MF 122 Page Farm Museum History Project

Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History: MF 122 Page Farm Museum History Project

Number of accessions: 27
Dates when interviews were conducted: 1996-1999, 2001
Time period covered: 20th century
Principal interviewer: Mary Jo Sanger
Finding aides: transcripts
Access restrictions: none
Description: A series of interviews on farming and rural life in Maine conducted for the Page Farm Museum at the University of Maine, 1996-99 and 2001. The primary interviewer was Mary Jo Sanger. Includes photographs.

2667 Charles Hutchinson and Lottie Hutchinson, interviewed by Mary Jo Sanger, June 7, 1998, at his apartment in Houlton, Maine. 3 page interview index. C. Hutchinson talks about talks about his parents and grandparents; farm experiences; potato, oat, wheat and cattle farming; farm chores for women and for children; family activities related to farming and rural community; schooling; appliances and electricity; getting struck by lightning; Indians; baskets; neighbors; extending family; cutting wood; travel; medical related; cars; work; farm animals; Christmas celebrations; Depression; hired help; church and social activities; Native American labor on farms; potato harvesting; potato farming and business in the 1930s; potato varieties; firewood; consumerism; traveling to Portland, Maine and Boston, Massachusetts; county doctor; marriage; farming machinery; education and high school; car purchase in 1921; traveling to Caribou and Westfield, Maine; cousin Walter. Text: 26 pp. transcript, 3 pp. index. Recording: C 1958 1 hour 10 minutes. Photos: P 8865, P 8866 ( P8865: Charlie and Lottie Hutchinson. P8866: Charlie and Lottie Hutchinson with son.)

2668 Joanne “Joni” Averill, interviewed by Mary Jo Sanger, July 8, 1997. Averill talks about family settling in South Paris, Me.; father; grandparents; school; parents’ meeting; children; father’s medical practice; treatments; mother; farming; kids; summers. Text: 18 pp. transcript. Recording: C 1959.

2669 Elsie Boynton, interviewed by Mary Jo Sanger, October 21, 1996. Boynton talks about occupations; family; farming and farm life; animals; mother; school; food; milk; death of parents; produce; washing; doctor and illnesses; games and play; stories; college. Also included: oral history contact sheet (writing on front and back), Family Life in Rural Maine up to World War II Questionnaire, letter from Page Farm and Home Museum to Elsie Boynton (Mrs. Boynton wrote a lot on the back of the letter). Text: 15 pp. transcript. Recording: C 1960.

2670 H. Linwood Carville, interviewed by Linwood L. Carville, January 25, 1996 in York, Maine. H. Carville talks about the family farm; wood; animals; winter; siblings; born July 5, 1904; corn; beans; chores; butchering and preserving; school; games; summer; potatoes; hay and grain; vegetables; other foods; doctor; mail; work as mechanic; holidays; toys; hunting; neighbors. Text: 19 pp. transcript. Recording: C 1961.

2671 Dana Cushman, interviewed by Mary Jo Sanger, June 20, 1997 in Caribou, Maine. Cushman talks about her father; farming; World War I; home remedies; haying; father-in-law’s farm; potatoes; crops; the Depression; money and debt; school; milk; barn raising; barter system; grandparents; socializing; 4-H; chores; children; accidents and safety; work; sports; stores; Christmas; religion; food. Family Life in Rural Maine up to World War II questionnaire. Text: 21 pp. transcript. Recording: C 1962. Photos: P 8867, P 8868 (P 8867: Dana and Ruth Cushman with their 8 children at their 50th wedding anniversary. P 8868: Dana Cushman and his wife, Ruth.)

2672 Richard Gerry, interviewed by Linda Costelloe, February 2, 1996. Gerry talks about Lewiston; siblings; death of aunt; Strickland; grandparents; their farm; chickens; pigs; gardening; college; working on farm in summer; mechanic work; railroad; scrapbook; scouts; parents; cows vs. poultry; chickens and teaching; traveling for jobs; getting married; selling chickens and eggs; son’s farm; children; milk; grandchildren; apples and peanuts; water; house lived in; extended family; computers and word processors; research; retiring; death of wife; taxes. Text: 16 pp. transcript. Recording: C 1963, C 1964.

2673 Edie Hussey, interviewed by Margaret S. Chernosky, November 12, 1996. Hussey talks about siblings; grandparents; parents; working; school; teaching; farm; house description; chores; dairy farm; milk; animals on farm; cutting wood; berries; apples; games; food; depression; cooking; washing; church; playing; Christmas; childbirth; doctors; marriage; father and war; “the itch”; illness; Bangor; recycling for clothing; optometrists and dentists; 4-H; education; high school and college; diaries; boarding teachers; changing schools; entertainment; American Legion; sports; duties of women on farm; outdoor games; tree house; books and library. Also included: Family Life in Rural Maine up to World War II Questionnaire. Newspaper article from Bangor Daily News, November 5, 1996 on Hussey. Text: 30 pp. transcript. Recording: C 1965, C 1966. Photos: P 8426 (Picture of Mrs. Hussey standing outside with her husband, overlooking their farmland.)

3277 Helen Higgins, interviewed by Alice “Julia” Smith, November 29, 1996, location unknown. 2 page interview index. Helen talks about life on the family farm in Bangor, Maine; her education in a Bangor schoolhouse; transportation to school; apple orchard and farming; farm chores for children; childhood winter activities; pets; clothing; her wedding; farm chores for women; water and hot water; childbirth and child rearing; haying; barn; gardening; food preservation; canning; ice harvesting; dairy products; sewing; 4-H; the Grange; fairs; Church; social life and activities; shopping and commerce in Bangor; the danger of kerosene. Also included: Family Life in Rural Main up to World War II Questionnaire; 2 photocopies of Helen Higgins’s obituary from her death on August 10, 2001. Text: missing. Recording: C 2409 55 minutes. Photo: P 8797 (Helen Higgins, sitting in a chair at a table.)

2678 Harriet Young, interviewed by Alice Mumme, November 5, 1996. Young talks about grandparents; cooking; chores; food; preservation and storage; quilts and pillows; medical treatments; herbs; family activities; 4th of July camping; games and playing; church; community; moving; family; ice; crops; doctors; childbirth; men’s chores; Christmas. Also included: Family Life in Rural Maine up to World War II Questionnaire. Also attached to the transcription are 6 short pieces written by Harriet Young on different aspects of farm life. These include “Wash Day in our Cabin, March 8, 1940”, “Wood Fire and Ice, New Home”, “Farm Land”, “Ice Harvesting”, “Another Use for Sawdust”, and “Our Winter Meat Afloat”. Also with these writings are two pictures, one of laundry flying away that goes with “Wash Day in our Cabin, March 8, 1940”, and one of her Grandfather’s “Dot”, an old fashioned car. Text: 16 pp. transcription. Recording: C 1971.

2679 Carrie Nightingale, interviewed by Mary Jo Sanger, June 20, 1997. Nightingale, born April 9, 1907, talks about grandparents; siblings; father; fathers farm; work; cooking and food; animals on farm; memories; religion; marriage; farm work; chores; gardens; Farm Bureau; president; WW I; school; house descriptions; socialization; barn raising; weather; fires; sickness; and treatments. Text: 20 pp. transcript. Recording: C 1972. Photos: P 8796 (Picture of Carrie Nightingale sitting in what looks like a rocking chair.)

2680 Thelma Ditzel, interviewed by Margaret Chernosky, October 17, 1996. Ditzel talks about growing up; male chores; females and the home; salary and farm children; children and the farm; then vs. now; dairy farm; food produced on farm; Depression; cows; selling wood; butter and cheese; bartering; mother; cooking; mother’s typical day; hired help; food; chores; transportation; piano lessons; neighbors; ice; summer kitchens; games; electricity; water; education; grandparents; father; siblings; illness and death; doctors; marriages and honeymoons; pregnancy and childbirth; socialization; housekeeping; reputations; telephones; adopted and “mentally retarded” children; school; winter; Charleston Observatory; trolleys; mail order catalogues; sewing machines; quilting; college. Also included: obituary of Thelma Bradford Ditzel; card from Thelma Ditzel to Mary Jo Sanger; The Ice Out Company “Faces of Maine” brochure; Family Life in Rural Maine up to WWII Questionnaire. Text: 42 pp. transcript. Recording: C 1973, C 1974.

2681 Gilberte Langlais, interviewed by Mary Jo Sanger, October 8, 1996 in Brewer, Maine. Langlais talks about where her parents farm was; why it was given up; foods of and around farm; school; rural life; laundry; produce; preserving; animals on farm; woolen goods; weaving; farm; well; family; pregnancy and home birth; mother; father; dangers; children; home remedies; chores; potatoes; harvest; special foods; Christmas; winter travel; medical care; toys; pets; clothing; community activities. Also included: Family life in Rural Maine up to World War II Questionnaire; typed piece by Langlais about life on farm. Text: 17 pp. transcript. Recording: C 1975.

2689 John Arno and Imogene Arno, interviewed by Mary Jo Sanger, February 1, 1996. J. Arnos talks about John’s parents settling in farmhouse in 1895; neighbors and haying; helping on farm; John born Nov. 6, 1912; size of farm; cows; father and potato farm; selling potatoes; albums; ground freezing after harvest; school and harvest; work on farm; potato planting; horses; spraying; milk; groceries; father worked farm until his death in 1944; farming; potatoes; green beans; squash; eggs; bank suing father over land; crop rotation; oats for feed; hay; harvest; community; “Neighborly Neighbors Group”; quilts; Christmas; neighbors; snow and winter; cards; farm families; cutting trees; wood; ice; chickens. I. Arno born in Skowhegan, talks about her father who worked in shoe store; drummers; shopping in Dexter; going to Bangor; UMaine; going for Masters; working for UMaine; working for U. S. Garden and Agriculture business; traveling for work; poultry business; Depression; other jobs in town; pests on farm; barn; generations of farmers in family; mother’s family; grandmother; sheep farming; wool. Also included: Family Life in Rural Maine up to WWII Questionnaire; note to Mary Jo Sanger from Imogene Arno; 7 hand written pages by John Arno about his life; 3 typed pages by Imogene Arno about her life; obituary of John Arno. Text: 16 pp. transcript. Recording: C 1983, C 1984.

3271 Elizabeth Baxter, interviewed by Alice Mummé, June 11, 2001, at an unknown location. 2 page interview index. Baxter talks about her childhood in Orono and Cumberland Center, Maine; move to Orono, Maine, in 1925; primary and secondary education; Colby College; childhood games and activities; skiing; harvesting; 4-H; the Depression; stoves; chores; music and lessons; sewing; canning; cleaning; World War II and the military; life in Florida; summer tourism. Text: 2 pp. index. Recording: C 2400 35 minutes.

3272 Rockwood Berry, interviewed by Patricia Henner, July 20, 2001, at his home in North Livermore, Maine. 3 page interview index. Berry talks about dairy farming in the 1920s; chicken and poultry farming after 1927; crops; apple orchards and farming; State Pomological Society; hired help 1930-1940s; his education at the University of Maine; grandfather’s farming and work in the 19th century; Agway and small business; tree disease in 1940; education; farm chores; mills; barns and storage; apple and fruit varieties; ice supply; military experience in World War II and return in 1944; family apple partnership; Apple Institute employment; winter sports and recreation; household chores. Text: 3 pp. index. Recording: C 2401 1 hour 5 minutes.

3273 Lloyd Bolstridge, interviewed by Brett Nichols, November 20, 1996, at his home in Corinna, Maine. 2 page interview index. Bolstridge talks about his marriage to Audrey Bolstridge in 1948; father’s farm settlement in 1919; beans; grandfather and farming; agricultural insects and pests; soil; harvesting equipment and methods; poultry farming and business in the 1970 – 1980s; New England Brown Egg Council and Eggland farmers; eggs; education; poetry “My Farm” and “Farmer’s Last Will”; diphtheria and remedies, traditional medicine. Text: 2 pp. index. Recording: C 2402 50 minutes.

3274 Helen Currier, interviewed by Mary Jo Singer, January 31, 1997, Chapel Road, Orono, Maine. 3 page interview index. January 1997 photograph of Helen Currier. Currier talks about the family farm in Canaan, Maine; dairy farming; pig farming; water sources; storage; her daughter Libby’s childhood; education and boarding school; food preservation; canning; ice harvesting; measles; illness and remedies, traditional medicine; influenza 1917-1918; pets; corn farming for canning factory in North Fairfield; hay harvesting; women’s work on the farm; farm chores; making dairy products; Grange; Easter Star; social life and clubs; Nursing school at Eastern Maine General 1928-1931; celebrations and holidays; marriage in 1930s; picnics; recipes; barn and house raising; family relationships; farming equipment and machinery; firewood. Text: 22 page transcript, 3 pp. index. Recording: C 2403, C 2404 1 hour 10 minutes.

3275 Helen Deane, interviewed by Mary Jo Sanger, September 6, 1997, Fort Fairfield, Maine. 2 page interview index. Deane talks about her mother’s background; family life; farm life; her research on the women of Aroostook country; education and educational techniques; sibling military service; the Hult family; University of Maine at Presque Isle; the Fort Fairfield newspaper; newspaper reporting; research on Jesse Philbrick; research on Ms. Nightingale; research on Mrs. Philbrick; relationship with father; women’s history; view of Native Americans; discussion of calendar; discussion of her articles; modern and rural life. Text: 2 pp. index. Recording: C 2405, C 2406 1 hour 25 minutes.

3276 Anna Greenlaw, interviewed by Bill Reed, June 26, 1996, at the Holden School House at the Page Farm and Home Museum in Orono, Maine. 4 page interview index. Greenlaw talks about teaching in rural Maine in 1933; her family background; box socials; primary and secondary education; her daughter Mary Anne Gardiner; teaching retirement 1977; Holden schoolhouse; women teachers; teaching during WWII and the Depression; Ridge School; Fort Fairfield settlement and history; Irish Potato Famine; disease and health education; farming and education; educational policies; marriage in 1941; teaching in Caribou, ME; living in Island Falls, ME; writing, penmanship and the Palmer method; Aunt R. Crandall; degrees at the UMaine; principal at Island Falls; school house and supplies; education methods; religion and school; the Depression and the home; electricity; transportation; the differences in teaching in 1933 and 1977; the family farm; crops; shopping and commerce in Fort Fairfield. Text: 66 pp. transcript, 4 pp. index. Recording: C 2407, C 2408 2 hours.

3277 Helen Higgins, interviewed by Alice Smith, November 29, 1996, location unknown. 2 page interview index. Helen talks about life on the family farm in Bangor, Maine; her education in a Bangor schoolhouse; transportation to school; apple orchard and farming; farm chores for children; childhood winter activities; pets; clothing; her wedding; farm chores for women; water and hot water; childbirth and child rearing; haying; barn; gardening; food preservation; canning; ice harvesting; dairy products; sewing; 4-H; the Grange; fairs; Church; social life and activities; shopping and commerce in Bangor; the danger of kerosene. Also included: Family Life in Rural Main up to World War II Questionnaire; 2 photocopies of Helen Higgins’s obituary from her death on August 10, 2001. Text: missing. Recording: C 2409 55 minutes. Photo: P 8797 (Helen Higgins, sitting in a chair at a table.)

3278 Charles Hutchinson, interviewed by Mary Jo Sanger, June 7, 1998, at his apartment in Houlton, ME. 3 page interview index. Hutchinson talks about his wide Lottie; farming in the Monticello area since 1932; potato, oat, and cattle farming; his grandfather’s background; chores; electricity; farm chores for women; farm chores for children; Native American labor on farms; potato harvesting; potato farming and business in the 1930s; potato varieties; family life; firewood; consumerism; traveling to Portland, Maine and Boston, Massachusetts; county doctor; marriage in 1928; farming machinery; education and high school; car purchase in 1921; family farming; traveling to Caribou and Westfield, Maine; cousin Walter; Christmas celebrations; poverty during the Depression; social activities. Text: 26 pp. transcript. Recording: C 2410 1 hour 10 minutes.

3279 Belva Morris, interviewed by Mary Jo Sanger, September 6, 1997, Limestone, Maine. 3 page interview index. Morris talks about her childhood at the family farm in Limestone, Maine; her sister Labona; farm chores, dairy products; potato farming; Grange and 4-H; church and social activities; education; husband’s agricultural education at the University of Maine; teaching in the 1920s; education methods; holidays and celebrations; women teachers and farmer’s wives; cooking; child rearing; farm chores for women; family life in rural Maine; agricultural methods; farm life during the Depression; harvests; description of her home; food production and storage; weather; drought and irrigation; health care; cars; sewing circles; Farm Bureau. Text: 3 pp. index. Recording: C 2411 1 hour.

3280 H. Elizabeth Mower, interviewed by Margaret Chernosky, November 24, 1996, at her farm in Glenburn, Maine. 4 page interview index. Chernosky, born 1907, talks about life on the family farm in Glenburn, ME; Canadian laborers; dairy production; her brother and his education at the UMaine and employment at the Great Northern Paper Company; the Grange; Ladies Birthday Club; traveling to Bangor, ME; church and social activities; dairy products; wood stoves; chicken farming; sheep farming; lamb farming; her cousin George Washington Bickery; Monday laundry; household chores; cooking; John Deere plow; piano lessons; education at Westbrook Seminary in Portland, ME; doctors and midwives; sister’s marriage in 1920; aunt’s death; father’s death in 1927; marriage to a mail carrier farmer in 1928; child rearing; farm chores for children; sons’ Frankie and Charles; daughters’ Caroline and Priscilla; technology in the home. Text: 4 pp. index. Recording: C 2412 1 hour.

3281 Georgia Porter Stackhouse and Isabel Porter Allen, interviewed by Barbara Mooers, November 10, 1996, at an unknown location. 2 page interview index. The Porter sisters talk about the family farm in Monticello, Maine, built in 1914; house fire; motherhood; childbirth and child rearing; farm chores for women; music and entertainment; education and school life; remedies, traditional medicine; cooking; farm chores; dairy production; farm chores for children; potato farming; farming equipment; the Grange; dairy products; Passamaquoddy Indians; Native American labor on farms; uncultivated vegetables; fishing; cow, beef farming; food preservation; church and social activities. Text: 23 page transcript, 2 pp. index. Recording: C 2413 1 hour.

3282 Clarence Sheain and Iva Sheain, interviewed Mary Jo Sanger, June 29, 1997, at their farm in Chapman, Maine. 2 page interview index. Photocopied newspaper article of their car accident and death. The Sheains talk about their local education; work during the Depression, 1930s; potato farming in 1935; farming methods; firewood; farming equipment; farm labor; farm chores for women; foster care; farm chores for children; marriage in 1924; cost of living; food preservation; 4-H; family relationships; childhood; school; St. Croix pulp in 1914; employment for children; farm work. Text: 13 pp. transcript, 2 pp. index, photocopied newspaper article. Recording: C 2414 40 minutes.

3283 Charles Smith and Julia Alice Smith, interviewed by Charles Smith, October 1, 1996, at their home in Orono, Maine. 1 page interview index. The Smiths talk about rural family life; farm chores for children; education; dairy farming; military experience with the ROTC and Army; teaching agriculture in Hermon, Maine; grandfather’s farm and greenhouse business in Orono, Maine; move from Princeton, Maine to Hudson, Maine; environment and farming in Cooper, Maine. Text: 1 pp. index. Recording: C 2415 10 minutes.

3284 Julia Alice Smith, interviewed by Alice Mummé, October 10, 1996 and October 29, 1996, Orono, Maine. In the first interview, Smith talks about growing up in Parsonfield, ME, in the 1920s and 1930s; rural life and technology; dairy farming; corn farming; apple varieties and orchards; food preservation; veal farming; country music and performing; farm chores for children; 4-H and the Grange; 4-H Congress Chicago, IL in 1937; college at the UMaine; social activities and clubs; feather beds; one-room schoolhouse with her teacher mother; cooking; maple syrup production; farm life during the Depression; hunting deer; mushrooms; Christmas festivities. In the second, Smith talks about Dr. Carpenter; medical procedures; scarlet fever; milk delivery in Limerick, ME; traditional medicine; Ford Model-T; transportation; baking biscuits; a typical childhood day; winter activities; maple syrup collecting; berry processing; canning fruits and vegetables; water supply. Text: 35 pp. transcript. Recording: C 2416 40 minutes, C 2417 1 hour.

3285 Mary Deering Wirths, interviewed by Bill Reed, April 13, 1998, November 30, 1998, April 5, 1999, and November 29, 1999, at her home in Falmouth, Maine. 6 page interview index for cassette tapes C 2418 – C 2421. On November 30, 1998, White talks about her husband Roland in WWII; husband’s family from Belgium; friend Betty Drumond; Orono High School; current events in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s; author Edith Patch; Farm and Home Week; UMaine graduation in 1938; Cornel home economics department; living in NY, meeting with Ray Fogler; living in Augusta, ME; MoPang; father’s notes and UMaine; Harry Sutten and the Sutten Lumber Company; the Fogler Library; Marcus Urann; gardening; her brother Bob; childhood games and activities; household chores for children; winter activities; outdoor activities and tennis; education at Birch Street School in Orono, ME; Webster School; high school graduation in 1934; medical procedures; father’s leiomyosarcoma; marriage; Mary Hale Sutten; trip to Fort Knox; author C.A. Stevens; Christmas celebrations; Hills family neighbor; sisters’ Marnie and Helen; Al Nutting; the Depression; stocks; the effect of the Depression on the UMaine and the town of Orono; vagrants; married life in Orono, ME. Text: 6 pp. index for C 2418 – C 2421. Recording: C 2418 – C 2429 12 hours.