OAKLAND -- Oakland Area Historical Society President Alberta Porter stands only 4 feet, 10 inches tall, but her ability to reach into the past is considerable.

The 63-year-old grandmother of 15 played an integral role in the 2004 publication "Images of America: Oakland," a photo history focused primarily on the town's industrial past.

Now Porter has turned her attention to homes, compiling a record of the oldest ones in the community.

She plans to turn it into a book that can be sold to raise funds for the historical society -- sorely needed since the society virtually drained its treasury this summer to replace the roof on its Macartney House Museum.

Porter isn't sure how many trips to the Kennebec County Registry of Deeds she's taken for her latest project or how many century-old volumes of real estate deeds she's pored over.

Not that she's complaining.

"For me doing this research is fun," she said at her Porter Drive home as she kept one eye on her grandson Trenton, 3. "This is my hobby, and I love doing it."

Porter's home is a historical museum in its own right, filled with appliances and gadgets that date back 100 years or more, including an ice box, a wringer roller washing machine and a vintage safe.

She also has collections of old-fashioned rolling pins, irons, toasters and wood stoves.

The past is alive and well in the Porter household. Porter wants to ensure that Oakland's heritage is in a similar state.

Brownies inspired

Michael Denis, a retired history teacher, worked closely with Porter -- historical society members Ruth Wood and the late Betty Smith also contributed -- on "Images of America: Oakland."

Denis, who now lives in Kentucky, handled the captions for what largely is a collection of pictures that examine various aspects of working and home life in Oakland through its history.

He describes Porter as a "ball of fire" in the sense that her desire to research the past is always burning.

"I'm retired and I don't know how I could accomplish half of what she does in a day," he said.

Nancy Mairs, a member of the historical society, shares that sentiment.

"I'm not sure how well (the historical society) would function without her," she said.

Porter, Mairs said, is involved in all aspects of the club.

"She does a lot of the legwork for setting up meetings and getting speakers, as well as the historical research," she said.

Porter didn't grow up a history buff. Her inspiration, she said, came from her daughters 15 years ago. Both were Brownies at the time and needed to do a project on the history of their community to earn a merit badge.

After finding no useful information at the local library, Porter turned to a neighbor, a member of the historical society, for help. She quickly joined the club and has been the organization's president for the last 14 years.

The key to being an effective historical researcher is not only being relentless in the pursuit of information but knowing what information to go after.

Porter does both, Denis said.

"She is a digger," he said. "She is a good researcher and somehow or other -- I don't know how she does it -- she manages to find topics that are not just interesting to her but to everybody else."

House hunting

Denis considers old houses a topic with broad appeal.

He is a big believer that history is best told through the stories of common people -- and a home is a fundamental part of any person's life.

"I can't wait to see what she comes up with," he said, "because it will be good."

Porter has researched 30 homes so far, the oldest being 1786, the most recent 1925.

For each house, Porter provides a picture of the current structure as well as the address, when it was built and a brief biographical account of the original owner.

One of the entries is about the Cyrus Wheeler house, built in 1820, at 23 Libby Hill.

Wheeler, born in 1796, died at age 68 in 1865, the year the Civil War ended.

In the biography on Wheeler, Porter writes, "Cyrus was a farmer and was called the Squire. He was one of the public spirited citizens of the early days. He had very decided anti-slavery convictions. He built Wheeler's Liberty Hall at the junction of Alpine and Summer streets in order that there might be a place where any kind of a gathering might be held."

Porter does not include information on the current owners of the houses she has researched.

"To me it's an infringement of their privacy to put in their names," she said.

The original owner, however, is fair game, and Porter hopes others will enjoy what she discovered.

"All of this is part of getting more people interested in the history of Oakland," she said, "and to come into the (Macartney) Museum."

Colin Hickey -- 861-9205

chickey@centralmaine.com