MF 135 National Folk Festival

Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History: MF 135 National Folk Festival

Number of accessions: 14
Dates when interviews were conducted: 2002-2004
Time period covered: 20th and 21st century
Principal interviewers: various
Finding aides: some transcripts
Access restrictions: NA3636
Description: The three years (2002-2004) that the festival on the Bangor Waterfront was part of the National Folk Festival.

2002 National Folk Festival:
NA3080 Rodney Richard Sr. and Rodney “Butch” Richard Jr., interviewed by Peggy Yocum, August 25, 2002, presented at the National Folk Festival in Bangor, Maine. Richard Sr. and Jr., of Rangeley, Maine, discuss white cedar fan making; his father’s carving; fan making technique; geometry puzzle; fan making tools; French-Canadian American chokecherry wine during the Depression, 1930s; history of fan making; white cedar fan making around the world; bird carving in Russia; rabbit carving; cedar wood materials; wood preparation; fan making methods; ball carving; fan tower construction; different wood materials; teaching wood carving at schools in Maine; card symbols; fan tops; fan making origins; relationship with student carver Andy. Text: 23 pp. transcript. Recording: C 2124.

NA3081 Joan Davis, interviewed August 25, 2002, at the Arts in the Home Stage at the National Folk Festival in Bangor, Maine. Davis discusses lace knitting materials and techniques; lace making tradition in Maine; lace knitting techniques; lace patterns; knitting terminology; personal background in knitting; knitting projects; teaching knitting; learning to knit; the famous knitter Elizabeth Zimmerman; the popularity of knitting with young people; male knitters; knitting clothing; knitting fibers in Maine; dying fibers; knitting for customers; the knitting cottage industry in Maine and the Maritimes; the Guernsey sweater in Maine; knitting at the Common Ground Fair. Text: 20 pp. transcript. Recording: C 2125.

NA3082 Lynn Winters, interviewed August 25, 2002, at the National Folk Festival in Bangor, Maine. Winters discusses wool fiber production; carding sheep wool; spinning sheep wool; dying sheep wool; owning sheep; sheep shearing; wool storage; different sheep and wool varieties; wool wheels; the carding and spinning process; felting and pulling; Maine Fiber Arts program; carding for color consistency; yarn ply; dye and color mixing; adjusting thread thickness. Text: 12 pp. transcript. Recording: C 2126.

NA3083 Hattie Clingerman, interviewed by Teresa Hollingsworth, August 25, 2002, at the Arts in the Home Stage at the National Folk Festival in Bangor, Maine. Clingerman discusses needle felting; different types of felting; felting Christmas ornaments; felting methods; felting materials; felting with boiled wool; processing different felting materials; teaching felting classes; methods for making the wool adhere; using chemical dyes; needle felting dolls; doll felting class with Sharon Costello; felt doll face making; felting textures; types of wool; spinning wool; owning cashmere goats; cashmere goat expenses; the strength of traditional felting; felting shawls; felting with cashmere; methods for dying felt; shrinking wool. Text: 20 pp. transcript. Recording: C 2127.

NA3084 Gail Edwards, interviewed by Teresa Hollingsworth, August 25, 2002, at the National Folk Festival in Bangor, Maine. Edwards discusses traditional medicine; infused oil; using the qualities of calendula, rose, lavender, and St. John’s Wart for infused oil and the skin; preparing infused oil; the qualities of olive oil; olive oil varieties; uses for infused oil; the qualities of beeswax; using beeswax to make salves; making infused oil salves; selling herb products; family tradition of traditional medicine; her herb farm in Athens, Maine; gathering herbs from nature; using essential oils in salves; herb seasonal work; teaching herbs; traditional medicine in Maine; traditional medicine and the elderly; traditional medicine around the world; vinegar tinctures and alcohol tinctures; the popularity of traditional medicine; pharmaceutical vs. traditional medicine. Text: 15 pp. transcript. Recording: C 2128.

NA3085 Beth Parks and Colonel Mary Cady, interviewed by Devida Kellogg, August 25, 2002. Parks and Cady, on the Veterans Panel, speak of their experiences in the military during the Vietnam War era; reasons for enlisting in the military; society’s reactions to the Vietnam War; propaganda, including “The Green Beret” by Robert Moore and “The Ballad of the Green Beret” by Staff Sergeant Barry Saddler; Beth’s experiences in a MASH (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital); Beth’s participation in constructing an evacuation hospital; MK’s education and participation in the Army at the University of Kansas; the College Army Nurse and WAC Student Officer Programs; MK’s training at Fort Mclellan, Alabama, and Fort Ben Harrison, Indiana; MK’s employment at Fort Riley, Kansas, and Fort Devins, Massachusetts; MK’s enlistment in the Army Reserves; MK’s retirement in April of 1990; their experiences as women in the military; sexism in the military; the G.I. Bill; Mr. Branneth, a Canadian Vietnam Veteran; opinions on women in combat; and education at the University of Maine. Text: no transcript available. Recording: C 2129.

NA3086 Bruce Hallett, interviewed by Peggy Yocum, August 25, 2002, at the Arts and the Woods Narrative Stage. Hallett, a native of Howland, Maine, speaks about model boat-building; his fifty-five plus years of boat-building; his family history; spending the WWII era in Cape Cod with his grandfather, who owned a boat shop; the models “Newsboy,” the Coast Guard Cutter “Eagle,” the whaler “Charles W. Morgan,” the “USS Constitution,” the “Wyoming,” the “A.G. Jewett,” the “Bowdoin,” the “Bluenose I,” the “Red Jacket,” and the “Mary Catherine;” how the different parts of a model boat are constructed; being a non-precision model builder; approximate costs for the model boats; his grandmother Mary Catherine’s Scooting Along the Shore and Quahog Chowder recipes; templates for carving; the mechanics of boat-building; building from templates, pictures, paintings, and memory; materials used, including Bass Wood and Pine; and problems experienced with clientele. Text: no transcript available. Recording: C 2130.

NA3087 Rhea Cote Robbins, interviewer unknown, August 25, 2002, at the Maine Folk Festival. Robbins, of Brewer, Maine, speaks about quilt-making; her vision of a Maine Quilt displaying all heritages and the shape of the state; her mother’s involvement in the Pine Tree Quilter’s Guild in the 1980s; the private versus the public; the Franco-American Women’s Institution; how different quilt patterns are associated with the family; the Sun Bonnet Sue pattern; how quilting designs time; how repetition in quilting provides security; the copying of the land shown in certain patterns; quilts’ relation to the community and the individuals comprising it; cloth as text; oral, written, and cloth traditions; storytelling; her education at Notre Dame School in Waterville, Maine; her teacher, Mother Stella or Star; enculturation; the commercial vs. the private; writing as craft; poet Sandra Senaros; Franco-American women’s traditions; actions that encourage storytelling; importance of storytelling; racism. Text: no transcript. Recording: C 2131.

NA3088 Photos from the National Folk Festival, 2002. Photos: P08869 – P08871, P08469 – P08474, P08872 – P08903.

2003 National Folk Festival:
NA3320 Aurelle Collin, Brian Theriault and Ted Theriault, Amy Roy, Bob Childs, Don Roy, Bill Halsey, Nate Slobodkin, Jonathan Cooper, Joel Eckhaus, Kwabena Owusu, Jay Witcher, Ron Pinkham, John Blodgett, Don Roy, Marley Witcher, Molly Neptune Parker, Janet Holt, George Neptune; Stan Neptune, Joe Dana, others, moderated by Don Cyr and Kathleen Mundell, August 23 and 24, 2003, Bangor, Maine. The National Folk Festival’s program on Folk Traditions was recorded over 2 days. CD 0909-0913 were recorded on August 23, 2003. CD 0914-0919 were recorded on August 24, 2003. Cyr and Mundell were the moderators. Participants included Collin, woodcarver; the Theriaults, snowshoe makers; A. Roy, rug maker; instrument makers Childs, D. Roy, Halsey, Slobodkin, Cooper, Eckhaus, Owusu, J. Witcher, Pinkham, and Blodgett; D. Roy, fiddle player; M. Witcher, harp player; Passamaquoddy basket makers Parker, Holt, and G. Neptune; S. Neptune and Dana, makers of ceremonial root clubs. Also included: “Official Program” published by the Bangor Daily News and 9 page list of demonstrations located in Control Folder. Text: 26 pp. tape log, 9 pp. list of Folk and Traditional Arts Area Demonstrations, 64 pp. program. Recordings: DAT 001 – DAT 007, CD 0909 – CD 0919 7 hour 25 minutes.

NA3636 Bernadette Collin and Aurelle Collin, Brian Theriault and Ted Theriault, recorded by Don Cry at the Narrative Stage at the 2003 National Folk Festival, Maine. The Collins demonstrate lumbering devices and discuss farming; life in Madawaska; logging; gold digging; being a strong man; questions and answers. The Theriaults instruct on making snow shoes as featured artists from book, “Traditions from the St. John Valley,” followed by a question and answer for the Theriaults. Recordings: CD 2085 1 hour 5 minutes.

2004 National Folk Festival:
NA3120 Dorothea Klimis-Zacas, interviewed by Pauleena MacDougall, February 18, 2004. Klimis-Zacas talks about Greek food and culture in Maine and abroad. Also included: “The Mediterranean diet: a model for health and well-being” by Dorothy Klimis-Zacas, off-print from The Maine Scholar, v. 14, Autumn 2001, p. 67-73. Xerox copy of “Greece’s culinary lineage” and “The Peloponnesos” from The Glorious Foods of Greece, by Diane Kochilas, p. 1-11. 3 Xeroxed maps of Greece. 1 business card. Text: 20 pp. transcript, article, Xeroxed copy of articles and maps. Recordings: C 2161.

NA3848 The 66th National Folk Festival, August 27-29, 2004 Official Program.

NA3849 National Folk Festival 2004, Bangor, Maine. Program on Folk Traditions was recorded at the Folk Festival over 2 days on August 28 and 29, 2004. Margaret “Peggy” Yocom and Kathleen Mundell were the moderators. Participants included Ralph Stanley, Jamie Lowell, and Joe Lowell, boat builders; Bill Shamel, Maurice Bellanger, Rollin Thurlow, and David Moses Bridges, canoe builders; Jeremy Frye, Gal Frye, Gabriel Frye, Molly Neptune Parker, and George Neptune, Passamaquoddy basket makers; Caron Shay, Brianna Randall, and Stephen Randall, Penobscot basket makers. Includes 33 original photographs (P9692-P9867) and 2 CDs with 176 digital photographs taken at the Festival. Recording: 8 video tapes V 0316 – V 0323 (VHS). Tape log: 9 pp. Photographs: P09692-P09900. “The 66th National Folk Festival Official Program, August 27-29, 2004”, 72 pp.