MF 184 World War I Collection

Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History: MF 184 World War I Collection

Number of accessions: 30
Dates when interviews were conducted: various
Time period covered: World War I
Principal interviewers: various
Finding aides: some indexes and transcripts
Access restrictions: yes
Description: This is an arbitrary collection of accessions created in June 2014 to bring together interviews that focus on World War I.

Related: If you find this collection interesting, you may want to check out some of the other veteran oral history resources: Franco-American Oral Histories and American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress’s Veteran History Project.

0682 Mike Schoojons, interviewed by Bill Griffith, April 4, 1972, Old Orchard Beach, Maine. Schoojons discusses background in Europe in WWI; lack of human rights in plant and relation to Constitution; first strike interests him in the union; strikes, such as Lawrence, MA, not organized; CIO organization of clothing and textile mill workers; difficulties in Biddeford, ME; 1955 strike against Bates and Pepperel; organization in Cranford, Brunswick, Kennebunk with lack of success in Brunswick strike; French-Canadians loyal to union; bill presented by Sen. Margaret Chase Smith (S-314); political endorsements by union for Jim Oliver; lack of union members reading Labor News; Miami convention of 1960; defeats of union in Pittsfield and Am. Woolen Co.; strike in 1943 and 1931 in Lawrence, MA; discussion of NRA; training for shop stewards. Recording: T 0392 (Side 1), CD 0608.

0700 Lloyd Burke, Kingdom Burke, Kenneth Burke, Hauk Anderson, and anonymous man, interviewed by Frederick Pratson, July 20, 1972, East Dover, Nova Scotia. The group of inshore fisherman discuss their early 20th century experiences in and around East Dover; how they began fishing; how television spoiled social evenings; shoveling the road; being at sea during bad weather; working in a munitions factory during WWI; shipwrecks; impact of pollution; ghost stories; getting lost on the water; dangers of whales; running rum; pensions; working at the mercy of the weather; near-deaths at sea; sharks and the dangers of catching them; tales of pirate treasure; Halifax Explosion of 1917, sighting German submarines during WWII; and why inshore fishing was no longer economically advisable in 1972. RESTRICTED. Text: 115 pp. transcript with some gaps. Recording: T 0417 – T 0420 4 ½ hours.

0767 Walter Trundy, interviewed by David Taylor, June 27 and July 3, 1973, at Trundy’s home in Stockton Springs, Maine. Trundy was Town Clerk of Stockton Springs from 1907 up to and including time of interview. Penobscot Bay Fisheries and Industries Project, Penobscot Marine Museum. June 27, 1973: Trundy talks about life in Stockton Springs around 1900; fish and clams; Great Depression; experiences as a storekeeper; shipping out of Stockton Springs; hippies; local sea captains including Captain Eliot and Captain Hitchman; lumber coasting; economic development of Stockton Springs; sardine factory; ship builders, including Zebra Crooker; doctors. July 3, 1973: Trundy discusses sea captains; ship launches; ship building during World War One; shipbuilders Zebra Crooker and Emery and John Wardwell; his great-grandfather Joseph Plumb Martin, Revolutionary War soldier; story about Captain Horace Griffin winning the lottery; Stockton Springs barber Levi Griffin; village on Cape Jellison; Stockton Springs policeman Bill Staples; failure of Stockton Springs as a shipping port; docks built and destroyed by fire; railroad line. Text: 5 pp. index, 68 pp. transcript. Recordings: T 0618 – 0620, CD 0866 – 0868 2 hours. Photo: P 0451.

0777 Alton Urguhart, interviewed by Mary O’Meara for American Folklore Seminar, George Washington University, August 24, 1973, Ellsworth, Maine. Urguhart talks about his life as a lobster fisherman from the vantage point of his 76th year; his background and childhood; learning lobstering from his father; lobster boats in the 1910s; his wife; types of traps used then; Beal’s Island; wet-well smack; different kinds of smacks; lobster shells for fertilizer; storms; regulations of seasons; in Coast Guard in WWI and WWII; types of motors and engines prior to WWII; hard getting back in after serving; buoys; different methods of fishing; hawling vs hauling traps; fishing in Southwest Harbor; blessings and hardships on the sea; summer people; ghost stories; 7-year lobster cycle; effect of off shore fishing; hatcheries . Also included: personal correspondence. Tape: T 0644 – T 0646 2 hours. Text: 7 pp. catalog; 27 pp. of extracts of O’Meara’s paper and draft.

0784 David S. Brown, interviewed by Kenneth Whitney for FO 107 , October, 1973; by Susan Tibbetts for AY 125, November, 1975, Tenant’s Harbor, Maine. Brown talks about the Pea Cove log-sorting boom on the Penobscot River; his work on the boom in the summers of 1902-04 when he was 12 to 14 years old; the jobs of rafters, sorters, and runners; use of wedges to build rafts; meals; bosses; his marriage and work at Mt. Kineo; breaking up jams; daily pay; construction of boom and crib-work piers; buildings at Pea Cove; guiding; moose hunting; WWI enlistment and service. Also included: 1 map; 1 sketch. The interviews are part of a project that led to an issue of Northeast Folklore, XVII: “Argyle Boom.” Text: 69 pp. transcript and brief catalog. Recording: T 0668 – T 0670 / CD 0178 – CD 0180 3 hours. Photos: P 0425.

0832 By Calvin Young, interviewed by David Taylor for ISO 100, April 3, 1974, at Young’s home in Winterport, Maine. Young talks about his WWI job in a shipyard; job cutting cord wood; father was a mason; brother-in-law ran ferry in Winterport; winter fishing on the Penobscot River below Winterport, at Mill Creek, Haggett Stream, Kempton’s Cove, Hurd’s Brook, Marsh Rock, and Old Women’s Stream; fish camps, perils of ice-fishing, marketing and price of fish, equipment, clothing, nets; George Page; building a scow with Sid Johnson; fishing with Ashley Young, Chet Nealey from Hampden, Milton Baker, Raymond Down, and Phil Alley; Waldo Perkins hauled the fish to market. Young also plays the hammered dulcimer. Also included: drawing of dulcimer. Text: 6 pp. index. Recording: T 0749 1 hour.

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.

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.

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.

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.

0902 Clifton Lunt, interviewed by Lynn Franklin, spring 1974, Frenchboro, Long Island, Maine. 6 pp. Tape: 1 hr. w/ brief cat. Lunt talks about life on the island, lobstering, carrying mail, working on steamboats, World War I. Text: brief catalog. Recording: T 0872 1 hour.

1166 Myles Weston, recorded by Priscilla Barnes for COM 101-46, April 22 and May 9, 1977, Thomaston, Maine. 6 pp. Tape: 1 hr. w/ brief cat. Interview done in conjunction with student work done for UM-Augusta, Speaker-Audience Communication Course. Weston (born 1898) tells his personal history and talks about history of the Thomaston area; attending Rockland Commercial College; earning money as a chauffeur; working at Thomaston Garage; playing on Thomaston waterfront as a boy; shipbuilding before and after World War I (names several ships); sail lofts; piloting ships out of the harbor; various aspects of sailing and life at sea; the lime business; the Maine State Prison and its industries; lime kilns (J. A. Creighton Co.); lime schooners; limerock hauling and lime casks made by farmers; community dances (anecdotes); older buildings and residents of Thomaston. Text: brief catalog. Recording: T 1227 (cassette original = C 1735) 1 hour.

1202 Don Mitchell, interviewed by Roger Mitchell, his son, in 1976. Series of interviews about Mitchell senior’s life and work as a woodsman and farmer formed the basis of Northeast Folklore XIX: “I’m a Man That Works.” See also: NA 2008. Recording: C 0001 – C 0019 19 hours, CD 0341 – CD 0373, CD 0386. Text: 1240 pp. transcript. Photos: P 5822 – P 5837, P 5858 – P 5873. C 0001 Side 1: Topics covered include a log jam breaking loose; winter shoveling while working at the Hunt Company; working at Rockabema; crossing the border and name changing; mishaps on river drives; getting alcohol while in the woods; bootlegging; WWI stories; naval service during WWI; potato work and harvesting; farming stories; family history; stories of friends; acquisition of property; snow plowing with horses. C 0001 Side 2: Topics covered include naval service during WWI; potato work and harvesting; farming stories; family history; stories of friends; acquisition of property; and snow plowing with horses. C 0002 Side 1: Topics covered include naval service during WWI; boat motors; clearing land; farming without machinery; the stock market crash of 1929 in relation to farm loans; tax liens during the 1930s; collecting taxes; being a selectman; farming techniques for potatoes; and dairy farming/milking techniques. C 0004 Side 2: Topics covered include fishing in Bear Brook and Mill Brook; Robert Palmer and his watch; Earl Bell and horse clippers; Jim Buzzle and a horse; Will Shaw pressing hay; blueberrying; stories about Frenchmen and Polacks working in the woods; George Bryant buying snowshoes; family relations in region; apple picking and storage (outdoor cellars); Christmas as a child for Don; home remedies; injury incurred during WWI; river drives; haying practices; Warren Clark’s family; logging; working in snowstorms and Mike Cassidy. C 0009 Side 1: Topics covered include Irving Huntley; Harry and Gladys Miller; childhood memories (making soap; types of wildlife in region; need for shoes; spinning; games); fishing; blueberrying; teaching conditions for women; Ina Huntley; joining the navy (WWI) and homesickness; harvest excursions; and building docks. C 0019 Side 1: Recorded at Jackson sluice and includes stories about life before service during WWI; the mechanics of going down the river; boys blowing up dynamite at Jackson sluice; people running the sluice; catching up with river companions.

1327 Dell Turner, interviewed by John T. Meader for AY 122, spring 1980, Fairfield, Maine. 171 pp. Tape: 5 hrs. w/ cats. Series of interviews with Turner about his life, woods cooking, lumber camps, farming, fishing stories. Text: 56 pp. oral autobiography of Turner. Recording: T 1448 – T 1450. Photos: P 4662 – P 4667. T 1449: Topics covered include his service in the United States Army during World War I at the age of 21; fighting at Ginney Ridge, France, and getting injured; being sent home injured to Camp Davis outside of Boston; the flu epidemic at Camp Devans; being drafted; finding his uncle while traveling in Scotland; working for his second cousin George Turner in Mapleton; meeting his future wife Crystal in 1922; working with horses; a barn fire. Barn fire; working with horses; working for Lewly Turner; the death of Lewly Turner; working for John Washburn on his ice cart in Fairfield; traditional medicine and a woman healer; birthmarks.

1334 Donated by Muriel Vandermeulen, Maine Folklife Survey, summer 1980, Carroll, Maine, descriptions by Debora Kodish. 3 pp. Description of seven small reels of motion picture film of logging in Anson and Labor Day Parade with World War I veterans and American Legion. See films, F1 – F7. Text: 3 pp. paper.

1536 Charles Craig, interviewed by Terry Craig for AY 125, fall 1980, Mars Hill, Maine. 77 pp. Tape: 1 hr. w/ trans. Craig about his childhood; education; family; local history; work in lumber camps; WWI experiences. Text: transcript. Recording: T 1631 1 hour.

1904 Frank Dowling, interviewed by Edward D. “Sandy” Ives, March 8 and October 3, 1986, Machias, Maine. Dowling discusses his experiences working in the woods and on river drives along the Machias; work for the Machias Lumber Company in the early 1900s; running logs down Third Lake; supper while running logs and description of a baker; definitions of log-running terminology; seeing Haley’s Comet in 1910; importance of releasing correct amount of water from dams; hemlock bark used to tan leather; camp life and lice; service along the Maginot Line during WWI; gambling in lumber camps; crew composition; importance of advanced preparation; role of a key log in a jam; construction and use of cats; capstan rafts; seasonal patterns of a lumberman’s work; nineteenth century practice of being paid in company store credit; lumbermen’s wages; woodcutting tools; a knotter’s job; leaving a flat stump; job of the undercutter; job of the sawyers; description of trivoy/travois; making a capstan; role of the wind in moving logs on water; feelings the lumbermen had for the company; working logs through narrow passages; whittling; and deflecting logs away from bends. Text: 81 pp. transcript, plus letters, diagrams and manuscript pages. Recording: T 1922 – T 1923, C 0435, CD 2137, CD 2142, CD 2143 (2 CD set) 2 ½ hours.

2007 Rob Golding, interviewed by Archie Stewart, 1961 – 1966. Text: 10 pp. of notes; 120 pp. transcript from April 21, 1961. Recording: T 1971 – T 1986, C 0494 – C0495, CD 0726 – CD 0757. T 1979 May 7, 8, and 9, 1961. 68 page transcript. Golding discusses a match-selling scam; encounter with thieves in train station in Boston; automobile-related stories; fire in the woods and in a chimney; inexperienced ship’s cook; Maine fishing boat captain gets shipwrecked in the West Indies and Labrador; and Stewart tells story about a practical joke played on Golding, involving hiring a woods cook to cook for their sporting party. Golding also talks about sardine cannery inspected by Pure Food and Drug Act inspectors; camping in a rainstorm; trying to get three deer home over icy roads after a winter hunting trip; ice skating; ice boating; men who fought in World War One with the Canadians; encounter with a police officer over trucking too heavy a load in a Model T Ford; an inconsiderate wealthy woman and how she treated her secretaries and others who worked for her; and stories about times he got exhausted while deer hunting. T 1986 December 30, 1964, May 21, 1965, and August 6, 1966. 43 page transcript; only side one transcribed. Golding tells stories about his life and experiences, including railroad man who trusted Rob with his watch and money; buying land in Canada; legal problems over getting paid for cutting wood; Rob’s father’s deathbed, and why he deeded his land to Rob instead of his daughter; fishing for pickerel in the winter, Rob made more money than his father did in the lumber camp; making honey wine (methigulum); chores he was able to do in his 89th year; making brooms; doctors’ evaluations of Rob’s health, esp. the Daytona, Florida, doctor who told him he’d live to 100; dispute about the size of a plot of land; Rob’s time as a fence-viewer in Perry, Maine around 1910; making charcoal; a woman who changes her mind about fawn deer as food; origin of expression “getting the gun down.” Rob also recites poems he wrote about his father and traditional subsistence farming, including hunting and trapping; about the difference between winter in Maine and Florida; about two men in a fishing shack and a sweetheart’s plea to one of them; about himself as an old man. Golding and Stewart then discuss Rob’s birthday, November 25, 1874; Rob’s health; Medicare; and prices and salaries in Maine. Then a copy of recording made much earlier; including stories about smuggling over the Canadian border, including a ship owner and captain who brought illegal Chinese immigrants to Boston; serving as a volunteer coast watcher during World War One and reporting his sighting of a submarine.

2209 Norman Nash, interviewed by Jeffrey “Smokey” McKeen for AY 125, December 9, 1991, Montville, Maine. Nash tells of the Frye Mountain community in the early-to-mid 1900s; problems getting supplies during a particularly harsh winter prior to WWI; problems plowing; selling the land to the federal government during the Great Depression; mail delivery; state attempts to scatter deer population; burning of the farm buildings; theft of belongings stored in the family home after the sale; necessity of selling once neighbors had sold as road no longer maintained; raccoon hunting; anecdotes from life on Frye Mountain; and the prevalence of game poaching. Text: 31 pp. transcript. Recording: C 0849 1 hour.

2495 Frank S. Dowling, interviewed by Dr. Eugene A. Mawhinney and Anne Dowling Mawhinney, March 21, 1982, in Machias, East Machias, and Jacksonville, Maine. 17 pp. Tape: 6 w/ catalog. A series of interviews conducted chiefly by A. Mawhinney (Mrs. Eugene) with her father, F. Dowling. F. Dowling, who was in his nineties and hundreds when the interviews were conducted, talks about his life; experience in WWI; working in the woods; and gives descriptions of various places, including Grand Lake Stream. Text: catalog. Recording: C 1572.1 – C 1572.6.

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.)

2778 Melvina Paradis, interviewed by Amy Bouchard Morin, June 11, 1993, at her home on French Island in Old Town, Maine. For the “Islands and Bridges” project. Also present, Benoit Bouchard and Velma Paradis. M. Paradis discusses her experiences on French Island; family history; her parent’s work; schools on the Island and off; World War One; getting teeth pulled before dentists; cooking, growing, and preserving food; sewing circle; Catholic churches in town; arrival of electricity and running water; neighborhood relationships; and weddings. Text: 11 pp. transcript. Recording: C 1507. See also Nos Histoires de I’lle: History and memories of French Island, Old Town, Maine (1999); www.old-town.lib.me.us/nos.

2848 Flora C. S. St. Pierre and Margaret Walsh, interviewed by Helen K. Atchison, circa 1971-1972. Conducted in French. Brief index. St. Pierre and Walsh, of Van Buren, talk about their lives; early telephone service; farm life; a lumber camp; raising 21 children; all aspects of homemaking; cooking; knitting; a personal narrative about being the chief operator of New England Telephone Co. in 1911; World War I; the armistice message received and sent to Washington; and comments on Van Buren. Text: brief index. Recording: C 0059, CD 0431 – CD 0432 French.

2857 Mr. George Nelson and Mrs. George Nelson, interviewed by Helen K. Atchison, circa 1971-1972. Brief index. The Nelsons, of Stockholm, talk about stories of family origins; the Stockholm Lumber Company; the effects of World War I on the region; the flu epidemic; raising a family in the period; Stockholm in 1919 – prosperity; fires and firefighting; and the first automobiles in the area. Text: brief index. Recording: C 0068, CD 0444.

2911 Elden Tapley, interviewed by Helen K. Atchison, circa 1971-1972. Brief index. Tapley, of Madawaska, Maine, discusses the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad; the international bridge; a story of Robert Connors; railroads; the first automobile; and World War I. Text: brief index. Recording: C 0122, CD 0511.

2942 Blanche Price, interviewed by Helen K. Atchison, circa 1971-72. Brief index. Price, of Washburn, talks about the Aroostook Valley Railroad; World War I; World War II; and mills in the area. Text: brief index. Recording: C 0149, CD 0547.

2963 Bert Frost, interviewed by C. Richard K. Lunt, March 20, 1970, Jonesport, Maine. 49 page transcript. Frost talks about his boyhood in Nova Scotia and his father’s lifetime there, including boat characteristics, singing; transition from sail to motorized boats; characteristics of a Nova Scotia type lobster boat (Novie boats); move to Beals Island in 1912; history of boat designs in Beals Island area; characteristics of these changing boat designs; return to Nova Scotia during World War One; return to Jonesport after the war; first square-stern boat, 1924; rum-running boats; Jonesport lobster boat races; how to use fiberglass; canoes; converting a sail yacht to a dragger during WWII; design characteristics lobstermen want in their boats, Jonesport vs. New Jersey; sources for lumber and hardware; and boat buyers from out of state; Frost and a visitor debate design choices in boats; performance and durability of various materials, different wood; and seaworthiness of various designs. Text: 49 pp. transcript. Recording: T 0319 / CD 2126.

3042 Thomas Simpson, interviewed by Ken Morgan and Mark Jacobs, September 25, 1972, Millinocket, Maine. Simpson, a former member of the International Brotherhood of Paper Makers and former employee of Great Northern Paper Co., talks about born in Scotland 1904; arriving in America in 1912; working at the mill while in high school; starting in the paper room; joining the union because he was expected to, but not required to; elections of officers and methods of dealing with management; affects of WWI on the mill; affects of the Depression on the mill; various types of machinery and job opportunities at the mill, how they’ve changed over time; his positions within the union; the evolution and expansion of Great Northern throughout time; unions today. Text: 53 pp. transcript. Recording: T 0546 – 0548 / CD 0624.

3057 Adelaide Biladeau, interviewed by Jay McCloskey, August 23, 1972, Millinocket, Maine. Biladeau talks about his first work and union experiences at the International Paper Co. in New Hampshire and at the Great Northern Paper Co.; 1908 strike involving paper companies throughout the country; mergers and name changes of unions throughout the years; pay at mill in New Hampshire; being blacklisted during strike of 1908 and the conditions of hire at Great Northern; paid vacations and pensions; wage reductions during WWI; walkout at Great Northern during 1906; offices he had held in the union; CIO’s attempts to organize at Great Northern; separation of Pulp Workers and Paper Makers; union’s relationship to the State Federation of Labor and legislative involvement; extent of union’s social function and its economic functions; development of the seniority system; establishment of a company store in Millinocket and its eventual demise; operation of company during the Depression and WWII; union shop and dues payment. Recording: T 0451 / CD 0621.

3151 Ruth Sawyer Smith, interviewed by Vaun E. Born, March 25 & 26, 1984, Westport, Maine. Smith, born June 26, 1893, recalls growing up in Westbrook, Pride’s Corner School and Westbrook High School; Union Church; Riverton Park; WWI had food ration books; got scarlet fever; Flu Epidemic of 1918; 4th of July at Riverton Park. Written notes. Text: information sheet; 11 pp. index. Recording: C 1022 90 minutes.

3752 Jeannette Daggett, interviewed by Kara West for ANT 326, spring (2009?2010?). Paper, titled “Environmental Sustainability in the Northeast Region of the United States and Canada,” deals with Victory Gardens of World Wars I and II; relief gardens of the Great Depression; how these programs came into being; how successful they were; why they were not continued; current economic situation and environmental movements encouraging support for local sustainable farming. Also included: illustrations. Text: 13 pp. paper.