By<\/span> I<\/span>an Crouch and Amy Louise Barnett<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not as if ruby slippers were scattered on the floor,\u201d Hamilton Meserve, 69, says, \u201cbut here my mom was, the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Actress Margaret Hamilton (1911-1985) was also a den mother, a Sunday school teacher, and founder of a nursery school in California that still exists.<\/p>\n \u201cBut it\u2019s that 12 minutes on film that people can\u2019t forget,\u201d Meserve, a retired Citibank executive, says. \u201cThe green makeup she wore had copper in it, really dangerous. Remember when my mother first meets Dorothy and she disappears in a puff of smoke? She was supposed to go through a trap door behind the smoke, but they turned the fire on a little too soon and she got burned by the copper in her makeup.\u201d<\/p>\n Hamilton spent six weeks swathed in bandages over her face and arms. \u201cI remember being led into her room and seeing her re-apply the bandages, in great pain. Otherwise, I was protected from the whole trauma of the film, on-screen or off,\u201d Meserve says.<\/p>\n Apparently, mom liked it that way. \u201cI was nine before I was allowed to view the whole movie.\u201d<\/p>\n But where does Maine fit in?<\/p>\n \u201cAround 1950, my mother moved from Los Angeles to New York, excited by many live television parts and commercial offers. [Fans were delighted by her star turns on Playhouse 90 and as a pitchwoman for Maxwell House coffee.] In 1961, she was performing summer stock in Brunswick when she heard the Coast Guard was selling lighthouses.\u201d Inspired, \u201cshe started driving all along the coast,\u201d looking for fabulous views.<\/span><\/p>\n She found one. Margaret Hamilton\u2019s island looks across the harbor to schooners, private docks, and the Newagen Inn, backstaged by dark spruce trees. The drama continues with gulls, osprey, and seals. On the other side of her island, she indeed found her lighthouse, \u201cThe Cuckolds,\u201d the only object between Cape Island and Portugal.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no electricity out here, no phone,\u201d Meserve says. \u201cI was in graduate school when she called me and asked if I wanted to go in on it. Did I ever! She came up with half the down payment, and I came up with the other half. When I was working overseas with the bank, this was the only stateside house my wife and I had. Invariably we\u2019d find Mother out here [between appearances on The Alcoa Hour<\/em>, The Phil Silvers Show<\/em>, Studio One<\/em>, Gunsmoke<\/em>, The Patty Duke Show<\/em>, The Addams Family<\/em>, Car 54, Where Are You?<\/em>, Laramie<\/em>, The Partridge Family<\/em>, Lou Grant<\/em>, As The World Turns<\/em> et al.] using the old kerosene lamps,\u201d arriving in Maine in the spring and sometimes staying deep into the fall for the big storms.<\/p>\n Entering through the front door, visitors find a modern kitchen to the right and a large living room with a loft, cathedral ceiling, and post-and-beam charm.<\/p>\n \u201cMy mother was pretty handy with a broom,\u201d Meserve deadpans and holds one up beside the large fieldstone fireplace. \u201cPeople will probably think this one is from the movie.\u201d<\/p>\n A solarium glows off the kitchen; a generous porch off the back affords views of lobster buoys and pine-studded neighboring islands.<\/p>\n In all there are three bedrooms and a loft, with one of the bedrooms downstairs, \u201cmy mother\u2019s,\u201d Meserve says. \u201cIt\u2019s funny, but over the years [and in spite of other strong film appearances, including My Little Chickadee<\/em>, The Invisible Woman<\/em>, State of the Union<\/em>, The Red Pony<\/em>, Wabash Avenue<\/em>, and Angel In My Pocket<\/em>], visitors insisted upon seeing memorabilia from Oz<\/em> here. When she was 71, the year I returned from Europe, I came back to Maine to find a local newspaper had asked her to dress up as the witch for a short performance for children, green makeup and all. From her earliest days, my grandmother had encouraged my mother to teach kindergarten and first grade, so it must have meant a lot to her [especially since she\u2019d already scared the pants off generations of children since 1939].<\/p>\n \u201cSince then, we\u2019ve begun to collect memorabilia from the movie here,\u201d he says. \u201cHow she would have loved the enthusiasm surrounding [the novel and Tony-winning Broadway play] Wicked<\/em>,\u201d which tells the backstory of Hamilton\u2019s character as a work of revisionist history.<\/p>\n So will folks up here ever forget about the friendly witch who fell in love with the Maine coast?<\/p>\n \u201cWhen monkeys fly,\u201d Meserve says, stopping just short of summing up his family\u2019s idylls here with an enthusiastic \u201cwicked good\u201d!<\/p>\n![\"wicked-witch\"](\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/wicked-witch.jpg\" "\\"wicked-witch\\"")
Start at Maine State Music Theatre in Brunswick. Continue north on Route 1 to Edgecomb and head south on Route 27 past Boothbay on your way to Southport Island. At the very tip of the island, there\u2019s a sign for Southport Town Landing. A rowboat is waiting to take you across Cape Harbor to tiny Cape Island. There may not be skywriting above it, saying Surrender, Dorothy. But that\u2019s how you get to the witch\u2019s house.<\/p>\n
![\"Bookmark](\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/static\/btn\/lg-share-en.gif\")
<\/a><\/p>\n