MF 068 Women in Maine Project

Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History: MF 068 Women in Maine Project

Number of accessions: 58
Dates when interviews were conducted: 1974-80
Time period covered: 20th century
Principal interviewers: various
Finding aides: transcripts
Access restrictions: NA0887, 1089, 1131, 1318
Description: The collection consists of a series of interviews conducted from 1974 to 1980 by students for a course (IDL 105, Women in Maine: An Autobiographical Approach) taught by Mary Ann Hartmen in the department of Speech and Communications at the University of Maine. Students asked a variety of informants for their opinions about the present and future roles of women in Maine. Each informant discussed this in the context of their own lives and experiences, therefore the individual interviews cover a wide range of topics. See individual accessions listed below for more details.

0870 Florence Dean Woodward, interviewed by Sarah Jane Adamski, March 15, 1975, York, Maine. Woodward talks about her education, including two years in Gorham Normal School; regulations at Gorham Normal School circa 1910; college courses; voting once women were given suffrage; volunteer work during WWI; activities with the Women’s League; first driving experience in 1914; York Beach during her childhood; and how her grandfather brought Irish girls over to work in New England mills. Text: 18 pp. transcript. Recording: T 0838 1 hour.

0871 Dr. Williard H. Bunker, interviewed by Sarah Jane Adamski, March 15, 1975, York Harbor, Maine. Bunker talks about the medical profession in the early twentieth century; his education and early jobs to pay for it; summer job on a boat; his surgery degrees; unusual surgery experiences; operating in patients’ homes; typhoid epidemic; and his disbelief in poultices. Text: 9 pp. transcript. Recording: T 0839 1 hour.

0872 Catherine Smith, interviewed by Lee Foster, February 21, 1975, Brunswick, Maine. Smith discusses her life in the 1910s in Brunswick; writing for Motion Picture Magazine prior to WWI; writing plays; Joshua Chamberlain’s funeral; working as an assistant to Chamberlain 1910-1914; boating with Chamberlain; May parties in New York; and a May party in Brunswick during WWI. Text: 24 pp. transcript. Recording: T 0840 1 hour.

0873 Brice Booker, interviewed by Lee Foster, March 30, 1975, Brunswick, Maine. Booker talks about Brunswick in the early 1900s; doctors making house calls; trolleys; animal ownership among townspeople; Brunswick schools; local businesses; recollections of Joshua Chamberlain; his paper route; African-American families in Brunswick; weakness of the suffrage movement; the old town hall building and its multiple uses; entertainment, particularly dances; rules and discipline for children; alcohol not popular; the town merchants; and the popularity of parades. Text: 28 pp. transcript. Recording: T 0841.

0874 Elizabeth Savage, interviewed by Tami Rawcliffe, November 11, 1974, Bangor, Maine. Savage talks about her work for various causes through the mid-twentieth century; her “pioneering” decision to attend Trinity College in Washington, D.C. in the early 1900s; two year engagement in order for her fiancé to establish himself; rules for going out at Trinity College; her courtship; involvement in the League of Women Voters 1930-1940; purpose and structure of the League of Women Voters; her work to change the form of Bangor’s government; serving on the National Board of the League of Women Voters; promoting the Blue Cross in 1940 and subsequent work with that organization; her opinions about women’s suffrage before it was granted; and her thoughts on women voting and in politics in 1974. Text: 31 pp. transcript (additional 2 pp. missing). Recording: T 0842 1 hour.

0875 Harry Putnam, interviewed by Tami Rawcliffe, December 17, 1974, Hampden, Maine. There are interuption throughout the interview by John, a man living with Mr. Putnam. Putnam talks about the changing role of women in society; his education; gender roles during his childhood and young adulthood; how women of the 1970s had lowered their standards; women earlier in the century earning extra income (“pin money”) by sewing dresses for sale; his neighborhood’s negative reaction to women’s suffrage; and recollections of women who did vote. Text: 12 pp. transcript. Recording: T 0843 1 hour.

0876 Myrtle S. Carter, interviewed by Pamela Kinney, March 20, 1975, Orono, Maine. Carter discusses her life and the role of women; her education, especially at Presque Isle Normal School; the beginnings of her writing career; moving to Augusta for her husband’s career; child rearing; work as a fraternity house mother in Orono; her minimal concern for the suffrage movement and women’s liberation; childhood activities; and assisting with events in the Blaine House when her husband was the chief of staff for five governors. Text: 22 pp. transcript. Recording: T 0844 50 minutes.

0877 Fred Pratt, interviewed by Pamela Kinney, March 22, 1975, Dover-Foxcroft, Maine. Pratt talks about his life, with emphasis on his poetry and war experiences; a poem he composed about the pond he played around as a boy; his schooling in the early 1900s; childhood games; enlisting in the military and his service during WWI; the gas attack that eventually blinded him; teaching himself to cane chairs; his poem about WWI; his positive view of women’s suffrage; fighting to get his pension from the Veterans Bureau; more of his poetry; and French transport trains during WWI. Text: 26 pp. transcript. Recording: T 0845 1 hour.

0878 Augusta Christie, interviewed by Harriet Tilley, March 11, 1975, Presque Isle, Maine. Christie discusses her life in northern Maine and decades of campaigning against alcohol; childhood on a farm in Ashland, Maine, in the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries; her education and boarding during the week to attend high school; why women’s suffrage was unimportant to her but she never missed a vote; marriage at the age of forty; household chores; the Maine Christian Women’s Temperance Movement, its members, goals, and methods; serving in the state Legislature during the 1950s and 60s in order to further the temperance cause; bills she introduced and supported; experience as a woman in the Legislature; her father’s unpopularity for arresting people on alcohol charges during Prohibition; and her thoughts on issues facing women in 1975. Text: 39 pp. transcript. Recording: T 0846 – T 0847 1 hour.

0879 Robert Ewer, interviewed by Harriet Tilley, April 15, 1975, Bangor, Maine. Ewer talks about his life in northern Maine; his childhood in early twentieth-century Bangor; development of a neighborhood water reservoir; working for Bangor and Aroostook Railroad from 1919 to 1961; election to the Maine House of Representatives after his retirement; unions and the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947; freight trucks versus freight trains; minimal influence of women’s suffrage movement in northern Maine; why he was against the Equal Rights Amendment; losses and gains of his generation; enclaves of traditionalism in northern Maine into the 1970s; and politics in the 1970s. Text: 29 pp. transcript. Recording: T 0848 1 hour.

0880 Alice Coffin, interviewed by Harriet Tilley, October 29, 1974, Bangor, Maine. Coffin discusses her life in northern Maine; her father’s canoe-making; working at Passadumkeag Kindling Wood Factory circa 1900; Passadumkeag in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; the Grange as a social center; traditional medicine; doctors and home visits; celebration of various holidays; when she heard President McKinley was assassinated; the Great Depression as easier for those who had farms; magazines she read; smoking ham; how to sulfur apples to preserve them; gender divide for chores; and views on issues facing women in the 1970s. Text: 33 pp. transcript. Recording: T 0849 1 hour.

0881 Millard Palmer, interviewed by Harriet Tilley, March 15, 1974, Bangor, Maine. Palmer talks about life through the twentieth century; his childhood in the early 1900s; early airplane stunt shows; work putting in telephone lines, mainly for Western Union, 1923-1930, and layoffs due to the Great Depression; Depression experience better on farms than in cities; work in the dairy industry; his positive view of women in politics; recollections of Margaret Chase Smith, with whom he went to school; importance of population control; and his positive view of working mothers. Text: 21 pp. transcript. Recording: T 0850 1 hour.

0882 Frances Pelletier, interviewed by Beverly McLaughlin, October 29, 1974, Milford, Maine. Pelletier talks about her life in the greater Bangor area, particularly during the 1920s; her father’s general store; purchasing at the store mainly done on credit; doctors and maternity homes; chaperones required for dates and public concern for morality; voting mainly as her father and husband did; women with jobs and careers; the flu epidemic of 1918; her parents’ rules and discipline; spanking children; vocabulary and pronunciation; and the importance of writing stories for descendants. Text: 24 pp. transcript. Recording: T 0851 – T 0852 1 hour.

0883 Raynold Rollins, interviewed by Beverly McLaughlin, December 3, 1974, Milford, Maine. Rollins talks about the Milford-Old Town area in the early 1900s; frequent trips to Bangor; electric cars and trains; hotels in Bangor; his various jobs; meeting Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley and seeing them perform; Barnum and Bailey’s circus; University of Maine hazing in the 1920s; wet nurses and midwives; lack of visible public campaign for women’s suffrage; sports and sportswear during his childhood; the 1920s as good years; and acting respectfully to women. Text: 23 pp. transcript. Recording: T 0853 1 hour.

0884 Ninetta Runnals, interviewed by Ellen Beach, October 30, 1974, Dover-Foxcroft, Maine. Runnals discusses her childhood in the late nineteenth century; the first time she voted; common childhood illnesses; her education; clothing of her childhood; social life when she was in college; her involvement with women’s groups when teaching at Colby College; and traditional jobs of women in the early 1900s. Text: 23 pp. transcript. Recording: T 0854 1 hour.

0885 Ernest Marriner, interviewed by Ellen Beach, November 27, 1974, Waterville, Maine. Marriner discusses Colby College in the first half of the twentieth century; the career of Ninetta Runnals at Colby; the history of women at Colby and the coordinate system of co-ed college; boarding off-campus; tuition increases over time; Colby during WWII and the college training attachment of the Army Air Force; and WWII causing equality of women at Colby. Text: 16 pp. transcript. Recording: T 0855 1 hour

0886 Alta Mitchell, interviewed by Sarah Jane Adamski for IDL 105, October 27, 1974, Sanford, Maine. 24 pp. Tape: 1 hr. w/ brief cat. & trans. Mitchell talks about her life and travels during the first half of the twentieth century; her thoughts on early twentieth-century US presidents; why she worked to repeal Prohibition; working for women’s suffrage; her views on Nixon and the Watergate scandal; meeting Truman and his propensity for cursing; welfare work in Germany after WWII; teaching in Taipei circa 1954; and the importance of voting. Also included: field journal (RESTRICTED). Text: 24 pp. transcript; brief catalog. Recording: T 0856.

0887 Dr. Frederick Martin interviewed by Sarah Jane Adamski, November 29, 1974, York, Maine. Martin tells of his childhood in York and career as a chemist; his education, notably taking two extra years of high school to learn Latin and French in order to attend college; working for the Goodrich Company 1917-1952; footwear and the naming of the zipper; working with observation balloons during WWI; and recollections of York circa 1900. Text: 21 pp. transcript. Recording: T 0857 1 hour.

0888 Thelma Cowin interviewed by Kerry Sisson, November 21, 1974, Orono, Maine. Cowin discusses her father’s career as a country doctor in Hampden in the early 1900s; why she decided to go into nursing; her courtship in the 1920s; childhood Christmases; why Prohibition didn’t accomplish anything; her view of voting and women in politics; and the change in gender roles, especially in politics, over time. Text: 24 pp. transcript. Recording: T 0858 / CD 0820 1 hour.

1003 Lewis Kershner interviewed by Nancy Chellis, November 3, 1975, in Orono, Maine. Kershner talks about historical events of the 1960s and 70s; Nixon and the Watergate scandal; joining the ROTC and prolonging his college career to avoid being sent to Vietnam; opinion of draft dodgers; positive view of women’s liberation as long as it is not militant; Kennedy’s assassination and how it differed from Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination; reaction to the Kent State and Jackson State shootings in 1970; stigma associated with not going to college; and the early 1970s as a period of stagnation for the University of Maine. Transcript: 28 pp. Recording: T 1015 1 hour.

1005 Betty Brown, interviewed by Rebekah Rawding, November 1, 1975, Paris Hill, Maine. Brown discusses the events and ideas of the mid-twentieth century; her childhood, including chores and religion; long-standing desire to be a nurse; her thoughts on marriage and the ideal man; rise of society’s ecological consciousness; growing popularity of health food; Nixon and the Watergate scandal; apathy towards government; music of her childhood and teenage years; “Hair” and men with long hair; draft dodgers and the Vietnam War; women’s liberation and equality, and how those can fit within traditional Christian values. Text: 39 pp. transcript plus 5 pp. catalog. Recording: T 1017 1 ½ hours.

1006 Cathy Murray, interviewed by Susan Stewart, November 9, 1975, Augusta, Maine. Murray talks about her childhood in the 1950s and 60s with a working mother and subsequently divorced parents; her job as a speech therapist; movies of the 1970s; her views on women’s liberation and gender roles; her ideal man; recollections of Kennedy’s assassination; view of the Vietnam War; Nixon, the Watergate scandal, and political corruption. Text: 31 pp. transcript plus 4 pp. catalog. Recording: T 1018 1 hour.

1007 Daniel O. Bell interviewed by Victoria Card, November 2, 1975, Pownal, Maine. Bell talks about his experiences as a college student, 1966-1971; student activism at the University of Maine beginning in 1968; student strike to protest US involvement in Cambodia; the draft, how it worked, and means of avoiding being drafted; draft dodgers; role of media in shaping perspectives of war; Kent State and Jackson State shootings and the response at the University of Maine; differences between hippies and yippies; Kennedy’s assassination; and Nixon, the Watergate scandal, and political apathy. Textt: 21 pp. transcript plus 3 pp. catalog. Recording: T 1019 1 hour.

1009 Earl Allen, interviewed by Meris Bickford, November 12 -14, 1975, in Orono, Maine. Allen discusses his childhood in northern Maine during the 1940s and 50s; opposition to the Vietnam War; women’s liberation and equality; being a Maine nativist; working in the television business; characteristics of his generation; and the growing necessity of a college education. Text: 34 pp. transcript plus 4 pp. catalog. Recording: T 1020, CD 2002 ¾ hour.

1010 Nancy Kroemer McInnis, interviewed by Deborah Shippee, October 20, 1975, Orono, Maine. McInnis discusses her childhood in northern Maine in the 1950s and 60s; early dating experiences; marrying because she was pregnant; Kennedy’s assassination; returning to finish her college degree and coursework providing her with positive reinforcement; women’s liberation as a good development; the ideal man and ideal woman, and her first experiences with television. Text: 25 pp. transcript plus 6 pp. catalog. Recording: T 1021 1 hour.

1012 Stephen “Steve” McGowan interviewed by Sara Treat, November 1, 1975, Orono, Maine. McGowan tells of his childhood and role of his stepmother; being laid off and its impacts; his experience in Vietnam as being better than many others; surplus of teachers in Maine; marijuana and how widespread its use was in the 1970s; Army control of media while in Vietnam and how that inhibited his understanding of the antiwar movement; and the women’s liberation movement and his objection to reverse discrimination. Text: 20 pp. transcript plus 5 pp. catalog. Recording: T 1022 – T 1023 1 hour.

1013 Terry-Ann Lunt Aucoin, interviewed by Michele Byrnes for IDL 105, fall 1975, Bangor Community College, Maine. 38 pp. Tape: 1 hr. w/ brief cat. & trans. Aucoin, director of the Maine Human Rights Commission, talks about her life and education; politics; Kennedy’s assassination; Kent State; Vietnam War; Nixon and Watergate; ERA; women in the job market. Text: brief catalog & transcript. Recording: T 1024 1 hour.

1015 Suzanne Thompson interviewed by Susan Simpson, November 22, 1975, Kenduskeag, Maine. Thompson talks about the events and issues of the 1950s to 1975; the advantages of growing up in a large family; why she wants only one child; learning IBM keypunch; C.B. radio as both a social and practical device; Kennedy’s assassination; Vietnam War; why the US is aiding other countries too much; women’s liberation and equal rights; television and violence; and her fascination with psychic predictions. Transcript: 28 pp. plus 5 pp. catalog. Recording: T 1026 – T 1027 1 ½ hours.

1017 Alan Bray, interviewed by Carol Luchetti, November 20, 1975, Brownville, Maine. Bray discusses his childhood as a Baby Boomer in Monson, Maine; being raised by his father; his education, particularly high school; studying at the School of Practical Art in Boston; becoming active in sixties movements; his brother refusing induction when he was drafted; studying art in Italy; his perception of the US in 1975 and direction for the future; and television as a democratic dream. Text: 32 pp. transcript plus 3 pp. catalog. Recording: T 1028, CD 2189 1 hour.

1018 David Elwin Dyer, interviewed by Marilyn Reuter, March 22, 1975, West Brooksville, Maine. Dyer talks about his life in Brooksville, with emphasis on events in the early twentieth century; line gales as weather predictors; playing cards; a local midwife who used whiskey to relax mothers; caring for his parents in their old age; Belfast Savings Bank failure circa 1922; child-rearing and stance against birth control; jobs he had as a boy and teenager; his interpretation of early colonialism and the Dyer family as having been in America before 1620; his education and discipline at school; snowstorms and predicting the weather; making hake sounds to sell; and a house fire and how it was fought. Text: 43 pp., incomplete transcript, plus 16 pp. catalog. Recording: T 1029 1 ¼ hours.

1019 Madella “Mae” Nevells interviewed by Marilyn Reuter, April 13, 1975, Sedgwick, Maine. Nevells discusses her life in during the late nineteenth to mid twentieth centuries; dances; medicine shows; sliding in the winter; how she came to have the telephone office in her home 1928-1954; changes in the telephone office over time; minimal changes during WWII other than blackouts; her wedding and wedding dress; and Fourth of July and Christmas celebrations when she was a child. Text: 27 pp. transcript, plus 7 pp. catalog. Recording: 1 hour T 1030.

1021 Walter Smith, interviewed by Colleen George, for IDL 105, fall 1974, Orono, Maine. 8 pp. Tape: 1 hr. w/ brief cat. Smith talks about his life, learning farming from his father, views on current events. Text: brief catalog. Recording: T 1032 1 hour.

1087 Lois Derosiers, interviewed by Sheila Comerford, October 29 – 31, 1976, Orono, Maine. Derosiers talks about her life and events of the mid twentieth century and trends of the 1970s; her childhood in the Bangor area and entertainment she enjoyed; growing up during the Great Depression; importance of rules and discipline during her childhood; impact of WWII on everyday life; her views on women’s liberation and equality; increasing violence and crime; and the abdication of King Edward VIII of England. Text: 17 pp. transcript, plus 5 pp. catalog. Recording: T 1108 ½ hour.

1088 Max Gass, interviewed by Cheryl Berg, November 16, 1976, in Bangor, Maine. Gass talks about his life experiences on a Maine farm and during WWII, as well as perspectives on the 1970s; childhood on a farm in the 20s and 30s; choosing to enter the Navy when he was drafted in 1943; war effort in the Bangor area; Victory in Europe Day while stationed in Hawaii; radio programs circa 1941; importance of the bombing of Pearl Harbor; his views on women’s liberation, equality, and the ideal woman; his belief, as his father held, that Jewish people should not date or marry non-Jews; dating his wife; problems of the 1970s, and his experiences as a parent. Text: 18 pp. incomplete transcript, plus 9 pp. catalog. Recording: T 1109 1 hour.

1089 Ernest Melvin, interviewed by Rebecca Amsden, November 1, 1976, Bangor, Maine. Melvin discusses his stations in WWII, none of which saw action as he was in a construction battalion; bombing Hiroshima as the right thing to do; the ideal man; his duties in the military; liberty in China and shopping in Peking; and how politics in the 1970s could be improved. Text: 19 pp. transcript, plus 6 pp. catalog. Recording: T 1110 ½ hour.

1090 John Chapman, interviewed by Tona Smith, November 10 and December 8, 1976, in Hampden, Maine. Chapman tells of his childhood in Bangor and WWII on the home front; childhood games in the 1930s; sliding in Bangor during the winter; importance of the Lindbergh kidnapping; listening to the radio; Victory in Japan night; employment of prisoners of war and the merits of German POWs as workers; changes WWII brought to life and the community; Brady Gang gunned down in Bangor in the 1930s; stories he was told by a river driver; rationing during WWII; demand for hotel rooms during WWII; and bombing of Hiroshima as the greatest lifesaver of the war. Text: 31 pp., incomplete transcript, plus 11 pp. catalog. Recording: T 1111 1 ½ hours.

1091 Sylvia MacEldowney, interviewed by Ann Mills, November 18, 1976, Orono, Maine. MacEldowney discusses important events of the 1930s and 1940s; how her family survived during the Great Depression; her experiences as a female engineer after WWII; college education at Rhode Island State College and the scarcity of male students due to WWII; American entry into WWII and the attitudes of her peers in high school; her decision to return to college in her fifties; radio programs of the 1930s; description of a WWII military installation disguised as a cluster of cottages; writing to soldiers as a pen pal; the Hindenburg disaster; special editions of magazines; and the Great New England Hurricane of 1938. Text: 27 pp., incomplete transcript, plus 16 pp. catalog. Recording: T 1112 1 ½ hours.

1092 Margaret Hatch, interviewed by Donna E. Gray, November 18 – 29, 1976, Orono, Maine. Hatch discusses her views on the women’s liberation movement; the Great Depression and its impact on her childhood; WWII; her reaction to the attack on Pearl Harbor; and wartime activities. Text: 11 pp., incomplete transcript, with 5 pp. catalog. Recording: T 1113 – T 1114 1 hour.

1093 Rev. Arthur C. Woodward, interviewed by Sarah Jane Miller, November 1, 1976, South Brewer, Maine. Woodward talks about his life and historical events that influenced it; his childhood in Gouldsboro, ME, in the 1920s and 1930s, including chores, education, and recreation; attending vocation school at Quoddy, where he met Eleanor Roosevelt and officials from her husband’s administration; lack of racial difficulties with the African-American students; students traveling to Canada to fight in WWII before US involvement; his inability to enlist because of his civilian work at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard; why men his age wanted to enlist; bootlegging and rum-running commonplace during Prohibition; the Great Depression; his father’s career for Maine’s Department of Sea and Shore Fisheries; Roosevelt’s initiatives; unity of purpose during WWII; psychological conditioning of soldiers; radio programs of his youth; his perception of the lack of morality in the 1970s. Text: 40 pp., incomplete transcript, plus 10 pp. catalog. Recording: T 1115 1 ¼ hours.

1094 Clifford Chandler, interviewed by Susan “Sue” DeRose, November 17 – 22, 1976 Orono, Maine. Chandler discusses his childhood in Jonesport, Maine, including discipline, chores, and games; military service at a naval repair base in San Diego; his grandfather’s work as a rum-chaser enforcing Prohibition, competition among fishermen; seine fishing; working in a factory that canned seafood; similarities and differences in dating over the years; and his views on the Vietnam War as the father of a Vietnam veteran. Text: 30 pp., incomplete transcript, plus 9 pp. catalog. Recording: T 1116 – T 1117 1 ½ hours.

1095 Mary Elizabeth Wood, interviewed by Jane S. Bechtel, November 7 – 14, 1976, Brewer, Maine. Wood discusses World War II; radio during the late 1930s; her family’s victory garden during WWII with particular emphasis on tomatoes; shortage of shoes during the war; blackouts; remembrance of Victory in Japan Day; and the necessity of dropping the atomic bomb. Text: 21 pp. transcript plus 8 pp. catalog. Recording: T 1118 ½ hour.

1096 Jean Horne, interviewed by Grace Gregor, November 1, 1976, Orono, Maine. Horne talks about her the 1930s and 1940s in Brewer, Maine; radio during her childhood; her contributions to the war effort, fashions of her teenage years (1940s); shock of the attack on Pearl Harbor; patriotism involved in relationships with servicemen; the movie Gone with the Wind as a big event; witnessing the Brady Gang being shot in Bangor; and post-war spending. Text: 20 pp., incomplete transcript, plus 9 pp. catalog. Recording: T 1119 – T 1120 1 hour.

1097 Ruth True, interviewed by Linda True, October 31 – November 29, 1976, in Orono, Maine. True discusses World War II and its impacts on life in Orono; rationing and the difficulty of planning meals; land made available at the University of Maine for victory gardens; recycling and volunteering for the war effort; blackouts and dimouts; joining the Navy as a hospital aide; teaching blind servicemen life skills; why she chose not to join the celebrations on Victory in Japan Day; her Navy uniforms; advantages of being in the military in terms of preferential treatment and reduced fares; radio shows of the 1930s; the importance of education in her family; changing perceptions of smoking and women smokers between the 1940s and 1970s; aircraft spotting during WWII; and the shooting of the Brady Gang in Bangor. Text: 27 pp., incomplete transcript, plus 6 pp. catalog. Recording: T 1121 – T 1123 1 hour.

1098 Elmer Campbell interviewed by Emily Fitts, November 6 – November 26, 1976, South Portland, Maine. Campell discusses the 1930s and 40s; his father and the construction of his childhood home; his collection of first flight airmail envelopes and stamps; early radio and listening to fights; his Army Air Force career; training men for the D-Day invasion; operation of gliders; shortage of clothes for the soldiers; Portland during the Great Depression; history of the Campbell family in Maine; and why he dislikes modern conveniences and society’s materialism. Text: 35 pp., incomplete transcript, plus 7 pp. catalog. Recording: T 1124 1 ½ hours.

1130 Mrs. Arthur Andrews, interviewed by Ann Merriam, November 11-13, 1977, Camden, Maine. Andrews talks about her childhood in Cutler, Maine, in the 1950s; preparations for winter; recreation; the independent nature of Cutler inhabitants; medical care and childbirth; her high school experience; the advantages of a one-room schoolhouse education; her courtship and marriage; being scared during WWII; concerns about spies during the war; polio scares, especially when her family lived in Connecticut; her views on women’s liberation; and her concerns for the future. Text: 37 pp. incomplete transcript, plus 9 pp. catalog. Recording: 1 ½ hours T 1191 – T 1192.

1131 Jo Ann Nivison, interviewed by Connie Allen, November 6 – 11, 1977, Winslow, Maine. Nivison discusses her mother’s struggle to raise seven children alone in the 1930s and 40s; potato picking in northern Maine; her responsibilities as the only daughter; buying a TV in 1956; the Christmas Fair to benefit St. John’s school in the 1970s; Victory in Japan Day; the significance of the atomic bomb; WWII air raids and blackouts as exciting to a child; Kennedy’s assassination; her views on women’s liberation and Vietnam draft dodgers. Text: 29 pp. transcript, incomplete, plus 5 pp. catalog. Recording: T 1193 – T 1194 1 ¼ hours.

1136 Russell Christensen, interviewed by Maryellen McCallum, December 2, 1977, Orono, Maine. Christensen talks about his childhood in Gardiner, Maine, in the 1930s and 40s; jobs he held; finding the strength to be open about his Marxist beliefs; significance of Trotsky’s murder; reaction to Kennedy’s assassination; his view of women’s liberation; military service in Korea and desire to emulate WWII heroes; dire predictions for the future unless humanity embraces socialism; and China as a model of the good socialism can do. Text: 20 pp. transcript, plus 2 pp. catalog. Recording: T 1198 ½ hour, C 0502 1/4 hour.

1141 William Randall, interviewed by Debra Lee Osgood, November 17 – December 20, 1977, Orono, Maine. Randall discusses his childhood in Old Town, Maine, in the 1940s and 50s; life being less satisfactory in the 1970s despite having more material goods; his job as the head baker in Stodder Commons at the University of Maine; celebrations at the end of WWII; growing up as one of twenty-two children; his involvement with St. Joseph’s Church in Old Town; his first experience with television; his thoughts on women’s liberation; Christmas in his childhood and the 1970s, how it became commercialized; and why things were better “back then.” Text: 38 pp. incomplete transcript, plus 5 pp. catalog. Recording: T 1204 1 ½ hours.

1195 Dr. Joyce White, interviewed by Marietta Flagg, April 14 – May 13, 1978, Newport, Maine. White discusses her childhood in the area of Canaan, Maine, in the 1930s and 40s; the sense of disaster during the Great Depression; responsibilities, recreation, and education; sexual mores of the late 1940s/ early 1950s; rationing and recycling during WWII, including picking milkweed pods; her personal growth when she returned to college in 1967; regrets over her attempts to raise perfect children; the problem with values in the 1970s; how psychology could be misused to keep people in “the system”; her unconventional approach to psychology; and the importance of Kennedy’s assassination and WWII. Text: 20 pp., incomplete transcript, plus 5 pp. catalog. Recording: T 1254 1 ½ hours.

1259 Paul Belyea, interviewed by Melody Rose, May 16, 1979, Orono, Maine. Belyea talks his childhood in Presque Isle, Maine in the 1930s and 40s, and the impact of isolated country living; differences between his childhood and that of his children; toys and shoes scarce during WWII; taxis during WWII as bringers of bad news; radio during his childhood; US dependence on foreign oil in the 1970s; his views on the Equal Rights Amendment; the education system; and his optimism for the future. Text: 24 pp. transcript. Recording: T 1335 1 hour.

1260 David Smith, interviewed by Judy Clark, April 18, 1979, Old Town, Maine. Smith discusses his childhood in Dover-Foxcroft, Maine, in the 1940s and 50s; childhood games and recreation; differences between his childhood and that of his children; flying for the National Guard; his recollection of Kennedy’s assassination; the Korean War seeming fun to him as a boy; polio scare; civil defense; the space race; and the advantages of technology. Text: 27 pp. transcript. Recording: T 1336 1 hour.

1261 Carolyn Folsom, interviewed by Maureen Kane, April 19, 1979, Bangor, Maine. Folsom talks about her childhood in northern Maine in the 1930s and 40s; games and fun for poor children; responsibilities and division of labor in her marriage; celebration of the end of WWII in Millinocket, Maine; assassinations of the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King Jr.; racism in the South; movies of her childhood; her concerns for the future; changes in Millinocket; fashions when she was in high school; school dances; and perspectives on technology. Includes brochure for the paintings of Carolyn and Clyde Folsom and photocopy of a newspaper picture. Text: 27 pp. transcript. Recording: T 1337 1 hour.

1262 Catherine Larkin, interviewed by Nancy Woodbury, May 14, 1979, Bangor, Maine. Larkin talks about her childhood in Saco, Maine, in the 1940s and 50s, including chores, recreation, and education; Kennedy’s assassination shortly after his visit to the University of Maine; why she was not a women’s libber; and being afraid of Soviet atomic bombs as a child. Text: 21 pp. transcript. Recording: T 1338 1 hour.

1318 Mae Rossignol, interviewed by Peggy Anderson, April 8, 1980, Orono, Maine. Rossignol discusses the closeness of family and in the Great Works neighborhood of Old Town, Maine, in the 1940s and 50s; train trips, particularly to Bangor; her childhood recreational activities; and changes between her generation and her children’s. Text: 30 pp. transcript. Recording: T 1439 1 hour.

1319 Robert Bourget, interviewed by Rhonda Lee Walfield, March 20, 1980, Bath, Maine. Bourget talks about events and trends of the mid-twentieth century; the growth of purchase on credit; early television; his WWII Navy service; corruption and problems with the political system; Kennedy’s assassination and his disbelief at the official stance on it; American dependence on foreign oil; his views on women’s equality; and the Battle of Iwo Jima and why dropping the atomic bomb was necessary. Text: 32 pp. transcript. Recording: T 1440 1 hour.

1322 Ansel Stevens, interviewed by Pamela Webber, April 12, 1980, Wells, Maine. Stevens discusses his childhood in Wells during the 1930s and 40s; working as a firefighter for the Navy and then Portsmouth Naval Shipyard; his preference for his wife not to work outside the home; the Great Depression on his family’s farm; and the introduction of new saws to the Maine woods. Text: 26 pp. transcript. Recording: T 1441 1 hour.

1323 Dr. David Smith, interviewed by Mary Poulin, March 11-16, 1980, Orono, Maine. Smith talks about his experiences in the 1950s; the lumber business and the introduction of power saws; use of horses in the lumber business; the value of doing work the old-fashioned way; his support for his professional wife and lack of gender stereotypes; Navy service and concerns that the Korean War would lead to war with the Soviet Union; MacArthur’s dismissal from command; impact of the G.I. Bill of Rights as pertains to educational opportunity; politicization of the Olympics; benefits of universal (nonmilitary) service; and early television. Text: 27 pp. transcript. Recording: T 1442 1 hour.

1324 Virginia Wolfe, interviewed by Terri Peterson, March 26, 1980, in Orono, Maine. Wolfe discusses growing up poor in a large family during the 1930s and 40s, particularly recreational activities; meals during her childhood and how food and shopping changed since then; raising her children; her parents’ ideas of gender roles; doctors, medicine, and the fear of polio when she was young; her thoughts on women in the military and the draft; and celebration of holidays in her childhood. Text: 32 pp. transcript. Recording: T 1443 1 hour.