 Samantha Crowley, 3 weeks, is greeted by her great-grandfather David Thompson upon her arrival Friday at Cliff Island. Island residents are eager to have children on the island to help keep the school open and maintain a year-round community. |
Staff Writer Staff photos by Gregory Rec ©Copyright 1997 Guy Gannett Communications Schoolchildren took turns holding Samantha inside the one-room schoolhouse where her parents hope she will learn to read and write. Some of the island's elders ogled over her at the post office, where they gather to chat each morning as Eleanor Cushing sorts the mail. Cheryl Crowley lifted her new daughter's knit hat and leaned over to old Ben O'Reilly. |
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''Hey Ben,'' she said, ''more hair than David.'' David Crowley took his
daughter and held her up high so Carlton Cushing could get a look over the
counter. ''Hey, by gory, I'm so glad she doesn't look like you,'' said Cushing. New babies will draw a crowd almost anywhere. But here, news of Samantha's homecoming spread extra fast. That's because this island is more like an extended family than a neighborhood. It's also because islanders know that children hold the key to Cliff's future. | |
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And, here, that's more than a cliche. With just four students in the one-room elementary school, and three of them on the brink of graduation, residents fear the city could close the school. That would force children and their families to leave and ultimately, they say, turn the island into one more summer-only colony. Islanders have had that same fear for years. And they've grown accustomed to newspapers, magazines and television crews documenting their struggle to hold onto tradition. |  Postmaster Eleanor Cushing sorts mail at the post office. Cushing was to retire this spring but stayed on when the Postal Service said it would close the office after she retired. |
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''If you're at this school, it's very hard not to get into a newspaper or a
video,'' said Jesse Sawyer, a fifth grader who automatically spells out his
name so it's not misspelled. Now, however, years of trying to lure families to Cliff Island with mailings, magazine ads and an inviting web site may be paying off. The cover of Yankee Magazine's March issue had a photo of Cliff's year-round residents smiling and waving on the dock. David and Cheryl Crowley, then pregnant, are there. There is Postmaster Eleanor Cushing, island teacher Earl MacVane, and all his students: Justin, Joshua, Jesse and Taylor. | |
 Cheryl Crowley shows off her infant daughter Samantha to Muriel Anderson, left, a life-long Cliff Island resident. |
Over the quaint scene, Yankee wrote: ''Cliff Island, Maine, is Looking for a
Few Good Families.'' So far, the issue generated nearly 600 letters, calls and e-mails from 48 states and countries as far away as Austria. The contacts ranged from asking for more information about Cliff to long and pleading letters - some with resumes - from people who think they would like to move into one of six houses available to buy or rent. A Vermont woman wrote a typical letter, prominently giving details about her two school-aged children and pointing out that her husband is an experienced firefighter and could be an asset to the island. |
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A letter from a family of 10 set off talk about where such a godsend could
actually fit. Some readers have visited already. Islanders last week were sharing news about one family with two children that appeared serious about a house. Lots of islanders have received phone calls. ''What they do is read the Yankee article and pick a name,'' said David Crowley, who is head of the island association, owner of a construction company and the fire chief. | |
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When visitors come, Bob Howard is often the one who gives the tour. Howard is the head of the Cliff Island Future Committee and the creator of Cliff's World Wide Web site. Samantha's birth announcement, and even a picture, got on the Internet to keep island fans and summer residents up to date on the major events here. Samantha brings the total number of year-round residents to 58, according to Paul MacVane, the island's unofficial counter and ferry greeter. (Last year, MacVane didn't show up to greet a morning ferry and an islander feared he was sick or dead.) |  Joshua Lombard, 11, a student at the Cliff Island School, pays attention to detail as he paints a puffin for a class project involving the birds. |
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In the summer, Cliff's population grows to more than 400. While summer
residents are an important source of work for the construction crews that live
and work here, the most critical need clearly is year-round families with
children. Howard is responding to every inquiry, and offering to help find places to stay for any families interested in scouting out a home. ''Basically, all we're saying is, we have a good place to raise kids,'' said Howard. Islanders boast about the sense of community, the lack of crime, the peaceful beauty. But they don't try to hide the hard realities of winter, isolation or the 90-minute ferry commute to Portland. They're proud of those things, too. ''For a lot of these people (who responded to the Yankee story), it's a fantasy and that's all,'' said Howard. ''It's not a place that's easy to go to.'' | |
 For sale: house with a view. A mini land rush has hit Cliff Island after a magazine article generated about 500 letters inquiring about the living options on the island. |
Residents, nevertheless, are optimistic that newcomers will fill the vacant
houses this year. All it would take is one percent of the people who responded,
they say. It can even be hard to resist getting a little greedy. ''I want some more girls,'' said Justin Lombard, one of the three fifth-graders who next year has a choice about middle school on the island or mainland. Typically, when students reach sixth grade they take the ferry to middle school on the mainland, or their parents move ashore. An enrollment of three fifth-graders and one first-grader, therefore, puts the island in a precarious position. |
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''If we could only get two families with three kids, it would be great,'' said
Eleanor Cushing. Islanders say they can't do much to make sure that homes are bought buy year-round families with young children and not summer residents. Nevertheless, it's clearly understood what's best for the island. ''The people selling the houses for the most part still have a love for the island,'' said David Crowley. ''They will do what's best for island as opposed to what's best for themselves.'' Cushing proves that point. Cushing, 71, is a Cliff native who has run the post office in her home since 1962. She attended the same one-room island school when there were 17 students there. The school had as many as 30 students in the past. On Thursday, the post office was filled with the sweet smell of simmering spaghetti sauce that Cushing was cooking for grandson Jesse's birthday dinner. When the ferry arrived with the mail, she sorted it into boxes that residents never bother to lock. Cushing told the Postal Service she wanted to retire this spring. But she changed her mind when she learned she would not be replaced. Islanders say closing the post office, and replacing it with boxes at the dock, would hurt efforts to attract year-round families. ''It's an integral part of the community,'' said Howard. Islanders and summer residents started a letter-writing campaign at the end of last year, asking state and federal lawmakers to intervene. The postal service said it wants to help, but has not committed to replacing Cushing. So she keeps sorting. She says she doesn't know when she'll retire now. ''She doesn't want to retire until she knows the government will take care of the island when she's gone,'' said David Crowley. But, as the Crowleys showed Samantha around the island last week, there is excitement and hope about Cliff's future. More visitors who read Yankee are expected soon. And in about five years, David and Cheryl Crowley said, they hope to do both Samantha and the island a favor and enroll her in the island's schoolhouse. ''We're doing our best,'' said David Crowley.
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