WESTBROOK — Anne Foote, who logged nearly half a century as both a local librarian and an integral part of the American Journal, was a stickler for proper grammar right up until her death last week at age 95.
Just two days before she died on Sept. 15, despite being out of the newspaper game for more than a decade, Foote was up to her old habits.
“We brought home a newspaper, not the American Journal I don’t think, but some other paper, and she read it through end to end,” said Foote’s son, Ray Foote, on Wednesday. “Then she asked for a pencil and corrected a ‘who’ to ‘whom.’”
That was Anne Foote to a T, most folks say, adding that if anyone was the old-fashioned epitome of the term “ladylike,” it was she.
“‘Gracious’ is the word I’d like to say,” said City Councilor Mike Sanphy. “She was a very nice lady – very proud and very professional. Anne was someone who fit in well with all groups.”
During his four-decade career as a Westbrook police officer, Sanphy said that while on patrol, he’d often see lights blazing into the early morning hours at the former American Journal pressroom on Dana Street, as Foote and her husband, Harry Foote, labored to get each issue of the newspaper out on time.
“Harry Foote was one of the hardest-working men I ever knew and, I have to say, I think she had a lot to do with that,” said former City Councilor Phil Curran. “She surely was a wonderful person. They were a good team, a good pair and a good part of this city’s life.”
Harry Foote died in August 2012.
As a city councilor in the 1970s and a state legislator in the 1980s, Curran was, apart from being a friend of the Footes, a frequent subject in Anne Foote’s regular column.
Titled “Ramblings,” it was just that, a bit of anything and everything that Anne Foote found of interest and, as a voracious reader and veritable Renaissance woman, that could have meant almost anything in any given issue of the weekly paper.
It was, in the days before Twitter, the Internet, or even cable television, a touchstone for Westbrook residents and regular newspaper readers.
“Those kinds of columns, and particularly the good ones like hers, really pulled people together and put them in touch with each other in a different way than they are today,” said Curran. “It was an invaluable service to us.”
According to daughter Susan Foote, the column started out as a replace for recipes, a popular newspaper feature in the mid-1960s. Her parents bought both the Westbrook American and the South Portland-Cape Elizabeth Journal in 1965, combining them into a single publication to serve the Portland suburbs in 1966.
“The recipes often came from lunches and church suppers in the community she attended,” recalled Susan Foote. “In doing that, various community organizations got mentioned and over time that involved more and more community groups. And, from that, it gradually morphed into a column of much wider interest.”
“It was well received by a lot of people,” said Sanphy. “She always had something of common interest in it. I looked forward to reading it.”
As a gifted pianist, active outdoorswoman and librarian – both in New York City in her 20s and at the Portland Public Library, where she worked part time into the 1980s, even while raising a family and helping to put out a weekly newspaper – Anne Foote had a wide ranger of interests, which she parlayed into her column.
“Ramblings just kind of naturally came to her from whatever she was interested in, or had seen or learned,” recalled Ray Foote. “Almost anything she did became a kernel for a column.”
“Although she lived in Portland, I think Westbrook was really dear to her heart. We saw her a lot,” said Nancy Curran, treasurer at the local historical society, where Anne Foote was an active member until her later years.
“I remember Anne as very compassionate and interested in community cultural events,” agreed Bob Lowell, an American Journal reporter who worked with the Footes for many years.
Anne Foote did a little bit of everything around the newspaper, said Ray Foote, from proofreading to laying out pages, from answering phones to setting type. She would often “forego sleep” to get it all done and her column besides, said her son – or bring home “reams of copy” to review at home, said Susan Foote.
Whether at home or in the office, Anne Foote was a consummate mother.
“Being a family paper, Mrs. Foote and often that meant the Foote children and even the Foote dog could be found in the newsroom,” recalled Ray Foote.
The Footes sold the American Journal in 2002 to Current Publishing, but Anne Foote continued her column into 2011 at the invitation of the paper’s current publisher, Lee Hews
“She was a big part of the Westbrook community for a long time, and made her presence known in a gracious and warm manner. She will be missed,” said Hews.
“We were sorry to learn she had died,” said Nancy Curran, “but my goodness, she lived a good life.”
