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A Maine community comes together to save a candlepin bowling tradition : NPR


Autumn Mowery, 20, runs a candlestick bowling alley in Ellsworth, Maine. She was running the place herself and needed to update the bowling alley’s machinery to be able to hire any staff.

Sofia Aldinio for NPR


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Autumn Mowery, 20, runs a candlestick bowling alley in Ellsworth, Maine. She was running the place herself and needed to update the bowling alley’s machinery to be able to hire any staff.

Sofia Aldinio for NPR

ELLSWORTH, Maine — The pins are collapsing. The bowling ball is rolling. Vibrant Town playing on the stereo.

It’s a typical Saturday afternoon in November at “by D’Amanda,” a candlestick bowling alley and video game in Ellsworth, Maine. The atmosphere at D’Amanda’s sounds like regular bowling, but at a glance, it’s clear this isn’t the classic 10-foot big ball bowling.

Lola Stratton, 11, holds a candle ball. It’s small, about the size of a grapefruit. She stared down at the pins, they were narrow, like large toothpicks. While the candle pin allows for triple scrolling and the small ball makes it look easy, it’s very difficult to knock down all 10 pins.

“Personally, it doesn’t matter what I do because I always lose. But I’m fine with that,” Lola said.

Candlestick bowling alleys are the only entertainment in Ellsworth, Maine.

Sofia Aldinio for NPR


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Sofia Aldinio for NPR


Candlestick bowling alleys are the only entertainment in Ellsworth, Maine.

Sofia Aldinio for NPR

Autumn Mowery can’t take any appointments, because she’s the sole employee of the candlestick bowling alley. A group of local girls made a reservation for a birthday party.

Sofia Aldinio for NPR


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Sofia Aldinio for NPR


Autumn Mowery can’t take any appointments, because she’s the sole employee of the candlestick bowling alley. A group of local girls made a reservation for a birthday party.

Sofia Aldinio for NPR

Lola threw the first ball and it was a gutter ball. Her second roll is more on target and she takes out three pawns. Dropped pegs are called “dead wood” and stay in the lane for the final throw.

Scroll 3 glides down the middle of the lane and takes out three more pawns.

“OH!” Lola said. She’s happy. It’s one of her best frames.

Candlepin bowling is not well known in most of the United States.

According to the International Bowling Candlepin Association, it began in Worcester, Mass., in 1880. From there, it spread throughout New England and Maritime Canada. Today, the region continues to be the mainstay country.

Lola is bowling with a group of friends. Earlier in the game, the balls did not return to their lane. So they grabbed the boss, Autumn Mowery.

Mowery is 20 years old and knows how to fix most lane problems on the spot. She started working here in 2019 and gradually fell in love with the sport and built relationships with customers. In 2020, her mother bought the business and Mowery started running the day-to-day operations.

Bowling balls and pins at the candle bowling alley.

Sofia Aldinio for NPR


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Mowery and a friend volunteered to remove the cap from the ball chute and found a jam in the return ball. While sorting through the traffic, Mowery explained that because the equipment is old, each lane has its own characteristics.

“I love these lanes. They’re definitely a pain in the ass. But they still run for me – some of them,” she said.

The positioner was a prototype from 1949. So Mowery could not order new parts. Meanwhile, she uses Lane 5 as a scrap yard. Over the years, the previous owners cheated a lot of fixes.

“It’s all duct tape and gum,” she said.

When the customer arrived, Mowery apologized in advance for the incident.

Soon, Lane 1 was down. Mowery zips to the back.

Behind the lanes is a symphony of hum and jingle between the jungle of engines, chains and conveyor belts. Mowery checks the problem: the sweep bar does not collect the latches.

“It’s too cold,” she said. “These things don’t move the way they should.”

Mowery resets some switches and gets the lane back on track. She is expected to have this problem all day as the weather turns cold and she is still waiting for her heating oil to arrive.

Autumn Mowery is responsible for all lane maintenance.

Sofia Aldinio for NPR


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Autumn Mowery is responsible for all lane maintenance.

Sofia Aldinio for NPR

Autumn lawn mower behind the lane at the candlestick bowling alley in Ellsworth, Maine.

Sofia Aldinio for NPR


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Sofia Aldinio for NPR


Autumn lawn mower behind the lane at the candlestick bowling alley in Ellsworth, Maine.

Sofia Aldinio for NPR

This is just one of many stressors Mowery faces on a daily basis. She lives up the alley and usually works until 1 or 2 am. She is the only employee. A leaky roof. Heating and cooling a huge building is very expensive. She even skipped this semester of college to make up for it.

Mowery is determined – against all odds – to keep the candle alley going. She says the tradition is disappearing because many owners cannot maintain the maintenance and buying new candlestick parts is too expensive. Many alleys are closing or converting to the classic 10-pin.

Regular people appreciate the effort to save the tradition.

“I really like to see that she’s doing her best to keep the original parts. And hats off to her because I know it’s definitely not an easy task to keep up with,” said Sam Sawyer, said a woman in her 20s. come here and whose family has been coming to this alley for generations.

“I have clear and vivid memories of me and my cousins ​​hanging out, like buying Pizza Hut and then coming here. That’s where it happens the most,” she said.

Sawyer came here today for her granddaughter’s birthday. The family traveled for hours to meet at D’Amanda’s.

“It means so much to a lot of people around here, that it’s really like another home to us. So I think the point is to keep it alive for generations to come. later,” she said.

Mowery knows how much the candle clip means to her community, and she wants more towns across the country to have it, too. She has hopes of expanding in Maine and then spreading the sport outside of New England.

She started a TikTok account, @EllsworthCandlepinAlley, to speak out. Right now, she’s gathering everyone in Ellsworth, Maine, one by one.

Autumn Mowery prepares a lane for a group of locals at a candlestick bowling alley in Ellsworth, Maine.

Sofia Aldinio for NPR


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Autumn Mowery prepares a lane for a group of locals at a candlestick bowling alley in Ellsworth, Maine.

Sofia Aldinio for NPR

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