by Mary Grow

China selectmen continued to talk about potential services for senior citizens at their Oct. 3 meeting, while agreeing they could take no action until they see whether voters support their Nov. 8 request for $3,800 to fund a survey of senior residents’ needs. Board members Joann Austin and Neil Farrington reported briefly on a Maine Council on Aging conference they attended, sparking a discussion of possible senior housing or medical amenities China might develop.

Austin doubts a town as small as China would appeal to a commercial developer of elderly housing. However, she said, a representative of Volunteers of America, an organization that has two assisted living facilities in northern Massachusetts (but according to its website, none in Maine, New Hampshire or Vermont) expressed interest in talking with China selectmen and looking at the Fairpoint building on Route 3. Farrington has suggested the Fairpoint building could house a medical center, a day care for children and the elderly or both.

China officials are also discussing with Vassalboro officials provision of bus transportation for residents of both towns.

In other business Oct. 3, board members appointed two Palermo representatives, Cheryl York and Dwain McKenney, to the Transfer Station Committee. Palermo will begin using China’s transfer station in January 2017.

Town Manager Daniel L’Heureux said the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Committee has already spent “a few thousand” dollars of the up-to-$50,000 authorized at the March town meeting on planning and engineering costs associated with planned recreational development at the head of China Lake’s east basin.

He asked for and got from the selectmen approval to approve continued spending as engineer Mark McCluskey of A. E. Hodson organizes a meeting with state Department of Environ­mental Protection staff to discuss issues involved in applying for a permit for the work.

China voters are asked to express their views on this issue on Nov. 8, too. One ballot question asks voters to approve an expenditure of up to $12,000 to acquire a parcel of land for parking, as part of the plan; and proposed amendments to the Shoreland Zoning Ordinance include a change that would clear the way for the proposed fishing platforms over China Lake. Representatives of the State Police and Kennebec County Sheriff’s department attended the meeting to suggest additional ways to deal with mischief and nuisances on China’s back roads.

The next regular China selectmen’s meeting is the evening of Oct. 17. It will be held at China Middle School and will be preceded by a 6 p.m. public hearing on the Nov. 8 local ballot questions.

by Mary Grow

Priscilla Adams, China Village postmaster, has retired following a 32-year career with the U.S. Postal Service. Contributed photo

Priscilla Adams ended her 32-year career with the United States Postal Service Sept. 30. Her last day as China Village Postmaster was followed Oct. 1 by a retirement party organized by her husband Scott that gave another 100 or so friends and relatives a chance to wish her happiness.

Retirement is bittersweet, Adams said. She looks forward to time for herself, to work in her garden and to take day trips, starting with the Fryeburg Fair Oct. 3. She expects to watch more of her grandsons’ basketball games in southern Maine – and, she said happily, “If it’s a blizzard out and I don’t feel like coming home, I don’t have to.”

On the other hand, she’ll miss the people who enlivened her days behind the post office counter, miss the long talks and listening to people’s stories and problems.

Adams was appointed China Village Postmaster on February 1, 1997. Before that, she worked as PMR (Postmaster Relief, postal-speak for substitute) and sometimes Officer in Charge at other area post offices.

The worst part of her career, she said, has been going through so many changes, which have been difficult for employees and sometimes for customers, like the introduction in 2001 of the E911 system that changed the name and the box numbers in what’s now the China Village post office.
Adams has seen the switch from a manual typewriter to a computer, from a fan scale to an electric scale, from stamps that had to be licked to self-adhesive stamps, from any stamps at all to a postage meter.

She’s watched the price of stamps, box rentals and other services go up – and this February had the rare opportunity to see them go down a bit, for the first time, she believes, since the 1940s.
Two or three years ago, when the Postal Service cut back hours in many post offices, including China Village, there was a rumor that the China Village office would be eliminated when Adams retired.

Just a rumor, Adams is quite sure – the office is valuable not only to its 225 boxholders and other China residents, but to people from surrounding towns where post office window hours are shorter or less convenient.

Adams’ duties, official and unofficial, have included distributing mail and selling stamps, keeping the building clean, collecting lost items, putting up posters for lost pets and helping start people’s cars.

“It’s been a great working experience,” she summarized. “I like helping out people. There’ve been good times and bad times, ups and downs, but I’ve had a lot of fun.”

Becky Tesseo, who also works part-time at the post office in South China, has taken over the China Village office until a new postmaster can be found. Tesseo doesn’t know how long she’ll be in the north end of town – maybe a month, she said.

As Priscilla Adams’ retirement party wound down Oct. 1 in the China Baptist Church Vestry Fellowship Hall, people began assembling in the adjacent church for the funeral of Eleanor Foster, Postmaster from 1956 until 1982, when she retired and Joyce Whitney was appointed. Foster died Sept. 19 at the age of 96.

Foster and her husband Bill lived next door to the post office while Foster worked there and for many years afterwards. Adams said for the first few months of her tenure, they had a standing joke: she would ask Foster, “Do you want to be my PMR?”

Foster would pretend to consider for a moment before replying, “No thanks.”