Valley Grange continues to suport of third-graders through Dictionary Project

By Stuart Hedstrom

Staff Writer

GUILFORD — The Valley Grange’s tradition of presenting area third grade students with their own dictionaries continued on the afternoon of Oct. 5 as the organization hosted about 80 pupils representing the four grade 3 classes at the SeDoMoCha Elementary School. The Valley Grange supports the Dictionary Project through its Words for Thirds Program, which today includes RSU 68 and SAD 4 and 41, with over 1,600 dictionaries being handed out over the last 14 years.

Observer photo/Stuart Hedstrom

YOU CAN LOOK IT UP — Students in Brian Miller’s grade 3 class at the SeDoMoCha Elementary School look up their word during an Oct. 5 visit to the Valley Grange in Guilford. About 80 students in the four third-grade classes at the Dover-Foxcroft school were each given a dictionary as part of the Valley Grange’s long-standing Words for Thirds Dictionary Project, which also gives dictionaries to all grade 3 students in SAD 4 and 41. In nearly a decade and a half, the Valley Grange has handed out over 1,600 dictionaries.

With the students and their teachers gathered upstairs at the Valley Grange, Program Director Walter Boomsma began by introducing “Capt. (John) Battick and Miss Mary (Annis)” who both were dressed in Civil War-era clothing.

“I’m wearing the uniform of a captain in the Navy in the Civil War,” Battick said, saying many people do not know much about the role of the U.S. Navy in the Civil War. He said this branch of the military helped prevent the Confederacy from receiving supplies which helped the North win the war and put an end to slavery.

“This is a Navy officer’s sword,” Battick said, unsheathing his non-sharpened sword to the amazement of many of the students. “This is called a boatswain’s call,” he said about another item used as a whistling device in the Navy.

“After we meet here today I am off to a tea party,” Annis said. “That’s why I’m wearing my afternoon dress.” She explained her attire covers most of her body as during the 19th century a woman revealing her elbows or ankles was taboo.

“The Grange came into being right after the Civil War and the Grange is an organization of farmers,” Boomsma said. He said today the organization uses four staves in its meetings with each representing a farming tool — a spud, shepherd’s hook, pruning hook and the owl. Boomsma then had a representative from each class come forward to pick up a class stave.

“Many years ago after the Civil War, people had to go to town to get their mail and that was hard for farmers,” he said, pointing to a mailbox set up at the front of the audience. “The Grange came up with the idea that we should have those kind of mailboxes and the post office should deliver to those mailboxes.”

“The flag is up and that means you have mail,” Boomsma said, asking that each stave holder come forward to pick up a letter in the mailbox addressed to each class. “What you are going to find is your mail is one word and you don’t know what it means. If you have a word and you don’t know it, what do you do?”

The third-graders knew that a solution to this problem is to find the word’s definition in a dictionary, and at this point members of the Valley Grange passed out the approximate 80 reference books from a large stack at the front of the room. “You’re here today because each of you is going to get your own dictionary,” Boomsma said.

The four words were agriculture, steward, patron and husbandry. Boomsma said the Grange’s motto is patrons of husbandry. “We are giving you support,” he said, as the Dictionary Project a way to carry out this motto.

 Observer photo/Stuart Hedstrom

CAPT BATTICK AND MISS MARY — SeDoMoCha Elementary third-graders met Capt. John Battick and Miss Mary Annis during their visit to the Valley Grange in Guilford on Monday. Battick was dressed as a Civil War Navy captain and Annis wore a mid-1800s dress.