In regards to George Goodwin Averill (“Celebrate Dr. Averill for helping others,” Dec. 13), I am only one of several hundred boys and girls who had the benefit of Dr. Averill’s generous gifts to Good Will.

Between 1944 and my graduation in 1952, I lived in Winthrop Cottage on Page Terrace, next to Keyes cottage, a gift to the school in the 1930s, along with Averill Cottage on the Girls’ Campus. The “cottages” each housed 12 and sometimes 14 boys or girls on two rural campuses, where we attended separate grade schools and then took classes together at Averill High School, located next to Moody Chapel.

Most of my formal education took place here, and I’m eternally grateful to my mom and all concerned.
Dr. Averill and his wife Mabel Keyes Averill for much of their lives were major donors to local causes through the worst years of the Great Depression and during World War II.

In my age I’ve been able to pay forward a little of the help I had in my boyhood; at what is now Good Will-Hinckley, I served briefly as editor for The Record — founded by George Walter Hinckley along with his school in 1889, when boys and girls of 8 and 9 could be found at work in many Maine mills.

Now 120 years old, it continues to provide homes, counseling and schooling in the heart of Maine, and I still volunteer there as often as I can.

John H. Willey

Emeritus board member &
Emeritus secretary to Good Will-Hinckley Home Association

Waterville