Ada looked out of the window from her bed at the Camden Community Hospital. The street scene was not at all familiar, nor comparable with the farm scenes where she had spent the most of her life.

Ada’s life had been filled with the voices and laughter of children, though most of the children had not been her own. She also recalled the sorrows that life brings. She had been born in Belmont, Maine on the twenty-second day of June 1875, one of the four children of Moses and Susan (Shea) Morse, as their youngest child and second daughter. Ada had never in her life traveled far from the home where she was born. She had been named for her mother’s younger sister, Ada Laura Shea, who had died shortly after her marriage in childbirth.

Edward Howard lived on the farm next-door to the Morse family with his parents, Simon and Oraville Howard. Ed was nearly eleven years older than Ada. They had known each other all of their lives, and married on New Year’s Day of 1895, when Ada was nineteen years old. A few months later, Ada’s premature infant son was born, living only eight days.

Ada and Ed lived with his parents on the farm. She did her share of the cooking, laundry, housekeeping, gardens, canning, barn chores, and all that was expected of her. Their social life consisted of the meetings at Mystic Grange down at Centre Belmont, and evening card parties with the neighbors, among whom were the Wilkins and Dickeys down the road at the corner. Being a good Maine cook, Ada’s contributions to the Grange suppers were always appreciated.

In 1898, three years after their marriage, a son, Dudley Parker Howard was born. Ada did not know it then, but Dudley’s birth would destine the remainder of her life. Dudley was a handsome, rugged child, crippled from what Dr. Crooker diagnosed as polio. Dudley was not to be held down by his illness. He got around when he was young by crawling, making his arms and upper torso very strong and muscled. His younger cousin, Amon, also had polio, but Mother, Amon’s grandmother, determined that he would walk, having his older brothers and cousins walk him around. Amon did eventually walk, but Dudley was confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Dudley also had a speech problem, being hard to understand, except by those closest to him.

In 1901, Ada gave birth to twin boys, delivered by Dr. Crooker. One of the infants was still-born. The surviving son was named after Ed. His name was Edward Colby Howard, always called Colby.

Ed was a farmer. He served as Selectman of the Town of Belmont. He kept a diary for much of his life in which he recorded the weather, and happenings of the day, including births, deaths, funerals, and calamities such as suicides, funerals and house fires, among other things.

In 1888, Ed’s sister, Minnie had married Charles Simmons. They had a large family, living over on the Lincolnville road. Their children were at the farm almost daily, playing with the boys and neighborhood children.

Ada’s oldest brother, Fred Morse, had gone to Massachusetts many years before. He had married Cordelia Hall there, and had a family of children. Cordelia died in 1889. Mother took the Boston boat from Belfast, to bring Fred’s four children back to live on the farm next door.

John had married a month after Ada and Ed to seventeen-year old Jennie Levenseller from Lincolnville. John and Jennie resided next door with Ada and John’s parents, Moses and Susan. Jennie was expecting her eighth child in June of 1907, when Ada was called with other family members to come to the farm because Jennie was not expected to live from complications of childbirth. Jennie died shortly after her thirtieth birthday, leaving another motherless family at Mother’s. John’s children were in and out at Ada’s, playing with Dudley and Colby. It was convenient for the older children to sit with Dudley when Ada and Ed had an occasional day of shopping or errands at nearby Belmont Corner or in Belfast.

Ada recalled the fire in March, 1913, of the farmhouse that had belonged to her parents, next door to Ed’s. John had remarried a younger wife, May. They had a young daughter, Faustena. John and May had gone to Rockland with a load of barrels made in his cooper shop. The house burned while they were gone, leaving the family homeless. Mother and the girls stayed with Ada and Ed, while John, May, Faustena and the boys stayed in the barn while the house was being rebuilt.

Ed recorded in his diary of Jan. 1924, when Ada’s cousin, a spinster school teacher, Lucy Cochran died, “Fred, Etta and Ada went to Belfast. Lucy Cochren died today. I am keeping house.” Etta was Ada’s only sister who married Fred Batchelder, and lived over the town line in Searsmont.

Two months later, Ed recorded in his diary, “Mrs. Morse died at 7 p.m.” Ada had gone over to Etta’s to sit with Mother and was with her when she died. Ed recorded on Mar. 16: “Funeral 1 p.m. Snow squally in afternoon. Cold.” Mother’s body could not be buried til the weather cleared.

In 1938, Ed recorded on returning home from Town Meeting, where E. P. Morrill, T. Whitsome and F. Tower were elected Selectmen of the Town of Belmont, “This is the End of my town work after 28 years of Hell and Boots in the pants!” In the early days of World War II, Ed often recorded, “Saw a plane over today.” On what became a busy highway in the Town, Ed would record, “One car by today.”

On the morning of April 28, 1944, Ed recorded, “Ground froze hard last nite. Wind blowing like hell….” Ada later recorded in his diary, “Ed had a shock at four o’clock in the afternoon. Ed died and was buried May 1.”

In 1923, Colby had married seventeen-year old Irva May Miller of Searsmont. Their first child, Cedric Colby died in April 1925, aged seven days. Colby was a woodsman, hauling many cords of wood to Oakland, sometimes making two trips a day. Colby and Irva had four children, Miller, Donald, Carl and Lillian. In 1948, Irva tragically drowned in the Georges River behind their house in Searsmont Village.

After Irva’s untimely death, Colby asked Ada and Dudley to come live with him to keep house. Ada recorded in Ed’s diary, “Came to Searsmont Apr. 1, 1948. Went to Clarence’s Feb. 30, 1949. Stayed til April 12, and came back to Colby’s.” Clarence was her nephew who lived in Belmont. Colby had remarried in the Fall of 1948 to a woman named Mattie, who had made life almost unbearable for Ada and Dudley.

When Ada came to Colby’s, she sold the farm in Belmont to her nephew, Amon. Colby died of tuberculosis at the Sanitarium in Fairfield in 1950, aged 49 years. After his death, Ada found that his home was heavily mortgaged. She did not know where she and Dudley would go. After some family meetings, the mortgage to the house in Searsmont was paid off by her nephew, giving them security in knowing that they had a place to live.

Dudley was a comfort to Ada, as they had been together all of his life. Dudley had a keen mind, though his body was crippled since childhood, confined to a wheelchair. Ada lifted him to and from bed daily. He was a heavy man. The years of hard work and lifting had taken a toll on her body. Dudley died in Nov. of 1954. Ada recorded his death in Ed’s last dairy, writing, “Poor boy!”

Now Ada was in the hospital, having surgery. It was discovered that she had cancer. She could see the shores of Heaven and the many who had been a part of her life, a life that had been devoted to care-giving for her extended family of children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews and neighbors.

Ada had kept busy, even in her declining years. She crocheted afghans, doilies, and made ‘candle-wicking’ bed spreads of bleached white flour and grain sacks, sewed together to bed size, with colored ‘wicking’ threads woven to make a beautiful spread. When guests admired her hand-made items, they often went home with them.

A nephew, Clarence, recalled to his family that had it not been for Aunt Ada’s cooking and sewing for the many, many nieces and nephews over the years, they would have been in more dire straits than they were. No one went away from her house hungry. Until her death at the Camden Community Hospital, Ada, known as Aunt Ada to many, was honored, revered and loved by all who knew her. Neighbors recalled seeing her reading her Bible on the front lawn under the maple tree in Searsmont Village.

Ada had lived eighty-two years of a caring life. She is buried in the Marriner Yard in East Searsmont with Ed, her first-born infant son, and Dudley, with her parents and many of those that she dearly loved buried nearby.