| Anna Fiorentino, Maine magazine |
Cows were grazing in the fields of Pineland Farms long before its cheeses lined refrigerator shelves in grocery stores across 48 states and its beef filled New England freezers. But for much of the twentieth century, many of the workers on the farm were not there by choice. Built in 1908 as the Maine School for the Feeble-Minded to house people with developmental disabilities, the institution was known, sadly, for its low points—abuse, imprisonment, and widely publicized escapes from a place that seemed impossible to leave, even for many who didn’t belong there in the first place. The Libra Foundation purchased the property in 2000, four years after the state closed the institution when it was Pineland Center. Since then the nonprofit’s charitable revitalization of the campus has made Pineland Farms one of Maine’s agricultural giants—and with it a town evolved.
It was my town. New Gloucester was home from the time I was four until I left for college, the year the Libra Foundation bought Pineland. Now I’m visiting Pineland Farms again, to understand how this vibrant campus could be the same eerie, vacant brick buildings, one of which, as a teen, my older sister had me convinced was haunted after what she saw through a basement window: a child-sized chair with restraints next to clinical tools. Despite no obvious signs of life, Pineland’s last residents, still living on campus at the time, remained until 1996.
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Eds. note: Author Anna Fiorintino, a native of New Gloucester and freelance writer, returned to interview several residents as well Pineland representatives for this thoughtful and informative piece.
