Have you ever dreamed of living alone in a town where no one can bother you? That's how Karen Keller felt too.
Now, she is officially living in a one-woman town in Hibberts Gore, Maine.
According to the last census, Hibberts Gore is one of the few one-person towns left in the US. Because of this, Keller's been getting a lot of attention and media requests.
But Keller is a woman living alone with acres around her who loves the space - and hates that it's a huge conversation starter. She dislikes it so much that she has petitioned the city council for the area next to her in order to try and be counted in with their residents.
“I just didn’t like the whole idea of it. Makes you feel vulnerable. You’re isolated and you’re one female. It’s not cool. It’s not reassuring," she said in her most recent interview.
According to Wikipedia, "Hibberts Gore has a total area of 0.752 sq mi (1.95 km2), of which 0.745 sq mi (1.93 km2) is land and 0.007 sq mi (0.02 km2), or 0.9 per cent, is water. The water is primarily wetlands, part of Sheepscot Pond, which is the headwaters of Sheepscot River."
That's all there is to know about this small town, according to the internet. That, and it has one resident that's been boosted up to an almost-famous level, despite her objections.
Keller says she moved to the town after her divorce from an abusive husband, no date specified, but we do know that her status popped up on the media radar in 2001, when The Boston Globe discovered her and began to do a piece. That's when the attention became too much.
She did an interview in 2013 with the Sunday Salon, explaining that she prefers not to be interviewed or contacted by media for a reason. "Whatever have I accomplished? What have I ever done to make anyone’s life better? What good for the planet? What good for people? What good for anybody? Why? It’s hogwash. it's a crock," she told the magazine.
“These people from these big papers come. Why? What have I done? It’s a bunch of lines on a map. Nothing else," with an attitude very typical of the Northeast.
Though she's requested it, nearby Lincoln County refuses to count her as part of their census. "I wrote them and said I had concerns about being one person in what they had considered a district. Why can’t you throw me in with the next territory in Lincoln County? But their letter came back; it was utter bullshit."
Keller is now thought to be in her 70s and is likely to continue to shun the media spotlight and enjoy her quiet life.
The US Census Bureau explained that: "Because Hibberts Gore is a legally defined geographic entity, even though it has no governmental functions, the Census Bureau must recognize this existence as a political unit and does not have the authority to incorporate it into the neighbouring towns for the purpose of data.
"If collection tabulation and presentation of the boundary was to change for the 2020 census, legal action would have to be taken on the local level."
Hibberts Gore seems to be the sister city of the one other place in the country where there's just one resident, Monowi, Nebraska.
Keller said in her last interview with the Sunday Salon that she prefers the quiet life, and it seems that's in order as she had quite an exciting one.
She says she was the 'black sheep' of her family, as she chose to hitchhike across the country in the 60s after obtaining a bachelor's degree from University of Michigan. Her travels landed her in a remote area of Quebec, surviving off the land. She's also worked on bridges with an almost entirely male crew.
So living alone and working on a house isn't new to her. “When I was in school they didn’t let girls take any trade courses. And of course, what am I interested in? That kind of stuff. Horticulture, carpentry, even plumbing," she explained her fascination.
Eventually, her travels brought her to Maine, where she ended up marrying an angry man that had abused her throughout their marriage, both physically and emotionally. We know now that abusive situations can literally change your brain chemistry, and that's what happened to Keller, who now struggles with bipolar disorder. She says is plays a big part in her living alone.
But she has discovered in recent years that she's not entirely alone.
“See, I have true neighbours,” Karen says, “When I had a broken wrist, I was panicking because we had all these little snowfalls. How am I going to figure out how to shovel? How am I going to do this? Well, I look out the window, here comes the neighbour with a shovel over his shoulder. Ta-da! Shoveled the driveway. I’ve had people come by with pick-up trucks, I don’t even know who the hell they are. I’ve just had people come by and plow the driveway.”
