An early morning walk, before the world gets going for the day, brings First Congregational Church of Wiscasset Pastor Josh Fitterling joy. Early Thursday night, Aug. 27, on one of Wiscasset’s new sidewalks downtown, he was helping others share what brings them joy. The handwritten statements stuck to a window were part of the second Walk Around Wiscasset. 

“Traveling with my best friend and enjoying everything Maine has to offer,” one message read. “My dog Teddy and my family and soccer,” read another. One alluded the evening’s theme, women’s suffrage. “Women’s right to vote!”

Event-goers dressed mostly in white, for the centennial of women getting to vote. Attendees interviewed said women’s suffrage was an important movement, needs to be remembered and its significance continues. Wiscasset’s first woman selectman, Judy Flanagan, brought a photo of cousin Helena Groves, one of the signers of Wiscasset’s women’s suffrage petition, Flanagan said. “She was my mother’s (Lucille Quinnam Shea) first cousin.”

Flanagan doesn’t know how Groves came to sign the petition. She knew Groves, but did not know she’d signed it until Historic New England’s Wiscasset site manager Peggy Konitzky sent out a copy of the petition to see if anyone knew any of the signers. “And I saw (Groves’) name and I called my other cousin and said, ‘Was Helen’s real name Helena?’ And it was.”

To know she has a family connection to women’s suffrage is “wonderful,” Flanagan said. “I participate in politics, and you know we’ve got to be grateful that these people did this.”

Konitzky said the pandemic impacted her plans to recognize the centennial, so she was pleased about the suffrage-themed installment of WAW. A banner Konitzky made was on display.

Resident Elizabeth Palmer wore a sash reading “votes for women,” held a banner as she stood facing northbound motorists and got some car horn beeps. She said she was not going to shout because some people might think the event was a demonstration. She added in a text interview Saturday, “It was so much fun. If there was ever a year to put some miles on an old suffragette costume, 2020 is it ... When community groups come together to celebrate our town and its place in history, we invite the world outside Wiscasset to visit its history.”

Organizer Lucia Droby said she was “just really tickled” so many men also wore white for the centennial. “I thought that was really lovely.”

Most attendees wore face masks; the rest, face shields or bandannas. Selectman Ben Rines Jr. and summer resident Frank Barnako greeted each other with an elbow bump. Barnako’s wife Donna said they left Hilton Head, South Carolina for Maine right before the south’s surge in COVID-19 earlier this summer. In Maine, people are a lot better about wearing face masks than they observed in South Carolina, she said. And Barnako was happy to have Walk Around Wiscasset to go to. “It’s like a community party, because you get to see everybody.”

For the anticipated Sept. 24 WAW, Droby noted it will then be darker during the 5 to 6:30 p.m. event. So she is eying a possible theme around lighting up the darkness, with attendees carrying lights as they walk about the village.