Great-granddaughter of former Hodgdon resident authors book

By Karen Donato
Staff Writer
    Newly published author, Valerie M. Josephson was a guest at Cary Library this past Friday. She introduced her audience to her first book entitled, “Who Would Not Be a soldier! The Boys of the 20th Maine.”
    If you’re looking for a great gift for someone, stop by your local bookstore and pick up this “can’t put it down book.”
    Josephson’s great-grandfather Mansfield Hamm (originally Ham) lived in Hodgdon in the 1860s and enlisted in the 20th Maine when President Abraham Lincoln called for volunteers to fight in the Civil War. Hamm was only 19 years of age at the time. Under the leadership of Lt. Colonel Joshua Chamberlain, Hamm and his fellow soldiers were victorious in the Battle of Little Round Top at Gettysburg, however, Hamm sustained a serious wound and lost his thumb. The bullet took the thumb and continued into his body and exiting the back.
    Although this book is fictional, Josephson has interspersed it with real life experiences that she gathered from family stories, published books about the regiment; John Pullen’s, “The Twentieth Maine” and Tom Desjardin’s “Stand Firm Ye Boys from Maine” and diaries kept by other soldiers, two of whom were in Hamm’s regiment.
Houlton Pioneer Times Photo/Karen Donato
AUTHOR VISITS HOULTON — Newly published author, Valerie M. Josephson, right, of New York presented several copies of her first book entitled, “Who Would Not Be a Soldier? The Boys of the 20th Maine” to Linda Faucher, librarian at Cary Library last Friday evening. Josephson signed her book for those in attendance and shared her experiences and passion for writing.
    Josephson is a history lover and became even more interested when she learned that her great-grandfather was part of the Civil War. After retiring from her job as managing editor of the Mt. Sinai Medical Journal and the American Journal of Industrial Medicine in New York in 2007 she was prompted by her cousin of Blaine, Terri Hamm Morris to write this book. She began in June of that year and finished the piece in December. With the help of her daughter, Jennie, who works in the television industry and Jennie’s fiancé, Matt Flanagan, a comedy writer, Josephson revised until she had her finished product.
    “It was not hard to write, the words just came to me as fast as I could type,” said Josephson.
    One could tell of her passion as I listened to the excitement in her voice as she talked about the research and the discoveries that she made along the way.
    One such example, was here at the Cary Library when she found a family history journal, “Downeast Ancestry”. In this publication she found a diary kept by David Bradbury of Hodgdon recording the events of the town during the war years and a day that Mans Ham and Gus Walker came home.
    Another book was written in 1982 by Geraldine Tidd Scott for the 150th Anniversary of Hodgdon, which gives the local history of the town of Hodgdon from 1832-1982.
    Josephson credits several local people for their assistance in her research including, Kay Bell, of the  Aroostook County Historical Society, Dorothy Campbell, of the Southern Aroostook Agricultural Museum, Linda Faucher, Cary Library, Tim and Kathy Blanchette, Tammi Quint, Barbara and Lawrence Gough, Don Fitzpatrick and Eldon Bradbury.
    While talking about her book she said that her main purpose was to show the readers what happened in the day-to-day life of the soldier and also to show young adult readers how to gather and evaluate historical data.
    This book is perfect for the junior high or high school student and the more mature who enjoy reading about local folks. As one reads, local names, such as, Benn, Clark, Walker and others, one ponders the thoughts of who they might be related to. The setting of the Walker Road initiates the wonderment of which farm belonged to the Hamm family and of course the Mill Pond is brought up in the book, too and other familiar locales.
    This is clearly a must have for local residents for their own or to check out at the Cary Library.
    Josephson is already planning a second book centered around the medical challenges of the war.