Friends on a Winter Day in Rockport

Photo courtesy Black Star Publishing Co./Penobscot Marine Museum

George Winslow, on snowshoes, and George Starr, on skis, travel through a snowy Maine landscape. Both boys, 9 years old in 1949, often spent Saturdays together in the countryside near their homes in West Rockport. Photographer Kosti Ruohomaa joined them for a day one Saturday in January of 1949. Kosti wrote that they “get together every Saturday and take off for the country side—spending their time exploring, hiking, skiing, etc.” He estimated they traveled a good 10 to 15 miles throughout their day. They played games, threw snowballs, climbed trees, and got ice cream at the local store. Kosti pointed out, “This set of pictures shows how much more a kid can get out of life being brought up in a small village of this sort.” (From Kosti Ruohomaa’s notes.) Ten of these photographs were published in Parade magazine with the title “Saturday in Maine.”

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This photo, catalogue number LB2017.19.9784, is part of the Kosti Ruohomaa Collection at the Penobscot Marine Museum, with rights owned by Black Star Publishing Co. of White Plains, New York. The museum notes, “Black Star bequeathed their extensive catalog of Ruohomaa’s work to Penobscot Marine Museum and granted the museum Fair Use of the materials; this allows PMM to reproduce them for educational purposes.”