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Kelly Dawn Purington was born in Harrison Maine, and she sent us this article about her Grandfather building the Road to Deertrees Theatre ~ circa 1939
“Up in the state of Maine is a little town called Harrison. The flavour of the town's personality can be found in the work of Grant Wood and Thomas Benton. Its population is less than three hundred. Everyone knows everyone else. Its daily life consists mostly of serving the needs of the people on the nearby farms. They don't need much, they don't ask much. Life is simple and self-sufficient. There isn't a bank in the town and they don't need one. In the winter there's some excitement and activity when skiing parties appear for a moment on their way to North Conway. In the summer traffic on the main street consists mostly of strangers on their way to the resorts in the nearby lakes and mountains.
In July or August other strangers have been in the habit of arriving at the Elms Inn. For a quiet week or two they swim and fish and rock on the porches and then leave with contentment, the memory of which draws them back year after year. The townspeople nod to some of them because they've seen them about their streets in summer time for so long, but most of them are still strangers for the reason that people of that stern countryside are not given to either quick friendships or quick dislikes. The summer people, as they're called, come and go, leaving no more lasting impression than they'd done if they'd once gone through Harrison in a car and stopped at Ivory Purington's garage for gasoline. Summer before last Harrison got a shock. A man from New York was going to come up and put on plays out at Deertrees, three quarters of a mile from town. Harrison didn't take very kindly to the idea. Talk in the drugstore and the barbershop and the post office and the one restaurant, while not unfriendly, certainly didn't promise a very warm welcome. The feeling was that if this man from Broadway was successful and brought some trade to town that would be fine. But nobody was going to have much truck with this Bela Blau or the people who came up with him. Well, that isn't what happened, as anyone who knew Bela Blau would guess.
Bela started his season and the people from the summer resorts and the children from the camps came to see the plays. Occasionally some stopped at the drugstore for ice cream cones or sunburn lotion or dropped in at the restaurant for a sandwich. But there wasn't much change in the town itself. The summer people simply passed through on their way to Deertrees, three quarters of a mile away. That three quarters of a mile was pretty bad going, for it was an old narrow road that hadn't been much to begin with and had fallen off considerably in its usefulness. Anyway, the summer people came and went - strangers. But Bela they saw every day. He came to town and went to the post office, bought supplies at the general store now and then and asked advice of this townsman and that. They found him as interested in hearing what they had to say about life in general as in the answers to his questions. Then they got in the habit of talking all sorts of things over with him. And by the time the summer was over they'd got out of the habit of looking on him as a stranger. They'd learned he was a very likeable man and went out of his way to show that he liked both Harrison and the people who lived in and near it.
Well, the summer ended and the theatre completed its season and Bela got ready to go back to New York. As he was about to leave he got one of the pleasantest surprises of his life. Representatives of the Board of Selectmen came to him and said in substance; "Mr. Blau, we like you. We like what you've done for the town. To show our appreciation and to help Harrison at the same time, we're going to see that you have a good road to the theatre when you come back to Deertrees next year. Just about everyone hereabouts has signed a paper promising to help." Sure enough, this spring they made good their promises. Lou Galluba, the local druggist, Harley Pitts, the postmaster, Ivory Purington, who runs the garage, C.C. Robbins, the insurance agent, Ray Lamb, Kenneth Sampson, Sam Pitts, Cliff and Robert Denison, Fred Greene, owner of the general store and I don't know how many others all donated their time and labor and tractors and rollers and other necessary equipment for a full day. And the road to the theatre was built.”
“Up in the state of Maine is a little town called Harrison. The flavour of the town's personality can be found in the work of Grant Wood and Thomas Benton. Its population is less than three hundred. Everyone knows everyone else. Its daily life consists mostly of serving the needs of the people on the nearby farms. They don't need much, they don't ask much. Life is simple and self-sufficient. There isn't a bank in the town and they don't need one. In the winter there's some excitement and activity when skiing parties appear for a moment on their way to North Conway. In the summer traffic on the main street consists mostly of strangers on their way to the resorts in the nearby lakes and mountains.
In July or August other strangers have been in the habit of arriving at the Elms Inn. For a quiet week or two they swim and fish and rock on the porches and then leave with contentment, the memory of which draws them back year after year. The townspeople nod to some of them because they've seen them about their streets in summer time for so long, but most of them are still strangers for the reason that people of that stern countryside are not given to either quick friendships or quick dislikes. The summer people, as they're called, come and go, leaving no more lasting impression than they'd done if they'd once gone through Harrison in a car and stopped at Ivory Purington's garage for gasoline. Summer before last Harrison got a shock. A man from New York was going to come up and put on plays out at Deertrees, three quarters of a mile from town. Harrison didn't take very kindly to the idea. Talk in the drugstore and the barbershop and the post office and the one restaurant, while not unfriendly, certainly didn't promise a very warm welcome. The feeling was that if this man from Broadway was successful and brought some trade to town that would be fine. But nobody was going to have much truck with this Bela Blau or the people who came up with him. Well, that isn't what happened, as anyone who knew Bela Blau would guess.
Bela started his season and the people from the summer resorts and the children from the camps came to see the plays. Occasionally some stopped at the drugstore for ice cream cones or sunburn lotion or dropped in at the restaurant for a sandwich. But there wasn't much change in the town itself. The summer people simply passed through on their way to Deertrees, three quarters of a mile away. That three quarters of a mile was pretty bad going, for it was an old narrow road that hadn't been much to begin with and had fallen off considerably in its usefulness. Anyway, the summer people came and went - strangers. But Bela they saw every day. He came to town and went to the post office, bought supplies at the general store now and then and asked advice of this townsman and that. They found him as interested in hearing what they had to say about life in general as in the answers to his questions. Then they got in the habit of talking all sorts of things over with him. And by the time the summer was over they'd got out of the habit of looking on him as a stranger. They'd learned he was a very likeable man and went out of his way to show that he liked both Harrison and the people who lived in and near it.
Well, the summer ended and the theatre completed its season and Bela got ready to go back to New York. As he was about to leave he got one of the pleasantest surprises of his life. Representatives of the Board of Selectmen came to him and said in substance; "Mr. Blau, we like you. We like what you've done for the town. To show our appreciation and to help Harrison at the same time, we're going to see that you have a good road to the theatre when you come back to Deertrees next year. Just about everyone hereabouts has signed a paper promising to help." Sure enough, this spring they made good their promises. Lou Galluba, the local druggist, Harley Pitts, the postmaster, Ivory Purington, who runs the garage, C.C. Robbins, the insurance agent, Ray Lamb, Kenneth Sampson, Sam Pitts, Cliff and Robert Denison, Fred Greene, owner of the general store and I don't know how many others all donated their time and labor and tractors and rollers and other necessary equipment for a full day. And the road to the theatre was built.”
