From the June 26, 2025 Edition
By Emily Patrick
If there were ever a family who personified “People of the Lake,” it would be the Gary clan. Walter and Wanda have lived in their house for 60 years. Tucked away on Mayhew Manor between Lewis Street and Spruce Street, Walter and Wanda recall a time where their home was only accessible by coming up Spruce Street and turning onto a dirt road. Walter and Wanda have been married just as long as they’ve been living in their home: six decades. “Sixty sweet years,” Walter says, with a twinkle in his eye as he gazes across the dining room table at his sweetheart.
They’ve personally witnessed many changes in their hometown over the years, but their roots go back even further. Their great-grandchildren (all 7 of them!) mark the 7th generation of Garys to call Greenville “home.” Walter’s grandfather served in the Spanish-American War with Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, but came home to our neck of the woods and built a sawmill in Chesuncook.
Walter, for his part, worked for 20 years on the log drive, starting in 1956 after quitting school as a sophomore and going to “work in the woods”- not uncommon for men in his generation. He worked the drive right up until its end in 1976, driving the last boom out of Spencer Bay in 1975 with his crew and spending the next year cleaning up any evidence that Moosehead was once a bustling highway for boom logs before environmental concerns forever ended a way of living for generations of Greenville men.
Though Walter didn’t outwardly oppose the drive ending, he’d “just as soon” have stayed on. He was in favor of regulations but pointed out the drive “kept a lot of trucks off the road” and, though there were concerns the log drive was having a negative impact on Moosehead’s fishing industry, the best fishing on Moosehead was “around the booms.” The drive also kept a lot of local boys employed and, Walter admits, probably out of a good deal of trouble!
Walter was not just any crew member on the drive- he was Captain of the Kate and “boss of the crew.” In fact, everyone I’ve interview thus far about the drive speak of Gary with an almost mythical reverence. Though I’m sitting at Wanda and Walter’s dining room table in what could be my own grandparents’ house, with dishes of candy laid out (to the delight of my 4-year-old who had to tag along on this interview; hey, it’s a family business!) and a dizzying number of knick-knacks and family photographs earned from a humble life well-lived, I can’t help but feel I’m in the presence of log drive royalty.
Walter was in charge of a crew of 20-or-so young men, many of them college boys home for the summer, for many years. I asked Wanda what it was like to be married to a boss on the drive and she said she expected Walter to leave very early in the morning and not be home until around 6 o’clock at night. Near the end of the drive, Walter would leave early on Monday morning and stay on the boat all week, not returning until Thursday or Friday.
As Walter shares little tidbits from his seemingly endless wealth of knowledge about the drive, talking about the length and width of the boom logs, the tools and tricks of the trade, and how to wrap a good boom and make sure all the logs are going the same way to avoid disaster on the water, I can’t help but ask, “What’s the most important thing you learned on the drive that helped you throughout your life?”
His simple, direct and immediate answer surprises me: “Patience.”
Though Walter more of less admits being in charge of a crew of 20 college boys released into society like caged lions at the end of a stuffy semester at University was akin to being the ringmaster of a circus, he says at the end of the day they were “a good buncha’ fellas.” Though Walter minces his words, the pride that exudes from him as he shows me old photographs of his crew and the drive needs not be put into words.
I have no doubts Walter’s experience “babysitting” this group of rowdy young men prepared him for family life. Though the proud grandfather with kind eyes sitting before me no longer resembles a crew boss on the drive, a real-life Paul Bunyan in his day, I suspect it was his work on the drive that shaped him into the man that just took my son on a “train ride” in his home-built Thomas the Train, letting him toot the horn to both of their delights. He eagerly pulls out pictures of his children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and exhibits them with the same pride he showed for being Captain of a crew. Wanda says, “I was happy to raise our family in a small town.”
Wanda was fortunate enough to be able to stay home with the kids, though when the children were mostly grown, she found her niche as an in-home caregiver and “thoroughly enjoyed it” for 22 years. She expresses a sadness for women who would like to stay at home but are forced to find employment due to the state of the economy. And, after seven generations, some of the Gary family’s children have started to plant their roots outside of Greenville for the first time. Wanda says if there was more work she believes more of them would stay here.
Though Walter and Wanda have witnessed many changes over their six decades of married life in Greenville, from houses and pavement springing up around them to the end of the log driving era, to generations of Gary children growing and having babies of their own, for Walter, one thing will never change. He says very matter-of-factly, “I’d hate to go anywhere else.”