Hubert W. Clemons Award for Outstanding Service to the Town of Hiram, awarded 12 October 2019 - Jim and Mary Hannaford
This couple never stops doing “good” works.
One grew up in South Hiram, left to conduct a career, and returned after retirement with a wife. Jim and Mary Hannaford.
Jim’s Father ran Hannaford Green House and Flower Shop in South Hiram, and Jim attended South Hiram schools. He plays the tuba in Sacopee Valley Community Band. And, get this,
cooks chicken BBQ for the Ossipee Valley Music Festival, the Bluegrass Festival at Apple Acres, and did it for R. B. Hall Day during Hiram’s Bicentennial.
Jim and Mary help organize the food pantry at Riverside Church in Kezar Falls – I’m not sure what that entails but I’m sure it is an effort. They are both active in the Town’s Cemetery Committee, on-site with the High School Seniors doing community service by cleaning and aligning gravestones in the South Hiram cemeteries.
Jim is a former Vice president of HHS. For the Bicentennial Celebrations he made 100 Mini-logs for the fundraising Mini-Log races on the Saco and was there to drop them at the bridge and pick them up at the finish line– how many races did we have? Three? Also that year, again for the Bicentennial, he and Bruce Nason restored and installed 4 original Library parlor doors, attaching 2 each with hinges to form a divider to display artworks in the Historical Society’s Hiram in Art Show that we still use today.
Mary. Where to start?
She is Secretary of FOSML (Friends of Soldiers Memorial Library) and is a formidable fundraiser and volunteer. She is instrumental in planning and catering breakfast and lunch for the one-day Denmark Sheep Festival in April and the 3-day Pleasant Mountain Fibre Arts Workshop in June – her quiches and broccoli salad are devoured in a flash. In a few weeks, she will prepare lunch for the WindowDressers – I see some blank faces - in case you don’t know what they are or do –The WindowDressers are a non-profit organization that builds insulating storm inserts, in partnership with local communities and the folks getting the inserts. Tear Cap Workshops is hosting the frame-building part, and then Lyn Sudlow and Peter Zack, who are coordinating the Sacopee Valley build, will take the frames down to Parsonsfield to finish wrapping the windows there.
Mary is a member at large of Hiram Historical Society, and is thus involved in many decisions and projects of the Society, and often volunteers to provide refreshments.
She sings in the Sacopee chorus. Is this the correct name?
She delivers Meals on wheels and is a member of the 21 Club, a group devoted to assisting families in need – donating funds for things like home heating and holiday gifts.
She is also a Trustee of the Sacopee Valley Health Center.
Generous with garden produce – She and Jim offer plants from their greenhouse - to the Library for the Memorial Day Bake, Bloom, Book sale, and to friends and family. The Mexican sunflower plants she gave me were spectacular, giving my garden a powerful color boost this year.
They helped Jan and me load compost and woodchips onto our truck for the Library daylily slope – just another routine response.
But what I remember most about Mary’s spontaneous empathy and generosity is the incident with the couple from Houlton camping with friends on the Saco River. The wife had a tooth abscess so they went to the hospital. When they returned they found their campsite ransacked, their friends gone and no transportation. Relatives in Houlton couldn’t pick them up until the end of the week – explanation: their house in Brownfield burned, hence their connection with the Saco and they went to live with family in Houlton. They had no place to stay and walked to town seeking help, finding it at the Historical Society, oddly enough. When I couldn’t connect with any of their friends or churches, I called Mary. She, with Jim’s concurrence, drove the couple to Portland and paid for a bus ticket to Houlton. That was the act of a darn Good Samaritan.
And many more acts that we don’t know about or have forgotten to record. We may not know the extent of their volunteerism but we can present this award based on what we do know.
Hiram Historical Society is pleased to honor Jim and Mary Hannaford with the 2019 Hubert W. Clemons Award for Outstanding Service to the Town of Hiram. Presented with pleasure by the President of Hiram Historical Society, Sally Williams.
Sally Williams