroad fare reductions all over New England and thousands of winter sport enthusiasts are expected to flock to these two cities.

50 Years Ago: 1974

The season is over, and for some, there’ll be good eating (not subject to rising food prices) for weeks to come. Army Lt. Col. Al “Sonny” Fournier, formerly of Lewiston, and the nine-point buck he brought down with one clean shot through the neck in North Monmouth. The deer, which dressed out at 205 pounds, qualified Fournier for membership in the Biggest Buck in Maine Club. Fournier, on a ten-day hunting trip from New York, who shot the whitetail on his ninth day out, will get an estimated 123 pounds of meat from his kill.

25 Years Ago: 1999

A 13-year-boy is credited with saving his mother and three children in an early morning house fire on North Main Street in Mechanic Falls.

A firefighter suffered burns to his face and a pet bird died in the blaze, but the woman and four children escaped the burning home about 6 a.m.

“It started on the second floor in a bedroom,” said Fire Department Lt. Pete MacDonald. “When we first rolled in, there was fire rolling out of the second-story window. We immediately called for mutual aid.”

Annette Godin lives in the house with her son, 13-year-old Dustin Clavet, and her daughter, Alexandrea Gauthier, 8. Godin was also baby-sitting two children, a 3-year- old girl and a 6-year-old boy, when flames erupted in the second-floor bedroom.

Godin and the three children escaped uninjured. But she said they escaped only because Clavet rushed through the house waking people up after he was roused by the flames.

“He saved our lives,” Godin said. “I’m so proud of him.”

The material used in Looking Back is produced exactly as it originally appeared although misspellings and errors may be corrected.