Mantor Library, University of Maine Farmington

Ida S. Colley was the daughter of Captain Louis S. Colley of Thomaston, Maine. She entered Farmington State Normal School in 1907 at the age of 19 and graduated from the general course of study on June 3, 1909.

During her first year at the school, she kept a memory book. A combination of diary and scrapbook, memory books were a popular way to capture important events and preserve memorabilia in a time before photography was commonplace.

Ida’s Memory Book F.S.N.S. 1907-1908, Book I provides a glimpse into her friendships and social activities throughout her first Normal year. Snippets of notes, pressed flowers and leaves, and invitations fill the majority of the pages, although there are a few small photographs in the book.

Ida's book included some Normal School documents, such as the school rules and her rank and attendance reports. Apparently she had her own ideas about the rules, which she set out in a poem (see sidebar). Rule number three mentioned in the poem pertains to socializing with members of the opposite sex, especially those not attending the Normal School. Unchaperoned visits with gentlemen who were not relatives and engaging in conversations with “boys” in the town were not permitted.

Ida’s poem was likely more jest than rebellion. While she had a busy social life and attended concerts, plays and the school’s Socials, most of her free time was spent visiting and taking walks around Farmington and to the Nordica Homestead with her best friends: Annie Jameson, Ruth Batchelder and Kate Gregory. (The girls may have been companions before coming to Farmington -- Annie and Kate also hailed from Thomaston and Ruth from nearby Warren.)

Ida became a member of the Christian Association upon submitting her payment of $10 dues in September 1907. The association programs for Fall 1907 and Spring 1908 are included the book. The association’s purpose was to foster Christian fellowship through prayer and weekly meetings with discussion topics relating to bible study.

Ida may have attended some of the Twenty-Seventh Annual Convention of the Maine Woman Suffrage Association held on October 21-23 at the Methodist Church in Farmington. The convention was a prominent event in 1907 and the Normal School’s principal, George Purington, gave an address on the evolution of suffrage. While the program is included in her book, the only note next to it indicates Ida had a great time at a masquerade held the Normal School on October 25.

Ida was clearly a lover of sweets, particularly chocolate and ice cream. Her aunt Effie went to great effort to mail her a cake for her birthday. Many of her memory book pages with invitations to parties or meals mention the sweets served. Ida and friends frequently went downtown to Norton’s for ice cream and even made a trip there after the D Social on April 17, 1908 for candy.

While at the school, Ida boarded with Mrs. Tarbox in a house at 109 Main Street (the brick house on the corner of South and Main Streets now known as 101 South Street). Christmas day in 1907 was celebrated by Ida, Ruth, Annie, and Kate at Tarbox House with a feast of oranges, roast chicken, biscuits, olives, jelly, cabbage salad, Hermit cookies, gingerbread, cake, figs, nuts, candy and ice cream. Ida received a number of holiday calling cards from friends, which she added to her book.

In January 1908, she attended a Teddy Bear Party at her friend Mabel’s house. A paper doll teddy bear with clown outfit and a mini sketch book of bears (each page featuring a drawing of a bear made by the girls at the party) commemorated the event, along with a note there was fudge. Ida also was a guest at a Washington’s Birthday Party hosted by Mabel on February 22, 1908, which included representations of historical events and Welsh rarebit.

Ida and her friends celebrated Easter with a “rarebit” party on Saturday evening and Mrs. Tarbox had the “girls down to supper” on Easter Sunday to dine on sandwiches, pickles, brambles and cocoa. Next to a drawing of a rabbit in her book, there is a note “my pink roses” – perhaps a gift from a friend or an admirer?

Other spring festivities include the Normal Fair and Concert held on April 25 and a May Fair sponsored by the Ladies of the Unitarian Church on April 30 and May 1. Ida mentions receiving a May basket and a package filled with cakes. She and the other girls of Tarbox House had supper with Mrs. Tarbox on May 3, which included cream cheese sandwiches, sliced oranges, cake, cookies and caramels, followed by a walk to West Farmington.

Ida’s book ends on Sunday, May 10, 1908 with the note “a closed book.”

Ida's best friends Annie and Ruth graduated in June of 1908. Annie went on to teach 5th grade at a school in Massachusetts and married Stanley Maynard. Ruth became a 4th grade teacher and married Miner R. Stackpole.

Kate graduated in June of 1910. She taught at the Adams School in Lexington, Massachusetts and became the principal there in 1912. She obtained an advanced degree from Rhode Island College of Education and a Masters in Education from Boston University. She married L. W. Walker in 1951 and they lived in Warren, Maine.

After getting her Normal School degree in 1909, Ida became a grammar school teacher. In 1920, she married Walter J. Johnson and settled in Illinois.

Sources: Memory Book F.S.N.S. 1907-1908, Book I by Ida S. Colley; Farmington State Normal School Admissions Record Book, 1891-1928; State Normal and Training School, Farmington Maine, Graduate Catalog, 1864-1957; State Normal School, Farmington, Maine, General Rules & Special Rules, ca. 1907; Christian Association of the Farmington Normal School, Fall Term 1907 and Spring Term 1908 programs; University of Maine at Farmington: A Study in Educational Change (1864-1974), Richard P. Mallett, © 1974