Staff Writer
BREWER — Every now and then, someone will remember a person that made a great influence on them growing up. Some of those special people might be police officers, nurses, doctors or grandparents, but for Bonnie (Bell) Pratt, that person was her grade-school teacher Evelyn Blake.
Mrs. Blake now lives in Brewer and Pratt tracked her down and spent the afternoon reminiscing with her about the “good ol’ days.”
Blake taught for 38 years. Her career began in Dyer Brook, where she spent five years, then she moved on to Merrill for two years, West Baldwin for one year and back to Merrill where she finished out her classroom days.
The daughter of Raymond and Josephine Estabrook of Dyer Brook, she was born on March 14, 1911. Her father was a farmer and her mother was a homemaker and Blake lived there with her parents and sister.
Choosing teaching as a career wasn’t easy for her. While growing up, Blake showed interest in teaching and nursing. She knew a nurse and a teacher and spent time with both of them. Teaching proved to be the most interesting for her and so she made up her mind to become a qualified teacher.
“I have a granddaughter and she started teaching this year and she teaches kindergarten and I said, ‘If you’re going to teach, you’ve got to write down all the funny little things that children say and then you can write a book like Art Linkletter,’” explained Blake. “So, she’s decided she’s going to do that. She wrote me a letter on her first day of school and told me what happened on her first day of school and she’s really enjoying her career that she has chosen.”
Blake did the exact same thing when she taught. She said writing down all the cute things that children say and do was the best part of her job.
“I remember Glen MacDonald,” she said. “I was reading a story, and he was sitting with his hands over his face looking at me, and I thought, he’s really enjoying this story, and finally he says, ‘Mrs. Blake, do you know what your hair looks like?’ And I said, ‘What’s my hair look like Glen?’ and he said, ‘fiddleheads.’”
She said when she was at the school they always said they were going to put something together and a lot of precious things went down. She said, looking back, they were so funny when they happened.
Blake has a lot of interesting stories to share, but one that stuck out the most was about her and her sister growing up on the farm. What she remembered the most was their farm cat named Molly.
“My sister and I treated that cat just like a doll,” she said. “We’d dress it up in doll’s clothes and we’d make a bed with shingles and then one time we put her in the bed, and she went to sleep and we forgot all about her and when we came by later, she was still there.”
Blake really loved that cat so when Molly went missing, it was a huge upset to both her and her sister.
“We called and called for Molly and she didn’t come,” she explained. “In the spring, Dad was working in the field and he came down to the house and he said ‘guess what I saw?’ And he said, ‘old Molly.’”
When Blake and her sister went to find her, they found out why Molly had been missing — Molly was a mommy.
“We rushed up and she came right out like she’d never been away,” said Blake. “We went in the woods and behind this log were these kittens and we caught one of them and took it down to the house and I know it was frightened to death and of course we didn’t get the rest and I suppose she went back to take care of them. That kitten never did get tamed.
“It always had a little wild streak in it,” she added. “But we were so happy to get Molly back.”
Blake’s childhood memories, coupled with her experience as a teacher could fill a whole book.
She has help keeping those memories alive and vibrant with the company of good friends, and most of all, her family.
Blake has two sons: Maurice who lives in Connecticut and Duane who lives in Holden. She also has seven grandchildren, 13 great-grandchildren, six great-great-grandchildren and “one on the way.”
