Western Maine
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Stratton’s Local Hero Pregnant housewife receives Carnegie award for bravery by Brian Swartz
W
illiam Luce, who lived in Flagstaff before growing up in Stratton, will never forget Alice Scribner, the 39-year-old housewife who saved him from drowning when he was 11 years old. Bill was born in Anson to Kenneth and Lucille Luce. The family later moved to Flagstaff on the upper Dead River, and Kenneth worked in the woods, cutting pulpwood. Planning to dam the Dead River to impound water for hydroelectric facilities farther south on the Kennebec River, Central Maine Power acquired all the property in Flagstaff and neighboring Dead River Plantation and started building Long Falls Dam in 1948. When the new lake flooded Flagstaff,
“we moved to Stratton and settled beneath Bigelow Mountain,” Bill said. Near the South Branch of the Dead River lived Kenneth E. and Alice D. Scribner, married in 1936. Kenneth pumped gas at a local filling station, and Alice cared for the growing family. Loggers stacked pulpwood on frozen streams during the winter. “When the ice melted, the pulpwood floated down the rivers to the lake,” Bill said. “Pulpwood would often wash up” on the South Branch shore. In spring 1953 “I fashioned a raft with four-foot sticks of pulpwood and took some boards and nailed them all together to make a raft on the South Branch,” he said. On Saturday, May 16, Bill was play-
ing near the river with Randy Scribner, about age 13. A friend named Terry had fashioned a boat from boards but did not caulk them. He pushed off from shore and the boat started sinking with him still aboard. “It was kind of a cool day,” so Bill had donned a sweatshirt, a jacket, and jeans. “The ice maybe had been out for a couple of weeks. The water was extremely cold.” Terry shouted for help. Stepping onto his raft, Bill “poled out” into the river toward the boat. Then “my pole stuck in the mud” about 30 feet from shore; the raft flipped, spilling Bill into water seven feet deep. “Normally I was a pretty good swimmer, but I had so many clothes
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