Margaret Zorach made the news two years ago after Georgetown gave her the Boston Post Cane, an award reserved for a town’s oldest resident.
On Tuesday, Zorach, who prefers to be called Peggy, made the news again, but in a less ceremonious way.
The 100-year-old Zorach was at the Five Islands Wharf in Georgetown, reportedly to have lunch, when a pickup truck loaded with lobster traps backed up and knocked her to the ground.
Sagadahoc County Sheriff Joel Merry said the driver of the truck, David Pinkham, did not see the centenarian and accidentally hit her walker. The impact caused Zorach to fall, but Pinkham was able to stop his truck in time to prevent serious injury.
Merry said the deputy who investigated the accident, Matt Shiers, reported that Zorach refused medical treatment at first, but after some coaxing from the ambulance crew, she agreed to be transported to Mid Coast Hospital in Brunswick to be checked out. She did not sustain any injuries and Pinkham was not charged.
But news of the incident, which happened around noon on the working wharf that also is the home of a restaurant called the Five Islands Lobster Company, traveled quickly in the small, close-knit Georgetown community, said Mary McDonald, the assistant to the Board of Selectmen.
“I think Peggy went down there for lunch,” McDonald said. “I heard she bounced right up.”
In June 2015, Zorach received the Boston Post Cane at Georgetown’s annual town meeting, McDonald said. Zorach still has the cane, an original that was awarded to Ebenezer Moore in 1909.
The most recent Boston Post Cane holder before Zorach was Rheta Morgan, who died in December 2010. The next person in line to receive the cane, Ruth Kosalka, refused to accept it. She has since died.
According to the Boston Post Cane Information Center website, Edwin A. Grozier, publisher of the Boston Post newspaper, gave gold-headed ebony canes to 700 New England towns in 1909 with the request that they be presented to the oldest male citizen of each town and be used until the person’s death. The canes were manufactured in New York by J.F. Fradley and Co. from ebony shipped in 7-foot lengths from the Congo, and were topped by a 14-karat engraved gold knob, according to the New England Historical Society. The cane would belong to the town, not to the person who received it, and would be passed on.
In 1930, the Boston Post Cane award was opened up to women as well. Many of the canes have been lost or stolen, but Georgetown has retained its original cane.
Dennis Hoey can be contacted at 791-6365 or at:
dhoey@pressherald.com
Send questions/comments to the editors.
