Seal of Honor | Up Close

Trophies, old love letters, a wedding gown—these are the mementoes you’d expect a family to collect and save for future generations. But for Toni Goodridge, whose family happens to have included the world’s most famous harbor seal, the collection takes a quirkier turn. Tucked away in her Lincolnville, Maine, home is the hollowed-out, neoprene-covered log that her father, Rockport harbor master Harry Goodridge, used to wean the seal pup he rescued and named Andre back in 1961. Two filing cabinets stuffed with news clippings, books, and letters from schoolchildren attest to Andre’s eventual status as a Rockport celebrity—as does the Townsperson of the Year medallion pictured here, which was presented to Andre in 1979 (along with a congratulatory telegram from the governor). Toni and her siblings have lately begun talking about entrusting the Andre collection to someplace like a museum, since the legendary “seal who came home” is still capturing the public’s imagination more than three decades after his death. “Just when we think everything has settled down,” she says, “we get another email from someone, somewhere around the world, who has connected with Andre’s story.” —Jenn Johnson