UMaine Page Farm Museum Seeks “I Remember” Stories
Contact: George Manlove at (207) 581-3571
ORONO — “I Remember,” an hour of questions, answers and stories about life on the farm in Maine prior to 1950, is the subject of a free brown bag lunch discussion June 4 at the UMaine Page Farm and Home Museum.
Museum director Patricia Henner is the featured speaker, and invites people of all ages to come, bring a lunch and even some rural Maine stories to share.
Henner, who oversees a collection of tape-recorded personal histories dictated by older Maine residents from farm communities, also is in search of photographs to go with narratives from people who lived on Maine farms before and through the World War II era.
Friday’s lunch seminar and discussion, from noon to 1 p.m., is the first of a two-part series, and part of an ongoing project, the museum’s Oral History Project, Henner says.
On June 4, she’ll explain what additional stories and photos she would like to collect from rural Mainers. She hopes those in attendance will return next year for part two, with stories and photographs that can be added to the museum’s archives.
Many people view their early farm experiences as just a part of life in the old days, says Henner, when actually those stories are historic treasures. The stories could lead to a new exhibit or a book, she says.
Most important is the urgency to save the memorable stories residing in many of the state’s aging farm families.
“We’re losing these people without capturing their histories,” she says of the aging farm family members, “and we don’t want that to happen.”
The Page Farm and Home Museum has been collecting family narratives as part of a larger project since 1995. Mary Jo Sanger of Orono, the volunteer director of the Oral History Project, received a small grant from the Maine Humanities Council in 1996 to extend the research specifically to women and children of the farms.
The Page Farm and Home Museum on the Orono campus is open to the public and features exhibits, tours, special events and information about agricultural and rural living in Maine between 1865 and 1940.
Further information is available by calling (207) 581- 4100.