Lots of people have pets. They might have a dog, cat, parakeet or guinea pig. Others go more exotic and get a macaw or python.

Florence Haggett has seagulls. 

Haggett, a Boothbay region native who will turn 100 on November 13, has befriended the seagulls living in Boothbay Harbor. Most days she goes outside with a big bag of bread; and all she has to do is toss one little piece in the air and the seagulls flock to her feet. She said she knows many of them by their markings, and enjoys watching new hatchlings as they grow up and lose their brown spots. 

Hagget's niece Peggy Peters described her as a “very spry lady.” 

Haggett has lived in her house on Union Street in Boothbay Harbor since 1947. The house was built for her and her late husband, Gilbert M. Haggett, who finished the inside work. 

The side door leads to a cozy kitchen. A lighthouse-themed stained glass hangs in the big window over the kitchen table, and overlooks the harbor. Paintings by her father-in-law, Gilbert W. Haggett, dot the walls. 

Haggest has cards from her grandchildren and great-grandchildren on display. In the mail this week, Haggett also received a very special birthday card, signed by President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama. “How many people get a birthday card from Washington?” Haggett said. 

Haggett saw a Boothbay Harbor not many of us know. She grew up on a farm right in town, with her sister and four brothers. She remembered sliding all the way from the Congregational Church to where the Y is on a toboggan (no one was on the roads and there were no buildings in between). She described hitching up the sleigh to horses in the winter and cantering all over the town. 

“Once, there was a red-haired boy riding with my brother and me; and as we turned into the driveway the horse saw the barn and was so eager to get inside he sped up. 

“We got going so fast the boy got spooked and jumped out of the sleigh and disappeared into a big snowdrift. The memory still makes me laugh,” Haggett said.

Haggett knew a world without the amenities of modern life. She spoke of drying clothes outside, the sheets freezing to the lines in the winter. “We had to put them on wooden racks in the cellar to dry instead,” Haggett said. “And the sheets always smelled so good when they came off the lines.”

She remembered how all the local children learned to swim off her backyard in the harbor, before the sewer system was installed. “The older kids would swim out to those rocks,” she said as she pointed out her window. “ ... the younger kids stayed in the shallow water. I miss seeing kids learn to swim down here.”

Haggett loves children, and always keeps a basket of Halloween candy for potential trick-or-treaters every Halloween. She ran out of candy one year; but just before she turned off the light, her doorbell rang. A little girl was standing there, and she felt so bad that she didn’t have any candy and she offered the girl an apple. Haggett has never forgotten what the little girl said.

“'Oooh, I’d love to have an apple!' she said, with the biggest smile you ever saw,” Haggett said. “It was so adorable.”

When asked if she had any regrets, Haggett said she gave up driving too soon, at age 90. “I never got a single ticket since I started driving when I was in my teens,” Haggett said. “I shouldn’t have given in so soon.”

Haggett is very involved with the Methodist church in town, and never misses services. She sometimes teaches Sunday school, and enjoys spending time with the women’s group. Before her eyesight failed, she enjoyed sewing, knitting, and crocheting. She never drinks, and instead enjoys a ginger ale and lemonade mix.

“She’s an amazing woman,” Peters said. “Sometimes I can hardly keep up with her.” Haggett smiled and said, “Wonder what I will be like when I turn 101?”