Everything has its lifespan, Lucy Martin said.

She and other musicians with the Monday Night Gang have been playing and singing at Erskine Hall in Alna for nearly 20 years. They're ending that run with one last jam on October 14.

“It's time to say goodbye,” said Martin, who lives in Whitefield.

Fellow guitarist Merle Jewett, 82, of Alna, agreed.“I enjoyed playing for the people, but 20 years is a long time,” she said.

At 66, Martin is the group's youngest member. As they all got on in years, they suspended the group’s winter jams and cut their two Mondays a month down to one.

The crowd of listeners has fluctuated, peaking in the late 1990s when 80 or more would come.

Rita Melville, 82, of Woolwich has been a loyal attendee the last several years. She described the end of the Monday night music as a big loss.

“It's going to leave an empty space,” Melville said. “It will be missed. I liked their music better than what I hear on the radio.”

For “Gang” member Joe Seigars, 76, of Damariscotta, who plays the harmonica, emotions are mixed. “It is time, health-wise, age-wise ... but I will miss the camaraderie, and seeing the smiles on people's faces, and people tapping their toes,” he said.

Old friends and new ones have come through the doors, Jewett said.

The music won't end for devoted fan Charlie Jewett, who's been married nearly 65 years to Merle Jewett. She plays guitar at home and she said she plans to continue. She's been playing since she learned it at the age of 6 or 7 from her sister.

The Rev. Phil Poland of the nearby Newcastle-Alna Baptist Church, which owns Erskine Hall, came up with the idea for the jam sessions as a way to encourage fellowship, Martin said. Poland, already known in the area as the traveling singing preacher, took part as one of the group's original members.

The sessions were first called “Monday Night Music,” but the name “Monday Night Gang” caught on, and has stuck ever since, Martin said.

After Poland died in 2003, attendees of the sessions said they would like the music to go on. It did, with the remaining group and a succession of other musicians who have come and gone.

Besides Poland and the late Frank Crute, who played the banjo, the core group consisted of Martin, Jewett, Seigars and Wiscasset's David Pope.

The October 14 program is set to run from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Erskine Hall, next to the Alna post office. Admission is free, as always.

The group always opens with “Wabash Cannonball” and ends with “Keep on the Sunny Side (of Life).”

Martin likes the perspective the church's current minister, the Rev. Richard Newell, has offered about the end of the music group's long run.

In a church bulletin, Newell wrote that the musicians have touched hearts year in and year out: “(L)et's not be sad that it's over,” he wrote. “Let us be glad that it happened.”

Susan Johns can be reached at 207-844-4633 or susanjohns@wiscassetnewspaper.com