MF 166 Swan’s Island Oral History Collection

Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History: MF 166 Swan’s Island Oral History Collection

Number of accessions: 27
Dates when interviews were conducted: 2009-2011
Time period covered: 20th century
Principal interviewer: Meghan Vigeant
Finding aides: some transcripts
Access restrictions: none
Description: Interviews about Swan’s Island.

3806 Norman K. Burns, interviewed by Meghan Vigeant. Recordings: CD 2465, CD 2466 2 hours 19 minutes.

3807 Albert Buswell, interviewed by Meghan Vigeant, February 11 and 12, 2010. Recordings: CD 2467, CD 2468 2 hours.

3808 Sharon Butterfield and LaVerne Craig, interviewed by Meghan Vigeant, July 25, 2010. Recordings: CD 2469 1 hour 17 minutes.

3809 Betty Carlson, interviewed by Meghan Vigeant, December 17, 2009. Recordings: CD 2470, CD 2471 1 hour 24 minutes.

3810 Almere Dinsmore, interviewed by Meghan Vigeant, January 28, 2010. Recordings: CD 2472 31 minutes.

3811 Minnie Carter Harvey, interviewed by Donna Wiegle, Gwen May, and Dexter Lee, April 24, 2010. Recordings: CD 2473, CD 2474 1 hour 30 minutes.

3812 Mike Holmes, interviewed by Meghan Vigeant and Myron Sprague, Jr., July 25, 2010. Recordings: CD 2475 1 hour 8 minutes.

3813 Richard Jellison, interviewed by Meghan Vigeant, November 21, 2009. Recordings: CD 2476 58 minutes.

3814 Bernita Joyce, interviewed by Meghan Vigeant, April 17, 2010. Recordings: CD 2477, CD 2478 1 hour 41 minutes.

3815 Gladys Joyce interviewed by Meghan Vigeant and Donna Wiegle, December 18, 2009. Recordings: CD 2479 1 hour 10 minutes.

3816 Spencer Joyce, interviewed by Meghan Vigeant, June 2, 2010. Recordings: CD 2480, CD 2481 1 hour 40 minutes.

3817 Dexter Lee, interviewed by Meghan Vigeant, January 8, 2010. Recordings: CD 2482 32 minutes.

3818 Gwen May, interviewed by Meghan Vigeant, May 25, 2010. Recordings: CD 2483, CD 2484 1 hour 48 minutes.

3819 Theo May, interviewed by Meghan Vigeant, May 26, 2010 and February 11, 2011. Recordings: CD 2485 (May 26, 2010), CD 2486 (February 11, 2011) 2 hours 3 minutes.

3820 Meghan Vigeant and Donna Wiegle, interviewed by Steven McCormick, November 17, 2009. Recordings: CD 2487, CD 2488 1 hour 24 minutes.

3821 Myron “Sonny” Sprague Jr., interviewed by Meghan Vigeant, fall 2009 and March 31, 2010. Recordings: CD 2489, CD 2490 (both fall 2009), CD 2491, CD 2492 (March 31, 2010) 4 hours 48 minutes.

3822 Clint Staples, interviewed by Meghan Vigeant, July 25, 2010. Recordings: CD 2493 1 hour 7 minutes.

3823 Donald Staples, interviewed by Meghan Vigeant, February 3, 2010, at his home in Atlantic, Maine. Staples, who was born in Tremont, Maine, talks about his childhood; living near East Point on Swan’s Island all his life; joining the Navy after school and serving for about 3 years; things he enjoys about Swan Island now and when he was growing up; what he used to do for fun; his parents bought the Post Office/store, and his father ran the store and his mother the post office; happy to return to the Island after serving; working for Clyde Torrey; raising cows and sheep; owning miniature horses; working on the ferry for 25 years starting in 1971; what working on the ferry entailed and the difficulty of maintaining the ferry in the winter; lobstering both before and after serving in the Navy; still lobstering; problems with lobstering rules and regulations; stories about his ox named Big Fella. Text: 16 pp. transcript. Recordings: CD 2494 51 minutes.

3824 Kevin Staples, interviewed by Meghan Vigeant, July 2, 2010. Recordings: CD 2495 1 hour 13 minutes.

3825 Marguerite Staples, interviewed by Meghan Vigeant, November 23, 2009. Recordings: CD 2496 (November 23, 2009), CD 2497 (November 23, 2009 & April 27, 2010) 2 hours 17 minutes.

3826 Marion Stinson, interviewed by Meghan Vigeant, November 30, 2009 and May 8, 2010, in Marion’s apartment, Atlantic, Maine. Stinson talks about her father working on the ferry when she was younger; her early education and what she did for fun as a child; her mother’s work to earn money; her experiences clamming, making wreaths, collecting things from the shore, and other hobbies she has had; her marriages; her piano playing; descriptions of Marion’s photographs; what traveling by ferry was like and what happened when the harbor was frozen over; island life when she was a child and people traveling to the mainland; dances and the band that played at the Odd Fellows Hall; her piano playing in the community; worked as a cook in a restaurant; her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Also included: recording of Marion’s piano playing (CD 2499). Text: 20 pp. transcript, 2 pp., tape log. Recordings: CD 2498 1 hour 15 minutes, CD 2499 51 minutes.

3827 George Tainter, interviewed by Meghan Vigeant and Myron “Sonny” Sprague, Jr., March 25, 2010, in Tainter’s home, Swan’s Island, Maine. Tainter, who was born in 1916 in Minturn on Swan’s Island and is 95, talks about his childhood growing up in Maine and on Swan’s Island; sinking of the steamship Bodwell; steamship North Haven; his education; seining; sardines; later experiences with lobstering and some machine and wood work; working at the Electric Co-op; flying in a plane during a storm to get ice cream in Bangor; his first car was a Model T; running Odd Fellow dances in summer and fall; jobs working at Bath Iron Works and in Connecticut; how he met his wife Lena and started his family; stories of him breaking his neck and of him paying fines for backing up on the interstate; softball; work he did on boats over the years; changes to Swan’s Island during his lifetime. Text: 24 pp. transcript, 5 pp. tape log. Recording: CD 2500 – CD 2501 1 hour 25 minutes.

3828 Clyde Torrey. Recording: CD 2502.

3829 Edward Wheaton, interviewed by Meghan Vigeant, July 25, 2010. Recordings: CD 2503 51 minutes.

3830 Eva Wheaton, interviewed by Meghan Vigeant, January 6 and June 15, 2010 and on March 18, 2011, at Wheaton’s home, Minturn, Maine. Wheaton, who was born on Swan’s Island in 1928 as Eva Staples and married Burton Wheaton in 1946, talks about growing up on Swan’s Island; what her family did during the winter; what they ate; schools she attended; boarding school; diabetes; marriage and children; husband’s dialysis; his work as lobster fisherman and as a carpenter; his death from broken neck caused by car accident; differences between her two sons Jimmy and Stevie; sons taking care of her now; autistic granddaughter; grandfather’s work in the quarry on Swan’s Island; mother’s work in a boarding house for the quarry workers when she was young; what she did for fun as a child; stories about her grandparents; stories her mother told her; her management of her diabetes; financial situation; medical costs; mother’s life and personality. Text: 14 pp., 8 pp., and 16 pp. transcripts (respectively). Recordings: CD 2504 – CD 2506 2 hours 51 minutes.

3831 John Wheaton, interviewed by Meghan Vigeant and Donna Wiegle, November 12, 2009, in his home in Swan’s Island, Maine; by Vigeant, March 4, 2011, at his new home in Waltham, Maine. Wheaton, who was born in 1918 on Swan’s Island, Maine, talks about how he met and married his his wife Lenora; his experience with lobstering; trawl fishing; what it was like being out at sea in storms; using a sounding machine out on the boat; going lobstering with Sara Adam as a helper; which lobsters are okay to catch and what to look for when keeping lobsters; retiring from lobstering and giving away his traps and boat; designing and purchase of his boats; time in the fishing co-op; fishermen watching out for each other; making ferry models; parents Edward Burton and Georgia Alberta Wheaton; siblings; what he did in his childhood and his schooling; time working down on the wharf splitting and packing fish; military service in the medical corps 1941 – 1945; working in military station hospitals; welcome home after being in the service; two children Helen and Edward; time building houses with his brother; disappearance of fish around the island over the years; feelings about having to leave Swan’s Island; idea of what makes a good life. Texts: 17 pp. and 27 pp. transcripts (respectively). Recordings: CD 2507 (November 12, 2009) 1 hour 4 minutes, CD 2508 (March 4, 2011) 1 hour 16 minutes.

3832 Lenora Wheaton, interviewed by Meghan Vigeant, March 4, 2011. Recordings: CD 2509 1 hour 6 minutes.