The excitement of the first day of school is especially keen for kindergartners, who are, after all, quite new to the whole experience. Witnessing their faces, flushed with nervous anticipation of the brave new world awaiting them at Islesboro Central School, one can’t help but wish for a camera to record the tableau, or, better still, for Dorothy “Scoop” Pendleton to make one of her once-traditional appearances and photograph these moments of new beginnings for one of the newspapers to which she faithfully contributed stories and images of Islesboro’s community life for many years.
Dot Pendleton (or “Scoop,” as she came to be known on the island) was herself a kindergarten teacher at ICS, before retiring in 1970 to pursue a journalistic career as a reporter/photographer. She never failed to document Islesboro’s first day of school, and the image of her foremost in the minds of the many islanders who remember her is of a tall, dignified white-haired lady with piercing blue eyes, looking down into her box camera and coaxing a smile from a child – a child whose parents, and grandparents, she had likely taught and welcomed into kindergarten herself.
Dorothy Helen Randlett was born in 1913, an island girl with Islesboro settler roots. She grew up in the house her father, Stanley Randlett, lived in, and his mother, Faustina Dodge, before him. Some claim Faustina still haunts the family house, set at a distinctive angle from the West Side Road, where Dorothy’s son, Stanley, and his wife, Diana, now live.
Dorothy graduated from Islesboro High School in 1931 and Castine Normal School in 1933 where she earned her teaching certificate. She taught in Penobscot first, then returned to Islesboro to teach, first at the tiny two-room Pendleton Grade School (now the Double Door Gallery, near the library), and then at Islesboro’s present school building, the former Whitmarsh Cottage.
In 1935 she married another multi-generation islander, Thomas Carroll Pendleton. They had two children, Thomas Jr. and Stanley, ten and twelve years later. Dorothy took some time off to take care of her young boys, but she soon returned to teaching, retiring in 1970 after having taught at the primary grade level for 30 years.
After retiring, she took up the full-time job of serving as Islesboro’s correspondent for the Portland Press Herald, the Belfast Republican-Journal, and the Bangor Daily News. Several of her photographs were picked up by the United Press and the Associated Press, and her obituary credited her with having published “more photographs and by-lines than many staff photographers and writers, all the while promoting all manner of island and human interest stories.” She eventually confined her submissions to the Bangor Daily News and the Republican-Journal, as it became too physically demanding to carry more than one box camera around to capture her images simultaneously for several publications. Her articles were written on an old manual typewriter, although she tried – couldn’t get used to – an electric model.
Dot was attuned to her community, and faithfully attended town and committee meetings and island events to report the news. She had a special bond with the schoolchildren, and could frequently be seen at school trying to get each Islesboro child’s picture into the newspaper at one time or another. Teacher Janet Dooley recalls always knowing when spring had arrived because Scoop would appear with a handful of pussy willows, seeking a student she could photograph with them clutched in their hands.
Amogene Rolerson, a student of Dorothy Pendleton’s in the late 1930s, recalls that she was kind, caring and incredibly optimistic, fairly exuding a positive attitude. Years later, Amogene became a colleague of Dorothy’s, teaching alongside her at the present school building. She can still hear young Phil Berry wailing forlornly whenever Dorothy took a bathroom break, “Where’s my teacher!”
Carolyn Leach (at that time Carolyn Durkee) remembers Dorothy as one of her favorite teachers. She conveyed to her students that she expected them to act like ladies and gentlemen without often having to resort to raising her voice. She made students feel important, exhorting them to “Come along, people” as they marched into the music room humming a harmonious, unison tone “lu.” Carolyn also found Dorothy very supportive of her as a grown woman, offering her wise advice about Carolyn’s own children’s education when asked.
Dorothy’s younger son, Stanley, was a student of his mother’s in the primary grades. He recalls that he was expected to be better then all the other children, and if he wasn’t, his mother would take him aside, often twisting his hair, admonishing him in a quiet but lively tone to behave.
Many early Islesboro scholastic memories involve Pendleton Grade School, the now-defunct two-room schoolhouse where Dorothy first taught on the island, located in Islesboro’s Guinea neighborhood. Darrell Rolerson wrote in the 1964 ICS yearbook about attending school there, and mentioned in particular the year 1952, when the school lunch program was initiated: “In the early forenoon, Mrs. Pendleton would take about three cans of tomato soup and a large pan from beneath her desk. The soup was then placed in the tin on top of an old oil stove. Its aroma drifted throughout the small school during the entire morning. By lunch we were so hungry, that we didn’t mind parting with our nickel for a hot bowl of the soup. We didn’t mind bringing our own dishes to school, and we didn’t mind washing them afterwards, either. That soup was a delicious part of our first year at Pendleton Grade School.”
Since 1979, Dot’s son Stanley has owned Pendleton Yacht Yard, which is located on family property. The Yard was at one time Carroll Pendleton’s garage, and before that Pendleton Livery Stable. Carroll’s Cove was close by, a popular swimming hole for the younger generation. One of Stanley’s earliest childhood memories is of his mother’s habit of writing letters in autumn evenings until it started getting dark, then walking to the nearby post office to mail her letters, returning home in time to tuck him into bed with a chilly kiss that carried the brisk fragrance of the outdoors.
Dorothy prized her grandchildren, and for many years looked after Delia Robin and Gabriel after school. She would meet them as they got off the bus, walking them home. She always had a snack ready for them and the Bangor Daily News Jumble to complete. She planned projects and educational (but fun) things for them to do after school. No time was allowed for TV watching. Diana Roberts, Stanley’s wife, is convinced that Dorothy’s concern for her grandchildren’s intellectual development instilled in Gabe and Robin (who recently graduated from Harvard) the desire to do well in intellectual pursuits.
Dorothy spent some time in a nursing home after breaking a hip, but returned to her Islesboro home shortly afterwards, where she was cared for in her own home until she died in 1995.