As a military daughter, Sarah Smiley knew what it was like to see her father leave home on a long deployment. By age 22, she calculated her father accumulated over 11 years away from home.

As a mother married to a fighter pilot, she wanted something to fill the emptiness in her three son’s lives caused when her husband left on a13-month deployment to Africa.  

So when Lt. Cmdr Dustin Smiley left for the Republic of Djibouti in 2011, Sarah Smiley and her three sons devised a plan to combat the impending loneliness.

They filled the gap by inviting interesting people to dinner for a year. The Smileys invited guests to sit in Dustin’s dinner seat each week. Guests included politicians, a comic, police officer, postal worker, professional and college athletes and educators. All told, the Smiley’s had over 250 dinner guests.

Sarah Smiley, a Bangor Daily News columnist, wrote about the experiences first in her weekly syndicated column, and later in a book, “Dinner with the Smileys.” She retold many of the stories in Boothbay Harbor on Feb. 12 as part of the Boothbay Harbor Memorial Library’s Literary Luncheon series.

She recalled the joy in her boys’ faces as Star Wars android R2-D2 came to dinner; and how her youngest son, Lindell, was enthralled by Bangor comic and “The Nite Show” host Dan Cashman as he explained how he was paid to be funny. And how Major League Baseball player and Bangor resident Matt Stairs joined the family for dinner.

As a child, Sarah remembered dinner as being the time when her father’s absence was most felt. She thought a weekly dinner guest would be a welcome distraction for the family.

Sarah thought looking at the empty dinner chair would serve as constant reminder that the boys’ father was absent. So a weekly guest would fill Dustin’s seat.

The family sent out a series of email invitations in search of people to have dinner with the Smileys.

“It started as do you think we could invite a police officer, or fireman, or how about the mayor?” the Smiley boys asked their mother.

As the listed grew, so did the prominence of the guests. The Smiley’s dined with Maine politicians Gov. Paul LePage and former Gov. John Baldacci, U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King, and U.S. Congressman Mike Michaud.

Guest No. 1 was a Bangor resident who worked in Washington, D.C. 

“Sen. Collins was the first because of her schedule. We couldn’t believe she was our first,” Sarah said. “Her response came so fast I really didn’t have time to teach my boys any table manners.”

Collins and each following guest witnessed a typical meal in the Smiley household. The guests would often see a laundry basket full of dirty clothes as they entered the home. The Smileys dressed casually and the meal wasn’t elaborate.

“We didn’t do anything fancy,” Sarah said. “Dinner was usually pizza, lasagna or spaghetti. The emphasis was definitely on the company, not the food.”

She wrote about the experiences in her newspaper column to describe how military families coped with loneliness. But her perspective changed after a dinner in an assisted living center. The Smileys dined with an couple known as Frank and Gloria.

Sarah Smiley took her boys to the center to visit a family friend. She also agreed to read several of her columns to the home’s residents.

After the reading, Frank asked the Smileys to join him for dinner. Before Sarah Smiley could say no, her middle son, Ford, said “What’s for dinner?”

Sarah thought the experience might overwhelm her sons. She worried for two reasons. The first was her boys were too young to appreciate the special circumstances of those in an assisted living enter, and second, they would sit with a woman with Alzheimer’s disease.

“I didn’t think the kids would like the food and wouldn’t be able to understand what it meant for a person to have Alzheimer’s, but they handled it great,” she said. “All the other dinners someone ended up in timeout, but not that night.”

Frank told Sarah he understood what it was like to eat dinner alone.

“I understand loneliness at dinner time. I’ve eaten with my wife every night for two years, but she’s not really here,” said Frank, who cried while telling the story.

“I cried too,” Sarah said. “This is when I knew that this just wasn’t a military story. There are people all over who are lonely, especially at dinner time.”

Sarah decided to write the book based on that night’s experience. She realized loneliness at the dinner table wasn’t only a challenge faced by military families.

“Dinner with the Smileys” made The New York Times bestseller list. The family promoted the book on “The Today Show” and “Katie” television shows.

Abby Dunlap of Bath read the book and wanted to meet the author. She was one of a dozen who attended the luncheon. She is a Boothbay summer resident who heard last fall that Sarah Smiley was coming to Boothbay Harbor.

She described “Dinner with the Smileys” as a “feel good book.” Dunlap enjoyed reading how the pre-teen boys interacted with each guest.

“It was a fun book even with the underlining sadness of their father not being there,” Dunlap said.

One of the Smiley’s dinner guests was Dustin. He returned home while on leave, and was the “surprise” guest for the Smiley boys.

Dustin has returned from his deployment, but the family still periodically invites guests to have dinner with the Smileys.