In early January of this year, Reta Morrill, a fifth-generation Peaks Islander, opened up her copy of the Portland Press Herald and got quite a surprise.

The GO entertainment section each week includes a selection of historical photos from the newspaper’s archives. When she reached that week’s photos, she saw a familiar face.

“I’m in the paper again!” Morrill thought.

The photo, of passengers on the deck of a Casco Bay Lines ferry docked at Custom House Wharf, originally ran in the Portland Evening Express on Oct. 12, 1946, when Morrill was a 15-year-old Portland High School student.

In this photo in the Portland Evening Express on Oct. 12, 1946, passengers are ready to set sail on The Emita, a Casco Bay Lines ferry. The Emita was docked at Custom House Wharf. What was then the Randall and McAllister coal pier can be seen in the background. (Portland Press Herald photo courtesy Portland Public Library Special Collections and Archives)

It accompanied a story by reporter Arthur D. Hawkins about the 80 or so students from five Casco Bay islands, including Peaks, Cliff and Cushing, who took the ferry to attend school in Portland.

In the photo, Morrill, then Reta Pedersen, wears a white scarf around her head and stands next to her friend Eunice Curran, then Eunice Randall, on the deck of the ferry Emita.

Five days a week, Morrill and about 40 other Peaks students would ride the 7:15 a.m. ferry to Portland.

Reta Morrill (right) was a student at Portland High School. (Portland Press Herald photo courtesy Portland Public Library Special Collections and Archives)

Morrill, now 94, recalls that below deck, there was an area just for girls and women with benches and a heater called the ladies salon. That’s where Morrill’s friend Ellin Gallant, then Ellin Kane, was on the day the photograph was taken.

Morrill and Gallant, who is now 95, still live on the island.

Morrill remembers she usually rode in the salon with other students, along with women from the islands who had jobs in the Portland area. The salon had the bonus of allowing her to dry her mittens.

Headed to Portland, the ferry ride was a direct trip from Peaks to Portland. The return trip, however, stopped at the other islands. “We got to know the school kids from down the bay,” Morrill recalled.

On cold days, Morrill said she and her friends would stop at specific spots in downtown Portland to warm up on their walks from the ferry terminal to school, including the old Press Herald building across from City Hall, and the courthouse on Newbury Street. “We’d go up those stairs on Pearl Street and go through the post office and go down the other stairs just to get warm.”

Morrill said she never once missed the ferry, coming or going.

Each afternoon when the bell rang at Portland High, she and her fellow islanders stopped by the office to receive two ferry tickets: one for that day’s ride home and one for the next morning. Then they’d run to catch the 2:15 p.m. ferry home.

Ellin Kane Gallant, left and Reta Morrill look over a historic Portland Press Herald photograph Monday. (Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer)

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During World War II, Peaks Island served another purpose: 900 troops were stationed there, and during the war years, there were more soldiers on the island than residents.

Morrill’s father bought the house where she now lives in 1936. She grew up there before marrying her late husband, Charles Morrill, in 1954. In 1990, after her mother passed away, Reta and Charles moved back in.

Morrill has been a Peaks Islander almost her entire life, living in four houses on the island. During her husband’s military career, the couple lived off-island in several states between 1954 and 1970, but she considers Peaks her true home.

 “I was born here, and I couldn’t wait to get back when my husband retired,” said Morrill, who has five children, 13 grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren around the U.S.

In 2009, Morrill and four of her island friends, including Curran and Gallant, published the book, “A Glimpse of Old Peaks Island Through Rose-Colored Glasses.”

Morrill’s section of the book is rich with childhood memories.

Reta Morrill looks over a copy of the Portland Press Herald that has a photo of her from 1946. (Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer)

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“In 1936, we moved to Central Avenue to house where I now live,” she wrote. “Only one bedroom was finished off, so Dad finished another for me, put up wallboard, laid a floor, and after all the work was done bought me a three-piece bedroom set including a vanity bench. I felt like a princess. I still have the set.”

Morrill believes she is likely the oldest island-born resident of Peaks Island. She now spends her days visiting with friends, knits caps for newborns which she donates to Mercy Hospital, and reads the daily paper.

Her favorite part of living on Peaks is the camaraderie and how much islanders care for one another. “You can be as private as you want to be,” she said. “But if the chips are down there’s somebody to step in to help you.”