When you walk into Peggy Frantz's room at Hodgdon Green in Damariscotta, you might notice a few things.

You might notice the paintings on the walls: one featuring a large egret, and two smaller watercolor flower pictures. You might notice the photos of her grandchildren and last year's Christmas cards on the cork board by her chair. A plant sits on the windowsill, obviously well-cared for. And you'd see Peggy, an older lady with a vibrant spirit and an amazing story to tell.

Frantz has traveled all over the world, and believes strongly in learning about other cultures. She has lived in Germany, and hosted foreign exchange students while living in America.

“Our family hosted a boy from Sweden, and a girl from Austria,” Frantz said. “They got along well with the kids, and I felt it was important for our family to learn about the cultures of other kids.”

Frantz was born October 9, 1933 in Cleveland, Ohio, a “Depression baby” as she puts it. Her father had traveled there to attend college, where he met her mother, a proofreader at a weekly newspaper who also had a great deal of artistic talent.

“My mom painted that,” Frantz said, gesturing to the egret painting. “She had talent.”

Frantz grew up and went to college at Buffalo State in western New York, planning to be an art teacher. However, once she met her husband, now deceased, she dropped out and got married instead.

“It was a stupid thing to do,” Frantz said. “After my husband died, I moved to California, but I had no skills to fall back on and ended up working at Macy's. It's very expensive to live in California; you can't make it on a sales salary.”

Finding life in California not to her liking, Frantz returned to New York and starting working in a boutique which, ironically, was bought out by Macy's while she was still working there. She worked there until she was 75 years old, when back issues prevented her from standing all day.

“I would still be there if I could stand up,” Frantz said.

In the 1980s, friends of hers were planning to go on a trip to the Holy Land and invited Frantz to come along.

“My husband had left me some money, and he loved traveling,” Frantz said. “It seemed like a good way to use it.”

The group visited Egypt, Greece, Turkey and Israel. Frantz remembered riding camels to visit the pyramids, where a man in robes was tending the camels. For one dollar, he rented her one named Sayeed who was “a good camel.”

In Greece, her group hired a taxi driver to take them around. Their driver used to work in New York City; he told the group that Greece was very safe, and that they could leave their wallets in the car, and the car unlocked, and they wouldn't be touched.

Frantz recalled seeing the Greek islands, with ruins and tombs from ancient civilizations, and fascinating museums.

In Turkey, her most vivid memory was being in a room with benches on the wall where salespeople brought out dozens of handmade rugs that were spread on the floor so you could see the designs.

“My friend bought one, which they rolled up for her. When we got back, she told us they packed up the wrong one,” Frantz said.

The tour also went to Israel, where the group traveled into Jerusalem.

“We took the route Jesus took, except we were going towards the city,” Frantz said. “There were all these white buildings, and in front of the town hall was a beautiful wrought-iron fence. There were all these pieces intricately woven together; and it turned out all the iron came from a concentration camp, and was a memorial.”

Frantz eventually moved to Maine to be closer to her daughter, Wendy, who originally came to attend Unity College and, after school, married and had a child. Frantz would come up during the summers for a couple weeks, and her daughter asked her to move so they could live closer to each other.

“Be careful what you wish for,” Frantz told her daughter. A few months later, she was living in Maine.

“I like Maine,” Frantz said. “I'm very happy here.”

Frantz has two other children. One son, Bob, traveled to Maine on a sailboat via the Great Lakes and Canada, and settled down in Milo (just north of Bangor) where he works for the man who designed the sailboat he traveled on. Her other son, Michael, lives in San Francisco and works as a translator for hospital patients who only speak Spanish.

Frantz encouraged her children to travel and learn about the world. Her daughter traveled to Spain and her son Michael traveled to Chile, where he learned the Spanish that led to his job.

“It's important for kids to see what's out there,” Frantz said. “There's so much to see and learn about other cultures. My kids are very independent and adventurous because of that.”

Frantz lived in Germany in 1957, right after she and her husband got married, as her husband was stationed there.

“It was very interesting learning about the culture,” Frantz said. “We lived with the town's chief of police in a small apartment.”

Frantz recalled trading goods and services, such as paying the wash lady with cartons of cigarettes, and having to take showers at the sergeant's apartment because there was no shower (and no running hot water) at theirs.

Frantz remembers throwing a Thanksgiving dinner at her apartment for the G.I.'s who didn't have family with them. The neighbors brought over an extra table and chairs, and all the cooking was done in her small oven. Using a short wave radio, her husband was able to contact a man in Rochester, New York, who contacted their parents to let them know they were doing well, and so Frantz could get her family's recipes for turkey stuffing and pumpkin pie.

“The meal all came together,” Frantz said. “And the soldiers were happy to have some home cooking,”

When asked what the best part of living in Germany was, Frantz though about it for a moment.

“The beer was good,” she said with a smile.

These days, Frantz enjoys living at Hodgdon Green. She attends art classes taught by Carol Teel on Tuesdays, and enjoys Coffeehouse on Fridays where the chef, Elijah, puts on an enormous spread of baked goods. She also enjoys getting letters in the mail, and seeing her children, who visit often.