Edmund S. Muskie Oral History Collection

Document Type

Oral History

Publication Date

5-14-1999

Interview Number

MOH 092

Abstract

Faunce Pendexter was born in Norway, Maine on January 7, 1915. He was home schooled for elementary school, and then attended Norway High School. He went to Bowdoin College, graduating as Salutatorian of the Class of 1937. His brother also attended Bowdoin. Faunce married Mildred Muriel Greenlaw in 1937. Mildred was president of the Women’s Literary Union and served as Education Advisor to the Androscoggin County Head Start program. He worked one year in Portland for the Writer’s Project. He wrote news for WGAN radio for a short period of time, and then worked for Sun and Journal in Lewiston for 40 years. He started with the Lewiston Evening Journal. For two years he became the agricultural editor of the Lewiston Daily Sun; then a news reporter for five years, and later served as the editor of the Saturday magazine. He served as President of the Lewiston Chamber of Commerce and was a member of that organization for several years. He was also President and a member of the Kiwanis Club.

Scope and Content Note

Interview includes discussions of: 1955-58 Muskie’s two terms as governor; weekly meetings Muskie held with the press; 1969-72 presidential campaign; the Manchester Union Leader incident; golf game with Muskie and Hathaway; Democratic Party in Maine; visits to Pendexter’s home; his father, Hugh, and his work as a newspaperman in Rochester, New York; Lewiston Journal; 1933 Bowdoin College hazing; Kennedy’s visits to Maine; the negative effects of term limits; Norway, Maine as Republican in the 1920s and 1930s; Lewiston prices back in the 1940s; his ancestral roots traced to William the Conqueror’s time, and specifically his name originally being point de ster (Point of the Star); the Kiwanis Club’s Annual Pancake Breakfast; Louis B. Costello; Lewiston-Auburn economic progress from 1950 to 1970; and Maine’s problem of disparity between Southern and Central Maine and Northern counties.

Use Restrictions

Copyright Bates College. This transcript is provided for individual Research Purposes Only; for all other uses, including publication, reproduction and quotation beyond fair use, permission must be obtained in writing from: The Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library, Bates College, 70 Campus Avenue, Lewiston, Maine 04240-6018.

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