Return of Old Maine Woman ─ Tales of Growing Up and Getting Older

The Old Maine Woman returns with her customary combination of sass, insight, and nostalgia in a host of new essays that shed their own particular light on the quandaries of being female, growing up, getting married, and getting older as a woman in the northern parts of the state. The twinkling eyes of Glenna Johnson Smith don't miss much, a skill that served her well when she was a seventh and eighth grade teacher, and also allow her to capture the deeper meaning beneath life's seemingly mundane moments. Filled with grace, humor, and fortitude, Return of Old Maine Woman will captivate the reader with its straightforward observations and heartwarming outlook. For anyone who has longed to hear the insight of a relative who has seen something of this life, Return of Old Maine Woman will fill that role, and more. Join Glenna Johnson Smith in this lovely and engaging book, as she recounts what she has taught and what she has learned during almost a century well lived.

Glenna Johnson Smith was born in 1920 in Asheville, Maine, in coastal Hancock County. She earned a bachelor’s degree in home economics from the University of Maine in 1941. That same year she got married and moved to a farm in Easton, Maine, where she and her husband raised three sons. She taught English and home economics at schools in Easton, Fort Fairfield, and Presque Isle, and was heavily involved in high school and community theater productions. Presque Isle is now her home. Her writing has been published in her first book, Old Maine Woman, in Echoes and Yankee magazines, and in anthologies including Maine Speaks: An Anthology of Maine Writers. She has been named Presque Island’s Citizen of the Year and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Maine, Presque Isle. She was nominated for the Exemplary Older Person Award by the state of Maine.