FARMINGTON – Growing up as one of 14 children, Betty Alexander Houle often felt like “just another one of those Alexander kids.”
The 92-year-old Farmington native recalls stories as though they happened last week. She easily remembers the days of mixing tablets with oleo to make it yellow and taking ski lessons with Titcomb Mountain’s namesake John Abbott Titcomb.
“There was only one time I really wished I wasn’t an Alexander,” Houle recalled recently on Chester Greenwood Day. “Glenn Miller was playing at Old Orchard Beach. One of my friends had a car and he said if I got a ticket for gas he would drive us down. Well I got my share of tickets and went to ask my dad and he said no. He didn’t say no very often. I still don’t know why he wouldn’t let me go, but I cried half the night.”
Invited by the Farmington Historical Society, Houle told several hours’ worth of stories on Saturday all set on the antique streets of Farmington. The invitation stemmed from one story in particular: her short stint of modeling earmuffs for Chester Greenwood’s increasingly well known invention.
When Houle’s older brother passed away in a tragic and bizarre accident caused by a collectable pin in a box of Cracker Jacks, she was invited to go live with a neighboring couple. She agreed to the opportunity for peace and quiet-away from her many siblings.
The unique living arrangement allowed her “foster” parents to spend more time and attention on her, treating her as if she was their own. The doting attention was what eventually led Houle to pose at Luce Studios, along with her doll Barbara, both with a pair of Chester Greenwood’s earmuffs on.
“I was very proud. It was quite a thrill,” Houle said. “The whole thing took about five minutes, though it felt like it took five hours. I had to just stand there and not breathe and put my hand here or there.”
Despite the August weather, Houle was dressed by the local department store for the upcoming winter advertising, complete with thick stockings.
“They said I could keep the stockings but I said no way. It was bad enough having to wear them to get the school bus. As soon as we sat down on that bus our stockings would be rolled down for the day. We didn’t care that they were all bunched up at our ankles,” Houle said.
Houle had no idea at the time that one day she would be considered small town famous for her modeling gig. It was just “something she was ordered to do.”
“Nobody really wore the earmuffs at the time. You were a sissy if you did,” she recalled.
From dancing and baton twirling, to jumping out of the blacksmith’s shop window Houle said she has lived a very good life.
“A very busy one, too,” she added.
Betty Houle is still a dedicated hard worker and awonderful lady who grew up in the day of big families and very strict parents. I wish I could have been there to hear her stories.
Such a sweet story!