In addition to writing for The Times Record, I also regularly write for The Harpswell Anchor, which means that I regularly read it as well, and in one article in last month’s issue I found an unexpected connection between both papers. There was a reprinted article by Jean Doughty, a Bailey Island resident who wrote a column called “Dory Mates” in this paper back in the 1960s. I am embarrassed to say that, having written this column for this paper for nearly seven years now (and for several years prior for the Coastal Journal), I had not heard of Jean Doughty and her column that also covered coastal issues in the Brunswick area. But, I have now become enchanted by her story and will be looking up her previous columns to learn what things were like in town in the past and also perhaps take a few cues from a fellow experienced coastal writer.

Jean Doughty was not from Maine, but began spending her summers here as a teenager. She worked on Bailey Island at what is now the Land’s End Gift Shop that was run by her cousin and his wife. It was during one of those summers that she met Elroy F. “Wink” Doughty, who she later married. He was a fisherman and that was the life that she came to know and write about. She wrote for many different publications including what was then called The Brunswick Record, The National Fisherman, and The Maine Coast Fisherman (which is no longer in print).

Because she often helped “Wink” as a stern man on his lobster boat, she made this the focus of her column “Dory Mates.” The column that was republished in the The Harpswell Anchor, entitled, “What it’s like to lobster for a winter,” was originally published in The Brunswick Record on January 11th of 1962. In it, she details what it is like to lose traps, have your hands go numb, navigate through winter fog, and slog home in ice-heavy boots.

Those are just a few of the many details she describes in a piece that encapsulated just what the title states in such a vivid way that U.S. Sen. Margaret Chase Smith included it in her remarks to the Senate. She entered this column as well as another of Doughty’s into the Congressional Record. Smith, whose work focused in part on representing those who work in the waterfront industries, used both of these pieces to bring reality to a way of making a living for those unfamiliar with it, but who make decisions about it.

Jean Doughty died in 2014 at age 92 and is buried at the Bailey Island Cemetery, but her writing lives on and I am grateful to The Anchor for republishing her column to introduce me to a fellow coastal writer from a past generation that also wrote for this publication. The fact that her writing was incorporated into the Congressional Record is impressive from two angles – both that her writing so strongly painted a picture of a particular lifestyle and also that Congresswoman Smith recognized this as a useful tool in her advocacy work in the Senate.

It is a good reminder that the best voices to explain what it is like to work on the water are those that do it themselves. Finding a direct means of communication is often difficult, but there are avenues for bringing their words and messages to those that impact their lives through decision-making. I am grateful to both of these women for fostering among their audiences a greater understanding of life on the working waterfront.

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