60-year-old surprise as WACC visits WW & F museum
Navy veteran Willis Clifford of Edgecomb waits aboard for a steam train ride at Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington Railway Museum in Alna Sept. 19 at Wiscasset Area Chamber of Commerce’s Business After Hours. SUSAN JOHNS/Wiscasset Newspaper
From left, museum volunteers Roger Whitney, Stewart Rhine, both of Alna, and Brendan Barry of Merrimack, New Hampshire. SUSAN JOHNS/Wiscasset Newspaper
Clockwise from left, Merry Clifford, husband Willis Clifford and Linda Belmont talk. SUSAN JOHNS/Wiscasset Newspaper
Museum spokesman Steve Piwowarski addresses WACC. SUSAN JOHNS/Wiscasset Newspaper
Navy veteran Willis Clifford of Edgecomb waits aboard for a steam train ride at Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington Railway Museum in Alna Sept. 19 at Wiscasset Area Chamber of Commerce’s Business After Hours. SUSAN JOHNS/Wiscasset Newspaper
From left, museum volunteers Roger Whitney, Stewart Rhine, both of Alna, and Brendan Barry of Merrimack, New Hampshire. SUSAN JOHNS/Wiscasset Newspaper
Clockwise from left, Merry Clifford, husband Willis Clifford and Linda Belmont talk. SUSAN JOHNS/Wiscasset Newspaper
Museum spokesman Steve Piwowarski addresses WACC. SUSAN JOHNS/Wiscasset Newspaper
The “U.S. Submarine Service veteran” hat Willis Clifford wore to Wiscasset Area Chamber of Commerce’s Business After Hours Sept. 19 prompted a question from Garden Club of Wiscasset’s Linda Belmont.
Did the Edgecomb man serve on a submarine?
He did, including on the U.S.S. John Marshall, part of his Navy service from 1955 to 1974.
Clifford and his wife of 60 years this month, Merry, learned from Belmont, her husband Tony, now 80, served as a doctor on the John Marshall in the early 1960s, around the same time Clifford was on it. Neither the Cliffords nor she knew if the men were on the same crew, but either way it was quite surprising, Belmont said, smiling as the event at Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington Railway Museum in Alna continued.
The Cliffords were there with daughter Ann Clifford of First National Bank.
The 30-year-old museum is named for the railway that was all about Wiscasset’s and other towns’ commerce, spokesman Steve Piwowarski told attendees. “So it’s only fitting that we should continue to support that” through involvement with WACC, its networking and exchanging of ideas, he said. At one point, towns chipped in on the railway because, even though it wasn’t making money, it was making money for them, such as a Whitefield farmer being able to sell his milk, he continued.
As he spoke, a crew of volunteers prepared a steam train for WACC’s ride down the narrow gauge rails. Pulling the train was locomotive No. 9, the only surviving Portland Company two-foot-gauge engine, Stewart Rhine said. The museum rebuilt No. 9 in nine years, Rhine said. It ran with WW & F Railway in 1932 and 1933, the close of WW & F’s run, Piwowarski said.
The ride was WACC Administrative Assistant Pat Cloutier’s first one at the Cross Road nonprofit. It was lovely, she said later.
WACC’s next Business After Hours events are Oct. 2 at Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission in Wiscasset with Marita Fairfield and National Digital Equity Center, and Oct. 24 at White Pine Home in Wiscasset. Both start at 5:30 p.m., Cloutier said.
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