Staff Writer
PRESQUE ISLE – As part of the Star City’s yearlong sesquicentennial celebration, sixth-graders at Presque Isle Middle School hosted a heritage continental breakfast June 5 as a way to thank their grandparents and other friends who contributed to a cookbook they made called, “‘Grand’ Cooking.”
The students interviewed people two generations older and gathered information about their life as a child and a favorite recipe to be included in the book, which was presented at the breakfast.
After Gail Hagelstein, library/media specialist at PIMS, found out that Presque Isle was one of eight recipients of the Maine Community Heritage Project grant and would be putting the history of the Star City on the Maine Memory Network Web site, she got the school involved.
“I wanted to tie the grant into the city’s sesquicentennial,” said Hagelstein. “Some of our sixth-grade teachers ran with it and decided they wanted to do a cookbook and have the students interview grandparents.
“Kids need to know where they’ve come from before they can go forward,” she said. “I’m so pleased that the students did this. They’ve done a really good job.”
Teacher Elaine Hendrickson felt the cookbook project would be a great learning tool for her students.
“I thought it would be nice not only if we learned a little bit about the history of Presque Isle but if students learned more about their family heritage,” she said. “What better way to learn about your family heritage than to interview someone that’s in your family or a friend of your family who is two generations older than you are?
“The students did an excellent job putting this all together,” said Hendrickson. “They gathered the recipes, did their interviews, and wrote down the information they wanted to share. I think they did a really good job.”
The recipes were divided into categories such as main courses, desserts and breads. While the content was the same for each book, the covers were different.
“We had each one of the children design his or her own cover,” said Hendrickson. “We thought it would be more personal that way.”
Sixty-two students participated in the cookbook project.
Student Rachel Scott brought her mother, Tammy, to the breakfast.
“Rachel was interviewing my dad, Dan Ladner,” said Tammy. “There were two pages of questions that she was supposed to get the answers to. She invited him out to lunch and they discussed the questions, and then she found the second page but he wasn’t home to finish the interview.
“She said to me, ‘I need somebody old! Can you please answer the questions?’ so I agreed to fill in,” she said. “Some of the things I answered were what I did when I was little like playing outside. This was before there was children’s programming on TV and she just couldn’t believe we played outside as much as we did.”
Scott said her grandfather shared with her what he did when he was younger and she contributed a recipe that was her great-grandmother’s.
“It’s a Red Velvet Cake recipe and that’s always been his favorite, as well as a family favorite,” said Rachel. “It was nice having my Mom come today. We’re presenting the cookbooks to our relatives so that will be fun.”
Tammy said she and Rachel would try some of the recipes as a way of spending some quality time together.
Bridgette Carrier interviewed her grandfather, John.
“We talked about what they did at school, what their home was like, how they got to school and things like that,” she said. “It was fun hearing stories about when he was a kid. We also got to take pictures of them for the cookbook which was fun.”
John enjoyed the experience, as well.
“It was nice being interviewed by her,” he said. “We spent some time talking about the old days, and I contributed a potato egg salad recipe that’s a specialty in our family.
“While we live about a half-mile apart,” said John, “we see a lot of one another, but it’s always nice to help her out when I can.”
The continental breakfast and presentation of the cookbooks wrapped up a series of sesquicentennial activities the students took part in. Students also read accounts of early Presque Isle written by local historian Dr. Richard Graves, who also visited the school to share his slides and stories of the city. Classes also toured the Vera Estey House and went on a walking tour of the city.
Staff photo/Scott Mitchell Johnson
MORGAN WILCOX, left, a sixth-grader at Presque Isle Middle School, shows her grandmother, Joanne Lavway, the “‘Grand’ Cooking” cookbook her class made as part of the Star City’s yearlong sesquicentennial celebration. The cookbooks were presented at a heritage continental breakfast the students hosted June 5.
Staff photo/Scott Mitchell Johnson
SHOWING THEIR GRANDPARENTS the “‘Grand’ Cooking” cookbook they made as part of the city’s sesquicentennial celebration are, from left: Presque Isle Middle School sixth-grader Ben Buckley, his grandmother, Barbra Buckley; Ralph Ford, and his granddaughter, student Emily Buckley, who is also Barbra’s granddaughter.