My name is Suzan Roberts Norton, and I was born the eldest child of John and Patricia O’Donnell Roberts in 1960. I lived for a short six months with my grandparents on Anthoine Street and then to my parents’ first home at 34 Powers Road, South Portland. We moved in 1965 across the street to 160 Devereaux Circle [3 bedroom, top floor] as my mother was expecting her fourth child. I recall the move as everything was put into a station wagon and moved across the street. I sat on the open back door of the station wagon as my dad inched across the street. We lived in Redbank from 1960-1980, when my parents bought a house on the corner of Dawson and Broadway. My dad started his own business in 1974 down at Long Creek which is where the present Home Depot is in South Portland. While I was in High School, I worked with him whenever I could. I would walk over there after school. He was there maybe five years when he became adamant about buying a home. I was one of four children, my brother David born in 1961, my sister Sharon born in 1964 and my sister Carol born in 1965. We have very strong roots and we were all brought up in Redbank.

I married in 1985 and decided I would like to move back to an affordable rent in a nice neighborhood with lots of kids. You guessed it…Redbank would be my choice. I moved upstairs from some folks I knew very well, Mr. and Mrs. Wendell Lewis, as I attended school with their children and my brother played sports with their sons. I was familiar with many of the neighbors already, like the Murphy’s and the Waterhouse’s. We stayed a year or so when my husband enlisted in the US Navy after a short separation from the Navy. This took my husband, my baby Michael and me, to Panama City Beach, Florida. This is where our other son John {J.T.) was born. After that tour was over we came back to Maine briefly and then my husband joined the US Army and I was thrilled to find we would be going to Bad Kissingen, Germany and later to Fort Bliss, El Paso Texas. Eventually we came back to Maine and we moved back to Redbank, only this time we lived across the street from the Lewis family at 36 Wainwright Circle East. I chose to stay home with my kids and do some side work, signs, calligraphy and I even babysat my sister’s kids and my cousin’s kids. I was very involved in scouting also.

 I took a position at Redbank School only mornings and during recess, maybe 10-15 hours per week. I have wonderful memories of the staff there. They were an exceptional group of people, a real team. It must have been very difficult for them when the school closed. It was a privilege to work at the school each day and the school was dear to my heart. Perhaps a year passed when Mary Marsh asked me if I would be interested in a full time position at Kaler School, working as an Ed Tech. I interviewed for the position and was delighted when they wanted me to join their staff. Kaler was also an old school with many families not unlike our own families in Redbank. The parents were very involved in their children’s education and it was also a small school, maybe only 108 children were enrolled that first year I was there [1995] It was nice that some of the Redbank families I remembered as a child were parents of children who attended Kaler. I worked at Kaler from 1995-1998 and I enjoyed every minute of it. The kids are wonderful; our investments and our treasures. All the time I was there, there was talk of four elementary schools closing sometime in the near future and Redbank and Kaler were on that list. The closing of these little neighborhood schools was met with great resistance. I heard 2008 would be the year, but I did not know it would happen so fast. Who would have ever thought the Skillin School would be accommodating all the Redbank Kids? I heard a great deal of opposition to this as well. The neighborhood as we all knew it would be forever changed as the schools closed. Never again will kids be so close the first twelve years of their lives to be mainstreamed into middle school together. Will we ever have those close bonds with elementary friends again? I still have many friends from elementary school and I call them on their birthdays. Anyhow a change was about to happen, and sometimes change is good, but I did not feel that way when I saw the empty lot where our school once stood.

I saw the news one evening and saw Jim Dow being interviewed about the school’s closing and demolition. He is the manager at Redbank Village and gave a nice interview. I immediately drove over there twice that week to take pictures. My real motivation came when I “googled” Redbank School  and saw ONLY Jim’s interview. I was shocked I could find nothing else regarding our neighborhood. I did find one story at the Maine State Archives website regarding a recollection by Bob Dyke who lived on a farm where present day Country Gardens is located. He was a witness to the plane Crash in the 1940’s down behind the gas station at Redbank near where Olde English Village is located. See www.redbankstreets.com [Ruth Conner’s site] for more info on this plane crash. I felt an overwhelming responsibility to do something about collecting some sort of living history of our neighborhood of Redbank. I posted all my grammar school pictures on www.mainetoday.com under South Portland. At first, I thought the folks at Mainetoday.com would think I was nuts and so would all the readers. Anyhow something wonderful happened. Ruth Conner posted a comment and we began to talk about what we could do. I told her that maybe it was up to us to start preserving something that is representative of the neighborhood. With the help of everyone, it has been a huge success. So here we are today, keeping friends in touch and sharing recollections. What could possibly be better than that? Our school may be gone, but I am forever grateful that we have started something so that we are all keeping the neighborhood memories alive.Redbank School stood for Community, Family Life, Education, and it was where we learned life’s earliest lessons. In our neighborhood, not only did we all live together, but we went to school together and we played together outside of school. As years passed, many generations of families stayed in Redbank, a place where people relied on each other and felt safe in their homes. Today I live on 114 in Standish, near Sebago Lake , but it is not comparable to the place I grew up in, as I do not know my neighbors, because the world is different today. Most families have two parents working, have busier lifestyles and the world is driven by technology. Let’s stay connected and continue to contribute to our blogs.