Video on History of Old Town Showing at Page Farm & Home Museum
Contact: Patty Henner, 581-4100; George Manlove, 581-3756
ORONO — The Oct. 12 lunch lecture at the UMaine Page Farm and Home Museum will feature a video and discussion of the social and economic history of Old Town as told through the memories and experiences of local residents.
“In Their Own Words: Personal Reflections on the History of Old Town” is a 29-minute documentary produced by Old Town resident and video producer Virginia Fortier and UMaine folklorist and Honors College instructor Melissa Ladenheim.
The presentation is free and open to the public. People are welcome to bring along a bag lunch. The program runs from 12 p.m. to about 1 p.m.
Fortier, who was raised in Great Works and serves as a member of the Old Town Museum’s Board of Trustees, was the impetus behind the project. Ladenheim wrote the exhibit script and helped produce the video. Kim Mitchell of the Office of University Relations at UMaine provided editing assistance.
The film is interspersed with historical images and 22 hours of filmed interviews with community leaders and long-time residents. Fortier and Jamie Moreira, director of the Maine Folklife Center, videotaped interviews with residents Beverly Spencer, Anna Griffith, Kenneth DeWitt, Herbert Sargent, Joseph Sewall, Ruth Gray, Ruth Littlefield, Eugene Paradis, Howard Merrill, Ted Mitchell and Benoit Bouchard – representing French Island, Indian Island, Academy Hill, Great Works and Old Town proper.
A grant from the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation helped defray the cost of producing the video history.
Copies of the video and DVDs will be available for purchase the day of the lecture.
For further information, please call Patricia Henner, Page Farm and Home Museum director, at 581-4100.