Maine Historical Society

Coll. 1892 Victoria Society of Maine Victoria Society of Maine Oral History Project 1984 - 1992

Accession #: 1995.273 Processed by: Emily Gendrolis, Intern Access: Unrestricted Copyright: Requests for permission to publish material from this collection should be discussed with the MHS Image Services Coordinator. Size: 2 linear feet Dates: 1984 - 1992 Bulk Dates: 1984

Biographical Notes: The Victoria Society of Maine Women of Achievement was founded by Mae Ford Haviland (Mrs. Foster L. Haviland) and Dr. William Henry Holmes on June 19, 1943, and filed as a Maine General Business on August 31 of the same year. The purpose of the organization was the preservation of the Morse-Libby Mansion – now known as Victoria Mansion – which was built in 1859 for Ruggles Sylvester Morse and subsequently owned by J.R. Libby, whose family resided in the mansion until 1929. Because of the preservation of the Mansion – it has retained its original decorations and furnishings almost completely – it is considered “a national shrine of the Victorian era.”

Mae Ford Haviland, originally from Vermont, was an accomplished organist, a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music’s Piano Teacher’s Course. She moved to Portland in 1923, where she served as the director of the Rossini Club’s orchestra, Chairman of Church Music for the Maine Federation of Music Clubs, and editor of the “New Hymns and Old” column for the Portland Sunday Telegram. Her extensive collection of early American Hymn books, the oldest dating from 1711, resided in a designated section of the Victoria Mansion Library dedicated to her memory.

Dr. William Henry Holmes, a Maine native from Augusta, attended Colby College before embarking on a lengthy career in education, serving as principal and superintendent of schools in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York. After retiring, he and his sister, Clara, purchased the Morse-Libby Mansion in 1940, effectively saving it from demolition; they pooled their resources to restore the Mansion, which they then donated to the organization that he and Mae Ford Haviland founded for the purpose of its preservation: The Victoria Society of Maine Women of Achievement. The Founders Room, a drawing room of the Mansion, was dedicated to Haviland and Holmes in 1948 to honor their work on behalf of the preservation of Portland’s best known historic landmarks.

The Victoria Society of Maine Women of Achievement was shortened to the Victoria Society of Maine Women, then to Victoria Society, then reincorporated into Victoria Mansion. In 1968, Cornelia L. Calderwood wrote that Maine Historical Society Coll. 1892

“the Victoria Society of Maine Women, realizing its value as representing an era, is an organization made up of men and women throughout the State [of Maine], who are interested in the cultural, historical, and moral advances made during the reign of Queen Victoria in England, and who seek to commemorate this period through preserving this residence typical of the times.

“Victoria Mansion stands today a symbol of past dignity and lasting beauty, and the joy of sharing its loveliness with others is one of the aims of Victoria Society of Maine Women.”

The mission of the Victoria Society of Maine Women of Achievement – henceforth referred to in this document as the Victoria Society – as written in Roger Calderwood’s Highlights of the First Thirty Years of Victoria Society of Maine Women was “to foster the cultural arts; to recognize worthy achievements of Maine mothers and daughters; to preserve, and maintain Victoria Mansion as an Historic landmark and as the best standing example of early Victorian Art, Architecture, and Decoration.” The first organizational meeting was held on June 19th of 1943, and on August 23rd the Act of Incorporation and By-Laws were accepted and officers of the organization were elected. There were sixty-five initial Charter Members of the Victoria Society, with more added later.

The Victoria Society, at the height of its activity, was a prominent organization that attracted both national and international attention. A letter of response from Buckingham Palace dated 28th November 1944, written and signed by Sir Alan Frederick Lascelles, Private Secretary to King George VI, and later to Queen Elizabeth II, indicates the value of the Victoria Society as an entity recognized internationally. The letter reads as follows:

“Dear Sir:

“The King was much interested by your letter of August 28th and by the particulars of the Victoria Mansion which you enclosed. His Majesty is very glad to comply with your suggestion that he should present to this Museum a souvenir of his Great Grandmother, Queen Victoria, and has directed me to send to you an oil painting of Osbourne House, executed in 1869, from the collection at Buckingham Palace. This picture is being dispatched immediately to the British Embassy at Washington, and the Ambassador has been requested to transmit it to you on its arrival.

“Yours very truly,

A. Lascelles (Signed)”

On September 24th 1945, Mrs. Horace Hildreth took possession of this painting on behalf of the Victoria Society, as it was delivered by the Honorable Bernard P. Sullivan, the British Consul General in Boston, acting on behalf of King George VI.

In 1953 Miss Ruth Olive Roberts attended the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II as the official representative of the Victoria Society of Maine Women.

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In addition to their historic preservation efforts, member of the Victoria Society organized social events such as educational lectures, poetry readings and book signings, musical performances, palm readings, floral exhibits, and luncheon meetings. Speakers included Mrs. Sumner Sewall in 1944, the wife of the Governor; Dr. Charles F. Phillips in 1945, President of Bates College; and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana in 1947, grandson of the poet; while musical performances by local musicians and singers had included Lillian Nordica and Elias Thomas III. Since its inception, many readings and musical performances were given by individuals attired in Victorian costumes; in 1960 an evening event was held to commemorate 200 years of Cumberland County for which attendees dressed in period costume.

The State of Maine bestowed its annual Historic Preservation Award to the Victoria Society of Maine Women in 1974, and in 1981 the Society was presented with the Preservation Award from the New England Chapter of the Victorian Society in America.

With this emphasis on the preservation of Victorian era culture and heritage, it is of little surprise that the Victoria Society should have engaged in the undertaking of collecting memories from the community’s oldest members. The Victoria Society of Maine Oral History Project is comprised of the taped interviews of 36 Maine residents recorded between 1984 and 1992, totaling 51 tapes in all. The recorded memoirs focus on the years between 1900 and 1920, recounting the positives and negatives of daily life in a bygone era.

The original description of their oral history project set forth by the Victoria Society is as follows:

“The Victorian Era may not have ended in Portland, Maine, in 1901 when Queen Victoria died. Perhaps many of the values, morays, and habits of England in the late 1800s lingered a bit longer in provincial areas such as Maine. This project is designed to tape record interviews with people at least 75 years old to learn about their childhood homes, schools, families, and their parents’ attitudes toward manners, money, politics, religion, health practices, education, and so forth, and the changes that have occurred in Portland as they’ve grown up here in transportation and communication, and various questions that we thought would be of value to people who were listening to these, and most of this information has not been written down.”

The recorded memoirs for this oral history project represent a diverse cross-section of Portland’s citizens, who vary in socio-economic class, religion, nationality, education, and profession. The result is a comprehensive historic perspective that is inclusive enough to illustrate the diversity of Portland and its rich cultural tradition in the early 20th century.

For further research, please refer to The Story of Victoria Mansion by Cornelia L. Calderwood and Highlights of the First Thirty Years of Victoria Society of Maine Women by Roger Calderwood, both available for viewing at the Maine Historical Society Brown Research Library.

Scope and Content: The collection is comprised of the taped interviews of 36 Maine residents aged at least 75 years; content of the interviews ranges from family relationships to education, from attire to attitudes. Each interviewee makes a substantial contribution through the recollection of their childhood experiences at the turn of the century and into the early 20th century. The following brief biographical sketches of each individual can be found in each of their respective folders in Box 1 of the collection.

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Anonymous Biography

Born on June 30 in 1904, this interviewee, who wished to remain anonymous, was a seventh generation descendant of John and Priscilla Alden. She grew up in the house her grandfather built on Newbury Street in Portland, and recounted her memories of the view of the harbor, the mock orange bushes, and the lilacs, prominent features of her childhood home.

She attended the Nathan Clifford School, where, at a dance class while in the second grade, she met her future husband. As the two smallest children in the grade, they were paired together. She and her family spent summers on Peaks Island, where her aunt would buy lobsters – 12 for one dollar – for parties, and in winter went ice skating at Deering Oaks.

Her father, who was orphaned at 13 and sent to Portland to live with his uncle, worked for the Maine Central railroad freight department. Her mother made all of her clothes, copying dresses from stores and “making over” old clothes passed down to her from older cousins.

Abbie Andrew Biography

Abbie Andrew was born on December 26, 1897 in Lisbon, New Hampshire, to Irving and Lila Andrew. She had three older brothers, three younger brothers, one younger sister, and one half-brother by her father’s first wife. Her family moved to Maine just before she entered seventh grade, which she completed along with eighth and ninth at the Hazeltine School.

Her father had a general store, mill, large farm, and boarding house; and, for as long as Ms. Andrew could remember, they always had electricity and indoor plumbing, and she noted that her family was considered upper class. Her father had a home office staffed by three secretaries and equipped with two telephones, one of which had a direct line to the farm. Her mother had two women who “helped” in the house.

The Andrew family moved to Littleton, New Hampshire, in 1914, where she graduated from Littleton High School in 1917 before earning a Bachelor’s of Science in Home Economics from Simmons College in Boston. She then earned a Masters in Teaching from Columbia over the course of four summers during the seven years she taught at Simmons.

While at Simmons around 1919 or 1920, the school was closed down due to the influenza epidemic that spread following the conclusion of the Great War. She returned home following the closure of the school, where she took up some of her eldest brother’s responsibilities on the farm, such as feeding the pigs, while he was recovering from the flu.

Her teaching career took her beyond New England. From 1953 to 1958 she taught at a missionary school in Southern Rhodesia, what is now Zimbabwe. From 1958 to 1961 she returned to the United States to become the director of the Schweinburg School in Newport, Rhode Island before retiring to Portland.

She was an active resident of Portland, where she was a member of the Maine Audubon Society, YMCA, Women’s Union, and Victoria Society. She died in 1994 at the age of 96 at a Westbrook nursing home.

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Dwight Kilton Andrew Biography

Brother of interviewee Abbie Andrew, Dwight Kilton Andrew was born in Littleton, New Hampshire, on October 15, 1900. The Andrew family moved to Portland, Maine, in 1910, where they had a self- sustaining farm. The family lived at 16 Fairmont Street, which Mr. Andrew noted was in the best area of Portland with the exception of the Western Promenade. The house was equipped with gas lights and had been wired for electricity before the family moved in.

The farm had an orchard, in which there were 24 apple trees. This was at the height of the shipping industry in Portland, and apples were a major export to European markets. Portland was one of the three largest ports on the East Coast. Mr. Andrew comments in his interview that there was little time for playing since the children all had chores around the farm.

In 1915, at the age of 15, he got his driver’s license. The first vehicle he drove was a Ford Model T pickup truck, which he used exclusively in the summer since roads were not plowed at that time – snow was tamped down by rollers drawn by six horses.

He passed away at the age of 101 in 2001 in Falmouth, Maine.

Eva Orissa Curtis Bowering Biography

Eva Orissa Curtis Bowering was born in Portland in 1908 to Clarence Leroy Curtis, a Portland policeman who served on the force for 31 years. She was one of four Curtis children, and the only girl. She grew up in a three-story house on Becket Street; the house had hardwood floors and a large kitchen where they ate their meals. Two rooms on the third floor were used for company, and Mrs. Bowering recalled that as a child she enjoyed watching the rooms being prepared for guests. In the warm months, the front yard had green grass, flower beds, and flower boxes.

It was, at that time, fashionable for children to skip grades, and she graduated from high school at the age of 16. At Gorham Normal School, her 25-year-old roommate would tuck her in at night when she felt homesick. At 18 she began teaching at her old school, the Monument School.

The Curtis family spent summers on Peaks Island, where the children would enjoy roller skating, riding on the merry-go-round, and going to the theater. At home, the chief entertainment centered around her mother’s piano, which was kept in the parlor. When the circus came to town, the children would be dismissed early from school to see the circus parade.

Their father also took them to the fire station in the summertime, to see the fire horses. Fire wagons – one for the hose and one for the ladder – were drawn by the horses, which were exercised around the city. Mrs. Bowering noted that Governor Baxter loved animals – especially horses – so much that he donated pasture land on Baxter Island to the retired fire horses.

She had vivid memories of the peddlers who would come door to door. The Hurdy Gurdy man came in the early Spring with his monkey, who once climbed a drain pipe and jumped into her crib when she was an infant.

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There were often lively political debates in the Curtis household: although she couldn’t vote, her grandmother would read the papers and keep up with the candidates and then argue with Mrs. Bowering’s grandfather.

She passed away in 1995.

Roger Calderwood Biography

Roger Calderwood was born in Portland, Maine, on April 6, 1911, and, along with his mother and father, was a charter member of the Victoria Society. His father, born in West Gray, was an electrician, and his mother, who was born in Lisbon Falls but later moved to Portland, was a member of Columbia Rebecca Lodge, Deering Chapter #59 of the Order of the Eastern Star. Both attended Deering High School. He was born in the house his grandfather built in 1898.

He completed his early education at the Saunder Street School, Leland School, and Longfellow Street School. He began playing the piano at the age of nine, then began learning the clarinet. In junior high he was a member of the orchestra and the glee club, and in high school he was a member of the band and would perform as a piano accompanist for other performers.

He attended the Julliard School of Music in New York before earning both a B.S. and a Master’s in Education from Boston University. He earned a Doctorate while he was in the service. He was a music teacher for 33 years before retiring in 1970.

In his youth he frequented the various theaters in Portland – the Strand Theater showed motion pictures, the Jefferson Theater put on serious plays, and the Keith Theater, which featured Vaudeville performances and admission cost 35 cents. Each theater had its own pit orchestra. Mr. Calderwood recalled seeing Mary Pickford perform at the Jefferson Theater before her career in motion pictures made her a star.

Mr. Calderwood was acquainted with the first woman to own and drive a car in Maine – a Mrs. Hansen, who wore a duster and wide-brimmed hat to protect her from the dust. The car had hand-crank and got up to 35 miles per hour, which was, at that time, considered a racing speed.

Mr. Calderwood considered trolley cars to be an important part of daily life during his youth. There were four styles of trolley car, the most elaborate of which was the Lewiston Inter-urban. It was possible, at that time, to travel all the way to Boston via trolley car.

Mildred Cameron Biography

Mildred Cameron was born in Portland on March 7, 1908, to William and Katherine O’Brien. She grew up in the Munjoy Hill neighborhood on Beckett Street, which is now O’Brien Street, named for her father, a custom house clerk. She attended Portland public schools, including Portland High School. She was the tenth of fourteen children – eight brothers and five sisters.

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As a teenager she worked at an ice cream parlor, and played tennis and basketball in high school. Summers were spent at a cottage on Long Island, where she went swimming, picked berries, and rode a bicycle. During prohibition, she and her siblings would collect elderberries, with which her father would make wine.

Her family never owned a car – they walked everywhere – and the first time she used a telephone was in 1929, when she received her first telephone call – notification that she had passed her nursing boards.

After a long career as a registered nurse, she passed away in 1994.

Elizabeth Thomas Soule Chapman Biography

Elizabeth Thomas Soule Chapman was born on April 16, 1914 to William Widgery Thomas and Mary Abbot Cate. She grew up in a 5-storey brick Federal-style house at 120 West Street in Portland, Maine, with her six siblings. The house had over thirty rooms, including a living room, dining room, parlor, library, kitchen, kitchen pantry, butler’s pantry, and the help’s dining room, which were all on the first floor. There were five bathrooms on the second floor, with one for the help, and there was also a plant room, where they grew green non-flowering plants. Behind the house was a garage and pony stable. Her parents had lived on Danforth Street prior to building the family home on West Street in 1914.

The Thomas family had help, four or five of whom lived in the house; their private rooms were equipped with bathrooms. The help consisted of two laundresses, a cook, a chauffeur, a butler, and a nanny. Neither the chauffeur nor the butler, Cyril Durante, resided on the premises. Mr. Durante lived near Union Station. The nanny, Annie Mundy, came from England to look after the younger Thomas children.

Mrs. Chapman’s mother supervised the help, and planned all of the family’s meals with the cook. Her mother never sat idle, and did a lot of sewing, knitting, and crocheting. Her mother would also play the family’s grand piano, which resided in the living room.

In her interview, she recalled that all of her dresses were made by Irish seamstresses. To entertain themselves, she and her siblings would put on plays for the family using a stage with curtains that they had set up on the fifth floor.

At Christmastime, the family would have a fancy turkey dinner at noon. The house would be decorated with live greens and fragrant garlands and a tree trimmed with lighted candles.

Mrs. Chapman attended Waynflete prior to attending Smith College, from which she graduated in 1935. A heavily guarded Charles Lindbergh was present at her graduation from Smith College, as his sister-in- law Connie was a member of her class.

A self-proclaimed bookworm, she took to heart a piece of advice given her by her father: that the brain is like a sponge until you reach 30 – learn as much as you can while you’re still curious and receptive. At the time of her death in 1989, she was the last living child of William Widgery Thomas, Portland’s prominent real estate and banking magnate.

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For further research on the Thomas family, please refer to Collection 2649 at the Maine Historical Society.

Barbara Cloutier Biography

Born in Galway, Ireland, on Valentine’s Day in 1900, Barbara Cloutier came to Portland, Maine, at the age of 21 in 1921. She left Ireland amidst what are known as “The Troubles,” when the Black and Tans were most active. Her father was a fisherman, and she remembered eating fish, lobster, or crab every day.

She immigrated to Portland at the instigation of her sister, who led her to believe that it was much nicer than the reality. She was expecting Portland to be like a “fairy land” and was disappointed when she arrived on Commercial Street. However, when asked if she wanted to return to Ireland, she said no – she “wouldn’t go back and face them [the Black and Tans] for anything in the world.” Even after the Troubles were over, she felt that she had changed too much to return.

Once in Portland she worked in service for a family that owned a three-story brick house. Her employer’s children – a daughter and son – had rooms on the third floor, furnished with a white bearskin rug and a chaise lounge. Her sister was the family’s cook and housekeeper, ordering the groceries and planning the meals. Mrs. Cloutier “waited on table” as part of her position.

She stayed with another employer from 1946 to 1962, when the woman died at the age of 80. This employer had collected many knick-knacks, and Mrs. Cloutier admitted that she was always afraid of breaking something. After her employer passed away, she was told that she could take something from the house as a memento, but she chose not to, which she later regretted and expressed said regret to the woman’s daughter-in-law, since she was a great lover of cups-and-saucers. Years later, the woman’s daughter-in-law took her to lunch and presented her with a cup and saucer with a Rose Medallion pattern.

Dorothy Mason Craig Biography

Dorothy Mason Craig was born in Bath, Maine, on May 27, 1899. Her father managed the Old West End Hotel, which was situated across the street from Union Station; due to her father’s position, the family resided in the hotel. In her interview, Mrs. Craig recounted memories of her childhood spent at the hotel, including of the hotel porter whose bulldog – who wore a sweater with the hotel’s name on it – accompanied him to the train station every day.

After graduating from Portland High School, Mrs. Craig pursued a career in dance – first as a dancer and then as a teacher. She studied at the Chalif Normal School of Dance, and the Dartmouth Summer School under Edna Manship, the Physical Education teacher at Wellesley. Ms. Manship then recommended that she study at Mr. Orloff’s School of Dance in New York, which she did for one and a half years. She then taught dance at the Settlement School on the Lower East Side, which was run by Bette Davis’s uncle Paul Favor, before returning to Maine in 1933 to open the Emerson-Mason School of Dance in Portland with Jeannette Emerson.

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The school taught ballroom, ballet, and tap, as well as deportment, and was renamed the Dorothy Mason School of Dance in 1936. In 1965, Mrs. Craig sold the school to the Thomas family of Bangor. At the time of the interview in 1988, the school was still in operation as the Dorothy Mason School of Dance under the ownership of John and Linda Miele. The school is now known as the Maine State Ballet School for the Performing Arts, home to the Maine State Ballet Company, Maine’s premier professional ballet company.

Mrs. Craig believed that the beginning of the end of formal dancing was the introduction of the Twist, and modern and jazz dance. She recalled that formal dance lessons maintained a dress code, in which boys were required to wear dark suits and white gloves.

She married her longtime sweetheart in 1943; the pair were prevented from marrying earlier due to family health problems, and she noted that although she married too late in life for children, she always considered her students to be her children.

She passed away in 1989.

Robert Cram Biography

Robert Cram was born on April 20, 1904 in Maine General, now known as Maine Medical Center, in Portland, Maine. He and his family lived in Cumberland until 1919, when they moved to a farm in Yarmouth.

The farm, which was self-sufficient, required hard work, and Mr. Cram recounted that they didn’t do anything just for fun because they always had chores. There was no telephone, no electricity, and only cold running water. Water was heated on the stove and then poured into a tub for bathing. Cooking was done on a wood stove, which also served to heat the house, although most rooms other than the kitchen were cold. Mr. Cram believed that growing up on the farm kept him healthy and closer to nature, and he expressed pity for city-children who miss out on beautiful sunsets and trees.

He attended Portland High School, taking a one-hour trolley ride every morning from Yarmouth to Portland. For Christmas, the children received items knitted by his mother and oranges. He said he was quite old when he realized that you could get oranges at other times of year other than Christmastime.

In 1921, when he was 17, he bought land at one dollar down and then one dollar a week. He paid a total of two-hundred dollars for two lots. It was on these lots that he constructed his greenhouses and began his landscaping business. Since there were no nurseries in the area at that time, he began by growing seeds that people would purchase and send to him; he grew these plants in his greenhouses and then “set” them in their yards when the time was right. The two major nurseries in the Portland area today – Skillins and Sterling – were hardly the businesses they are now: Alan Sterling had a seed store on Exchange Street, and Skillins grew lilies in their house.

His future wife – who was two years his senior – lived just up the road from him; they married in 1932, at 28 and 30, respectively.

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Mira Louise Dolley Biography

Mira Louise Dolley was born in Raymond, Maine, on September 1, 1897, to Katherine Hayden and Dr. Frank Curtis Dolley. When she was three years old, the family moved to Claremont, California, traveling by Grand Trunk from Portland to Montreal, then to Chicago, and from Chicago they picked up the Santa Fe to California. The journey took one week. Her father traveled ahead of the family, to make the house ready for their arrival. In 1907, when she was 10, her father died and she and her mother returned to Maine. Her much-older brothers remained in California; one became a private detective and the other was a pioneer in the field of chest surgery.

She graduated from Deering High School before going on to attend Colby College, from which she graduated in 1919. She was on the women’s suffrage committee while a student, and was the first woman to serve as an alumna trustee. While in Waterville at college, she would take extra French lessons from nuns at a convent of white sisters (nuns wearing white robes) who had been expelled from France during the government’s rabid separation of church and state. Ms. Dolley would return to Waterville to practice her French with the nuns even after she graduated from Colby College.

She took her first trip to France in 1925 with her longtime friend, Isobel Pease. They travelled through Paris and the Pyrenees, and visited the Sorbonne. She taught French until her retirement in 1967.

She passed away in 1994.

For more information on Isabel K. Pease, please refer to Folder 27.

Helen Dwelley Biography

Born in Lincoln, Maine, on September 15, 1900, Helen Dwelley was the tenth generation of her family born in the New World. Of French Canadian descent, her father was a barker at a paper mill and her mother kept house.

As a barker, her father removed bark from logs before they went into the machine. The year she was born, he broke his arm and it set improperly. He then had to travel to Bangor by train to have his arm re-broken to have it set again.

As a child, Mrs. Dwelley loved school, which was just a ten minute walk from her home. She enjoyed reading and loved books. It was a great blow to her that she was forced to quit school just before entering high school – her parents, who she said did not value education, wanted her to work in one in the two woolen mills in town. However, Mrs. Dwelley rebelled, choosing to live in Portland first with her sister, then at the YMCA where she had a job as a waitress in the restaurant in 1916. From 1917 to 1918 she worked as a cashier for Porteous, and then began working for National Biscuit Company in 1920.

She married in 1922. Because her parents had so many children – nine living – she and her husband decided that they would have just one child and devote all of their resources into making a “quality person.” They had one son, and she believed they had achieved just that.

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Abraham Gordon Biography

Abraham Gordon was born in Bath, Maine, in 1907, to Rose and Samuel Gordon. As Lithuanian Jews in Bath, Mr. Gordon noted that he hadn’t been around so many people who shared his faith until WWI. His mother wore a hat and gloves for Synagogue service, and his father wore a derby.

The family moved to a three-family house on Preble Street in the Munjoy Hill neighborhood of Portland in 1923 when Mr. Gordon was 14. His father would play the violin and Mr. Gordon remembered him as an excellent storyteller. His mother had a Singer sewing machine; she washed their clothes with a washboard and Fels Naphtha soap. After his father died he ran errands for Hays Drug Store to bring money home to his family.

For entertainment in Bath, he and his brothers and sisters would go to the carnival. In Portland they would go to BF Keith’s for Vaudeville shows and eat penny candy. He once saw Louis Armstrong at this theater.

Vergn Hewes Biography

Vergn Hewes was born in Montreal, Canada, on January 1, 1889. She was almost two years old when the family moved to Maine, first to Portland and then to Saco, where they lived with her grandmother in a large Victorian house built in 1884. Ms. Hewes spent her whole life in this house, and, at the time of her interview for the Victoria Society, little had been changed since she was a girl. The house was equipped with running water, indoor plumbing, and a hot-air coal furnace. They had an ice-refrigerator that produced ice water, and the ice man would deliver ice for it every day.

She attended Thornton Academy, where she took an extra year of science and graduated in 1907. She graduated from Farmington State College in 1910, and in 1914 began a long career at Waynflete, where she taught science and mathematics and later served as the dean of students before retiring in 1968. In 1963 the science wing of the school was named in her honor. And even today, Waynflete bestows annual Vergn Hewes Science Awards to students with outstanding performances in science. She used to drive to school in her Ford Model T, picking up students on her way.

Her mother was devoted to her children, and spent a lot of time reading to and playing with them. Her mother would also play the piano while her father sang, and they would often read Shakespeare and Lord Tennyson poetry to their children. Her father made pulled taffy, vinegar candy, and molasses candy; Ms. Hewes could still recall her love of his vinegar candy. Her mother made her dresses, however, Ms. Hewes didn’t feel that she had enough dresses, so she learned to sew – and sew quickly – so that she would have a larger wardrobe.

She was the second woman in the state of Maine to register to vote, in 1920. She passed away in 1992, at the age of 104.

Greta Kerr Biography

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Greta Kerr was born June 29, 1890. Her father was a master mariner who attended navigation school in Belfast, Ireland. He made eleven trips around Cape Horn and nine around the Cape of Good Hope as a sea captain. The Kerr family often spent summers at Willard Beach, to which they traveled by trolley.

Ms. Kerr graduated from Portland High School in 1910 before attending the Portland Teacher Training School. Her first job was teaching at the Jackson School, where she earned $425 a year. She was offered a position with a young people’s weekly publication as an assistant editor in Philadelphia at $18 per week – she accepted, but stayed only six months after realizing that she could not sustain herself in a city like Philadelphia on this wage.

After returning to Portland, she was hired by the Portland Evening Express as a society reporter. During her interview she demanded that she be paid $25 per week, and although she believed this would never be accepted, the editor capitulated on the stipulation that she would not disclose her pay to any other member of the staff, as it was higher than even the department head. During her thirty-five year career at the Portland Evening Express she met many notable persons, including Lily Pons, a coloratura soprano opera singer; Admiral Perry’s wife; Geraldine Ferrar, famed New England-born opera singer and actress; Margaret Chase Smith, first woman senator; and the famous contralto opera singer Marian Anderson.

After retiring from the Portland Evening Express, she became the Director of Public Relations and an instructor in Journalism at the Westbrook Junior College. Ms. Kerr passed away in 1984.

Dorothy LeButt Biography

Dorothy LeButt was born in Portland, Maine, on June 12, 1905. She graduated from Portland High School in 1922, and in 1928 she graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. In addition to her musical inclinations, she took dancing lessons in the ballroom of the Maine Charitable Mechanics Association.

Her career as a music teacher was influenced by her parents. Her mother, who had been a pupil of Hermann Kotzschmar, played the piano.

She taught her first students at her home, then taught at Waynflete for five years before being hired at Rogers Hall Preparatory School, where she taught music for 35 years. During her recorded interview, she wished to impart an important lesson to future generations, and that was to mind your parents!

She passed away at the age of 93, in 1998.

Sidney Levine Biography

Sidney Levine was born in Portland, Maine, on January 11, 1912. His parents both immigrated to the United States from Lithuania as children, his father at age twelve and his mother when she was just a year old. Although his parents spoke Yiddish at home, he never learned to speak it.

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His father owned and operated a clothing store in Portland called Levine’s Clothing Store. His mother kept a strict Kosher home and shopped at the Jewish grocery stores on Middle Street. She would call the store to place an order and then deliveries were made via horse and wagon. Oakhurst Dairy delivered milk.

She shopped at Porteous, Eastman Brothers, J.R. Libby, Benoits, and Palmers for clothes; she took linens like sheets and pillow cases to Globe Laundry on Temple Street, and washed all other clothes with a washboard in the sink.

They were a two-car family. Their first car was a 1916 Dodge Touring Car; their second car was Model T Roadster. For entertainment he went to The Strand Theater where admission for a movie was ten cents, and there were always books in the house.

He graduated from Portland High School in 1929, and served 39 months in the Pacific during WWII. He and his wife opened Kiddie Korner, a specialty children’s clothing store, in 1947, first on High Street before moving locations to Congress Street. They operated this store for 32 years.

He passed away in 1999.

Philip Milliken Biography

Philip Milliken was born on June 19, 1889, in Deering, Maine.

He attended Hebron Academy; his father believed that he was playing too much, prompting his decision to send him – by train – to the academy.

He began his career at the Canal Bank – built in 1826 and owned by William Widgery Thomas – in 1910 as a messenger. He later wrote a book on the history of the Cumberland and Oxford Canal, which had been financed by the Canal Bank as its first venture.

Portland was a bustling city during WWI, during which time the bank sold Liberty bonds. Individual stamps were purchased for 25 cents and once $18.75 in stamps was accrued they could be exchanged for a 25-dollar bond. Following the end of the war he contracted the flu during the Influenza Epidemic.

As a child, Christmas was celebrated with a tree, which they decorated with strings of popcorn and one cent candles. Their mother played the piano while their father and children sang – the family never owned a phonograph.

He remembered the grocery man taking grocery orders in the morning and then returning in the afternoon to make deliveries. There were very little prepared foods, and they often ate oatmeal. They had an ice box for which the Portland Sebago Ice Company would deliver ice. The ice box had a pan underneath it and it had to be emptied before it leaked.

His first car was a 1916 Overland. Gas was one dollar for eight gallons. Other modes of transportation included traveling by omnibus – horse drawn bus – between Portland and South Portland. Horse drawn

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Maine Historical Society Coll. 1892 cars were also available for travel between Union Station and Munjoy Hill – horses were housed in a stable on Spring Street.

Edward Norris Biography

Edward J. Norris was born in Melrose, MA, in 1908, to Walter and Effie Norris. When he was two years old, he and his family relocated to Portland, Maine. He graduated from his father’s alma mater, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in 1931.

As a boy, he loved ice cream – strawberry was his favorite flavor. There were three ice cream shops: Simmons and Hammons, which he didn’t care for; Deering Ice Cream, which was his favorite shop; and Turner Center, which he just considered “good.”

In 1923, at 16, he listened to a radio program for the first time – a boxing match featuring a boxer by the name of Paul Berlenbach, who went on to become the light heavyweight boxing champion of the world in 1925.

As the son of a bridge engineer, he had a special interest in their construction, and noted during his interview that the Portland Bridge (now the Million Dollar Bridge) was made of creosote wood blocks and interlocking logs treated with asphalt to prevent them from rotting.

Of particular note, Mr. Norris recalled a stirring memory during his interview of the horses corralled in Portland awaiting transport overseas: “…riding on the train to Brunswick…I often saw hundreds and hundreds of horses. They were waiting to be shipped overseas to the men, to the troops, in 1918. They had corrals and corrals. Horses coming from the West by the hundreds.”

At the age of 100, Mr. Norris passed away in 1998.

Katherine Norris Biography

Katherine Norris was born in Melrose, MA, on June 7, 1901. She and her family moved to Portland, Maine, when her father, a bridge engineer with the railroad, was transferred to the drafting office.

Miss Norris graduated from Portland High School in 1919, and from Vassar in 1923. Her tuition for Vassar for one thousand dollars per year, including room, board, and books.

As a child she enjoyed playing games with other children in the neighborhood, and was a member of the Camp Fire Girls, the first scout-like organization for girls in the United States. Members wore brown fringed costumes, earned beads for completing certain projects, and embraced the Camp Fire Girls motto of “Glorify work and be happy.”

Memorable features of her neighborhood included her next door neighbor, a member of a travelling minstrel troupe nicknamed “Pony Girl” because of her small stature; and the rag man who would wonder the streets calling out “yag a da bot,” meaning rags and bottles, by which he made his living.

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Miss Norris worked at MIT and then at the Ginn and Co. Publishing Firm in Boston. She passed away in 1991.

Josephine O’Hare Biography

Josephine O’Hare was born in Portland in 1905. She grew up in her grandfather’s house on the corner of Cumberland Avenue and Sheridan Street, at the top of Munjoy Hill. The house was a Revolutionary Colonial of white clapboard. The kitchen had a pine floor, and the walls were papered in white with gold stencil. The windows had white shades with gold stencil and drop-crystal pulls. Her grandfather lived on the first floor while she and her parents resided on the second. An oak tree, white and purple lilac trees, and tiger lilies graced the front yard.

For entertainment, she would walk to Baxter library to check out books or watch films at the Strand Theater. A man who lived up the street made “elegant” ice cream, the flavor was whatever fruit was in season.

Her mother made her dresses on a Singer sewing machine; they wore ankle-length drop-waist dresses and lisle stockings. She was given money for shoes, which she was allowed to choose herself from Lane’s Shoe Store. Ms. O’Hare’s mother had a lot of dignity, and forbade her children from pleading “poor mouth” – they weren’t to disclose when they couldn’t afford something.

Her father was a member of the Emerald Club, a social club for which members would gather and play cards. He was also a member of the Ancient Order of Foresters and the Ancient Order of Hibernians.

After high school, Ms. O’Hare attended Gray’s and Shaw’s business schools. She worked as a secretary at Hornblower & Weeks, a stock brokerage firm, until retiring in 1969. She volunteered at Mercy Hospital and the Portland High School library for fifteen years.

She passed away at the age of 100, in 1995.

Ruth Frances Nickerson Olesen Biography

Ruth Frances Nickerson Olesen was born in Portland, Maine, on November 20, 1902 to Effie and Walter Nickerson. She and her family lived on Johnson Road in Falmouth until they moved to Town Landing when she was 15. Her father was a machinist in a shoe shop in Portland’s West End.

At the Nickerson home in Town Landing electricity was installed a year or two after the family moved in, and it had already been outfitted with an indoor plumbing, a luxury not afforded them at their previous home. They never owned an automobile or a telephone. Mrs. Olesen and her five sisters were responsible for a variety of chores around the house, including sweeping, dusting, and making the beds.

She rode the electric trolley car to school in Yarmouth – since a high school had not been built for Falmouth students, the city paid their admission fees for North Yarmouth Academy. Had a student chosen to attend a Portland school, they would have been responsible for their admission fees. Mrs. Olesen

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Maine Historical Society Coll. 1892 graduated from North Yarmouth Academy in 1922 at the age of 20 – she was forced to miss two full years of school after contracting Scarlet Fever.

She then attended a Health School in Boston, after which she took one year of specialized training to become a baby nurse. She worked as a pediatric nurse in Boston until marrying and returning to Maine in 1931, where she continued working. She was employed by the Verrill family on the Western Promenade for forty years.

For entertainment, her mother would play the melodeon while her father played the harmonica or guitar and they all would sing. They attended square dances at Casco Hall on Saturday nights, and play baseball in their yard. To amuse herself, Mrs. Olesen would occasionally dress her cat in doll clothes and take it for rides in a carriage.

Every 4th of July, her mother would take her and her sisters to Portland by electric car to their Aunt Ethel’s millinery shop on Congress Street. From the second floor shop, they would then watch the circus go by: “the tigers and the lions and the big cages and the elephants hanging onto their tails walking up the street.”

In the summertime, her mother would get an extra piece of ice to make ice cream.

Mrs. Olesen was married on August 14, 1931, to John Henry Olesen at the Danish Village in Scarborough. The Danish Village was a replica of a village in Denmark, and their wedding was authentic to Denmark, complete with Scandinavian dress. The Olesens had two children, by one of whom they were predeceased. Mrs. Olesen passed away in 1993 at the age of 91.

Hilda Ives Palmer Biography

Hilda Ives Palmer was born May 29, 1909, at Cragmoor, the family’s summer house in Cape Elizabeth. Her father was Howard Ives, a lawyer, and her mother was Dr. Hilda Libby Ives, an ordained minister and prominent Portland citizen.

Educated at Harvard and Bowdoin, her father practiced law at Verrill, Hale, Booth & Ives, which, as of the time of the interview in 1984, was still in practice as Verrill-Dana. He died of influenza in 1916.

Her mother founded the Catherine Morrill Day Nursery, which is still in operation to this day (2015). Catherine Morrill had been a student at Smith during her untimely death, leaving her parents devastated. Shortly after, Mrs. Palmer’s mother approached the family with the hopes of a donation for the establishment of a nursery day school – the Morrills donated the building that was to be the first location of the Catherine Morrill Day Nursery, and it was named in her memory.

Her grandfather, Charles Freeman Libby, had been mayor of Portland.

Mrs. Palmer attended the Carrol Street School, Butler, Waynflete, and Wheelock; she then taught at Waynflete until marrying John Palmer.

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She recalled travelling by train to Boston for Easter outfits from Hollander’s; her family used dressmakers more often than purchasing clothes from a store, making these trips particularly special.

She also recalled a particular bit of mischief that she and her brothers and sisters got themselves into. They used to store eggs in the cellar for cooking and baking – 365 eggs, one for each day of the year. One day the Ives children concocted a game for themselves and went down to the cellar, drew a circle on one wall in chalk, and proceeded to throw all 365 eggs to see how many they could land on the circle. She remarked that the subsequent punishment enacted by their parents aptly fit the crime: to clean it all up!

Marion Brown Payson Biography

Marion Brown Payson was born on July 3, 1896, in Portland, Maine, but just barely. Her family was moving to Maine from Berlin, New Hampshire, where the Brown Company mills were located, and her mother narrowly escaped delivering Marion on the train.

The family lived on State Street, and she attended Waynflete.

For entertainment, her parents would sing despite the fact that her father couldn’t carry a tune. In the winter they would go sledding on Mellen Street, and in warmer months they would go roller skating.

At 13 her parents took her and her sister on a grand tour of Greece, Jerusalem, Italy, and Cairo, up the Nile.

She recalled a humorous incident involving her brother Paul. He was riding his tricycle when two teachers, “Miss Longfellow and Mrs. Barrett came along and put their hands on his head and [said] ‘Oh, Paul dear, how are you today?’ [and he replied] ‘Damn it all, can’t you see I’m in a hurry?’”

During World War I she joined the Red Cross, serving in Halifax. She married Philips Merrill Payson, with whom she had four children: Lorna, Merrill, Eliot, and Emily. She passed away in 1993.

Frances Wilson Peabody Biography

Frances Wilson Peabody was born on April 18, 1903 in Washington, D.C. at Garfield Hospital. Being born in a hospital was rare at this time, as most births took place at home.

Her father was a Mayflower descendent from Winchester, Massachusetts. He attended Harvard nights for five years to complete his degree. The family relocated to New Mexico territory after he received an assignment from President Roosevelt to “clean up the dirty politics.” After a three-day journey by train, the Wilson family settled in Santa Fe, which, at that time, had a population of just 6000. The train lacked a dining car, so they would hop off at the station for meals at Harvey Houses along the way.

Mr. Wilson established a law practice dedicated to helping Northern Pueblo Indians reclaim their land from squatters. Some of his cases took him all the way to the Supreme Court, which he won.

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Being from Virginia, her mother enjoyed entertaining and often arranged large dinner parties for prominent guests. Among them were the President of Harvard College and the Bishop of New Mexico. She would often homeschool her children when there were outbreaks of diseases such as scarlet fever or tuberculosis, which would evolve into epidemics due to the traditional wakes held by the locals. During WWI she rolled bandages for the Red Cross.

As a child, Frances Wilson Peabody took piano and dancing lessons, and enjoyed playing with dolls, which were sent to her from an aunt who lived in Chicago and would send her toys from Marshall Fields. The family would play cards and Parcheesi, and had a pinto pony and two-seat carriage.

She was a member of the Santa Fe Girl Scouts, the first Girl Scout troupe west of the Mississippi. The 12- girl troupe would take camping trips at the Los Alamos Canyon, which is where she first met her future husband, Millard Peabody.

When she wasn’t being homeschooled, Frances Wilson Peabody attended private and public schools before being sent to boarding school in Connecticut at age 15. She later attended Smith College, then was chosen for the training squad for junior executives at R.H. Macy, where she worked for two years until she was married. The Bishop of New Mexico, who had become a family friend by way of her mother’s dinner parties, was in New York at the time and officiated their wedding ceremony.

Of their four children, three suffered from Polio. Although his business was relocated to Maine in 1937, they continued to reside in Boston in order to get the best medical care for their children.

Helen Hartley Pease Biography

Helen Hartley Pease was born in Reading, Massachusetts, in 1896 to Minnie Johnson Pease and Walter H. Pease, a railroad conductor. She was raised in Massachusetts but the family spent summers on Peaks Island, where her grandmother owned a large cottage.

Her grandmother’s cottage boasted 12 rooms and running water, though not hot water and no electricity. Along with her parents and two sisters, her cousin stayed with them at the cottage, and they always took in boarders, so it was a full house all summer long.

Helen and her sisters and cousin would spend their time at the Gem Theater, where they put on different shows every week. They saved their pennies all winter so that they could reserve seats up front for the last week’s show, which had an orchestra. They hung around the back of the theater so often that some of the actors knew them by sight – in her interview she related a story about the actor Robert Geness, a regular performer at the Gem Theater, who commented one summer “My! My little girls are big girls!” She laughed as she recalled his remark, musing “was that a thrill.”

They would also go to the skating house, ride the merry-go-round, and, as older girls, go to the dance hall, where soldiers from Fort Williams provided numerous dance partners. When they heard the ten o’clock boat bringing their father in from working on the mainland they would run for home and jump into bed, since he was unaware of their dance hall activities.

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Everyone walked on the island – there were no cars. Ice cream cost ten cents, the same price for admission to a movie. Trolley rides cost five cents.

Ms. Pease graduated from Vassar College in 1918; tuition was 450 dollars per year. She began her career as a teacher first at Massachusetts schools – Bradford Academy, Walnut Hill School, and Rogers Hall, where she taught Latin. She then served as chairperson of the Latin Department for thirty-two years at the Greenwich Academy in Connecticut, from which she retired in 1961.

She retired to Peaks Island because she liked it so much as a girl. She passed away in 1984, at the age of 88.

Isabel K. Pease Biography

Isabel K. Pease was born on November 9, 1900, at 57 Coyle Street in Portland. She was still living at 57 Coyle at the time of her interview, in 1984. When she was a child, there was only one other house on Coyle Street, the Coyle Mansion, which she described as a white pillared mansion.

Her parents were both from Cambridge, Massachusetts; her father, Chester, sold securities and worked in banking, and her mother, Mary, was a pianist, having studied music at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.

She attended Deering High School then Smith College, from which she graduated in 1923. She also took courses at Middlebury College, and post-graduate courses in art education and English at Harvard. In 1925 she took her first trip of many with longtime friend Mira Dolley, with whom she attended Harvard. The pair later travelled to Italy and Switzerland, in addition to return trips to France.

As a girl, her family would travel to Cape Elizabeth, where the Casino there put on music reviews and popular operas. Gilbert and Sullivan productions were favorites. Every Saturday her father would return home from work with candy for his children. She recalled in her interview an incident in which her father had to climb a tree to retrieve her cat, which had gotten stuck in the tree after escaping the baby carriage in which Miss Pease was pushing her.

Miss Pease and her sister Florence (born September 21, 1897), who participates in her taped interview, remembered hearing their mother play the piano, which she did only after the rest of her family had gone to bed. Her musicality influenced her daughters – Florence played the piano, and Isabel played the violin, which she did so in the Portland Symphony Orchestra for 25 years.

Miss Isobel Pease taught English and the History and Appreciation of Art at Deering High School for 39 years. Of her lengthy career as an educator she remarked in her interview “I did love teaching. There’s no question about that.” She passed away in 1990, at the age of 90.

For more information on her travels and her friend, Mira Louise Dolley, please refer to Folder 11.

Dorothy Plummer Biography

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Dorothy Plummer was born in Portland, Maine, on April 7, 1899.

She grew up at 140 Eastern Promenade in Portland. Her father built apartments behind their house, which was the start of the family real estate business. There were no other houses around them on the Eastern Promenade, so they had beautiful views in her girlhood. The house had running water and indoor plumbing with a slate tub in the bathroom. The house had gas before being upgraded to gas and electricity. Their hired help lived on the third floor.

She attended Waynflete, then joined the class of 1922 at Wellesley but didn’t graduate.

Her mother’s father was the superintendent of the Oxford Canal Bank, and their family was descended from Samuel Libby, who arrived in Maine prior to the Indian Wars, fought in the Revolution, and whose powder horn was later donated to the Maine Historical Society.

Her father was a member of the Fat Man’s Club; he owed his membership to his 300-lbs girth. The president of the club, Albert Moulton, weighed 400 lbs.

Ms. Plummer voted in the 1920 election at the age of 21. During WWII she worked for the Red Cross to assist the war efforts. She passed away in 1994.

Elizabeth Ring Biography

Elizabeth Ring was born in Orono, Maine, in 1902 to Edgar E. and Laura Andrews Ring.

Her parents were married in 1895 when she was 35 and he was 45. Her father had inherited his father’s lumber business, and he served as forestry commissioner.

Her mother, Laura Andrews, had taught mathematics at the University of Maine in Orono but took a position in Pueblo, Colorado, because she could no longer tolerate the university president’s chewing tobacco habit. Prior to her relocation, she had met Edgar Ring once before, who was still married to his first wife. After he was widowed, she wrote to him asking for a donation for the construction of a church – this correspondence developed into a courtship and soon she returned to Maine. The pair had four children, the youngest of whom was Elizabeth, their only daughter. Elizabeth’s father would affectionately refer to her as “his tomboy.”

For entertainment, the family gathered around the piano and sang, or their mother read aloud to them. Miss Ring especially liked to play with paper dolls. Everyone had exposure to the “ornamental arts”: dancing, painting, and singing. On Stevens Avenue, Mrs. Stevens started a school where she taught painting on tin; this school was still existence at the time of the interview, in 1984.

Miss Ring’s mother raised her to be a perfectionist, and instilled in her modesty of behavior and dress. Miss Ring noted that she was a poor housekeeper as an adult as she was never expected to do house work – that was allocated to their “hired girl.” She stated candidly that this led to a feeling of class distinction.

Her parents considered education to be the most important element of their children’s upbringing. Miss Ring earned her Bachelors from the University of Maine in 1923 and her Masters in history in 1926.

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Her lengthy teaching career began in 1923, when she taught in Plymouth, New Hampshire, until 1925; she then taught in Westerly, Rhode Island, from 1926 to 1930. From 1930 to 1931 she was a fellow in Economic and Politics at Bryn Mawr; she studied local history thanks to a Coe Research Fund Grant from 1931 to 1938, during which time she wrote her three-volume “Reference List of Manuscripts Relating to the History of Maine” and “Maine Bibliographies.” She taught the very first class in Maine History in 1938 at University of Maine Orono and then at Bates College in 1939. She taught at Deering High School from 1944 until her retirement in 1969.

In addition to her books on Maine history, she also authored books on the Progressive Movement in Maine, and was a founder of the Greater Portland Landmarks, Inc. She was an honorary member of the Maine Historical Society, for which she served as director from 1964 to 1965. Miss Ring passed away at the age of 95, in 1997.

As a direct reference to the supposition of the Victoria Society that the Victorian Era was extended in other parts of the world after the death of Queen Victoria (the proof of that being the goal of this oral history project), Miss Ring shared that she had never seen her parents kiss, nor did one use the word “pregnant.” In fact, pregnant women did not go out in public, and waited to take walks at night, accompanied, of course, by their husbands.

Ruth Sawyer Smith Biography

Ruth Sawyer Smith was born in Portland, Maine, on June 26, 1893.

She attended Westbrook High School; her father drove the children to school in a horse and wagon, heating a soap stone on the stove and placing it in the wagon to heat it during the winter.

The family grew vegetables and had an orchard. Their primary income was farming, and they sold milk to the Oakhurst Dairy. For Christmas they had a tree, which they trimmed with popcorn and cranberries, and a chicken dinner.

For entertainment there was dancing, corn husking, and music – in addition to playing the violin and piano, the family had a Victrola. Mrs. Smith enjoyed playing with dolls, and had a doll carriage and playhouse.

In 1921, the family home burned to the ground. At the time, Mrs. Smith was living there with her two children; her father was out of town, and by the time the fire brigade arrived it was too late. The fire wagon was late in getting to the house – the horse was lame – and they had just one water bucket. The house was razed completely.

Married three times, Mrs. Smith’s third husband, Ernest Smith, was a Merchant Marine. His passing made her a widow two times over. Mrs. Smith ran a chicken farm and egg business for twenty years, from the 1940s to the 1960s. She also worked at the American Can Company to support her children. She passed away in 1992, at the age of 99.

Her best childhood memories were of Riverton Park, where her family spent every Fourth of July. She spent her time going to a rustic outdoor theater where she bought potato chips for five cents, salt water

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Maine Historical Society Coll. 1892 taffy, and popcorn. There was canoeing for twenty-five cents, although she was not allowed to participate and could only watch. In the evening there were fireworks. But the main attraction for her was the diving horse: “They had a beautiful white horse that used to dive. They used to put him up on a pedestal and he’d dive into a big tank…he was beautiful. A great big white horse.”

Dorothy Talbot Biography

Dorothy Cominta Pickard Talbot was born in New York on December 20, 1897, to Cornelia and John Pickard. Her grandfather, John Frederick Christian Pickard, designed the folding bed. She grew up in Portland and attended Portland schools.

She met her husband, George Talbot, in war camp community service during WWI; he was a Lieutenant serving as an ambulance driver. They lived at 57 Park Street, known as the Talbot House and situated directly across Danforth Street from Victoria Mansion. Talbot House’s original occupant, George F. Talbot, was a Maine attorney who once served as the Solicitor of the United States Treasury. He had one leg and one eye – his leg he lost at 14 after his attempt at hitching a ride on a dumpcart went awry, his eye he lost climbing on a highboy.

Her aunts were friends of the Longfellow family.

The Libby family still resided in the Mansion when she was a child; she heard it referred to as “Morse’s folly.” She recalled in her interview that she had been awe-struck by the hinges and knobs, which were all made of silver.

Jennie Thompson Biography

Jennie Means Thompson was born in 1892 in Orleans, Nebraska, to Edgar and Jesse Means. Her father graduated from Bowdoin, then went west to seek his fortune. While that fortune failed to materialize, he found work in Nebraska as a banker and met his wife in Ohio. Mrs. Thompson’s mother’s father was a Civil War Veteran. They had ten children, of which Jennie was the second oldest.

Her paternal grandparents used to spend six months of the year in Nebraska and the other six months in Maine with her aunt, which she also did starting at the age of seven. When she ten, her grandparents took up permanent residence in Maine and she stayed with them. She would travel to Nebraska to visit her parents and siblings in the summer. The trip to two to three days by train: the Canadian-Pacific from Portland to Montreal, then to Chicago, and finally to Nebraska.

She attended Waynflete and Dana Hall. After graduating from Dana Hall she met her husband, Dr. Philip P. Thompson, Sr.; they were married in 1915, and he left for war in 1917. At this time she had two children, and relied on her Irish maid for help while her husband was at war. There were no rubber pants for babies, and although there was special fabric for diapering, she was constantly changing their clothes.

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Her Irish maid did the cooking and cared for the children. She lived in and could be left in charge when Mrs. Thompson had engagements that took her out of the house. Generally maids would live with the families with whom they were employed until they got married.

Mrs. Thompson was a member of the Portland Museum of Art and the Longfellow Garden Club. She also served as treasurer for the Home for Aged Women. She passed away in 1989.

Harvey Wallingford Biography

Harvey Wallingford was born in Alfred, Maine, in 1893, to Otis and Mary Wallingford.

He grew up on the family farm in Alfred, where the family lived in a farmhouse with half a mile between them and any neighbors. His father did his own slaughtering of their animals. They had a large garden, with corn, potatoes, and other vegetables; as well as apple trees. They lived off the farm, which also provided eggs, butter, cream, and veal. Every meal was served with baked bread, which he would bake should his mother be unable.

They had cows for milking; they sold milk for five cents a quart. They did not have an automobile and instead used a horse and buggy; it was one of Mr. Wallingford’s chores to tend the horses, which included shoeing, grooming, and cleaning up after. They had work horses for heavy labor on the farm, and always at least one horse for riding.

Most social events were based around Church, although every Christmas one farmer would have a tree trimmed with popcorn and all of the neighboring families would be invited to his home to celebrate.

A Shaker colony had a neighboring farm. Children without homes were taken in until they were at least 18; adults who stayed became equal property owners. Mr. Wallingford’s father purchased a parcel of their land and each member of the group had to sign the deed. Mr. Wallingford laughingly recounted that this group of Shakers also made wine to sell during Prohibition.

He recalled harsher winters as a boy – the lakes froze in November, and once winter began they never saw bare ground until spring. To clear the roads for travel, a sled would be hitched to oxen who would then drag snow out of the road.

He left school at age ten to work at a portable mill, using a cross-cut saw to fell trees. He then moved to Portland in 1916. He worked for the Boston and Maine Railroad for 41 years, retiring in 1958.

His work for the railroad kept him from being drafted during the war – the railroad requested that its employees be exempted so that they could serve the war effort performing military transport. Shortly after the war ended, the Spanish Flu epidemic swept through and young men in training at Fort Devins died by the hundreds. Mr. Wallingford recalled that their bodies were transported home in the baggage car.

As a young man in Portland, he enjoyed riding to the end of the trolley line to Riverton Park, at the end of Forest Avenue. Admission to the Park was the five cent trolley fare; entertainments included a casino and movies. He also attended plays at Jefferson Theater, which had been on the corner of Oak and Free Streets, and vaudeville shows at Keith’s Theater, which had been on the corner of Preble and Congress.

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A fond memory of his youth that he shared was of his grandmother making salt pickles. She had to pick the cucumbers at just the right time, then soaked them in salt and water, which shrank them – a similar process that is used today in pickle-making.

Mr. Wallingford passed away in 1987.

Evelyn Frances Watson Biography

Evelyn Frances Watson was born June 16, 1893 in Portland, Maine, to Lydia and Mayall Littlefield, both of Chebeague Island.

Mrs. Watson attended the Marada Adams elementary school on Emerson Street and Portland High School, graduating in 1911. She then attended Gray’s Business School and then found work as a secretary.

The family lived in the Munjoy Hill neighborhood of Portland before her father built a house on Morning Street in 1923. The house has running water but no electricity – her father mistrusted electricity and refused to have his home wired for it, so they used oil lamps instead. Her parents lived in the house for 25 years before moving into a house 100 Revere Street, a five-room two-family house that her father built from lumber that he had milled with his own portable mill on his land on Chebeague Island. They spent nine years in this house, then moved to Peaks Island, at which time Mrs. Watson inherited the house.

Her father ran a ship chandlery that sold groceries on Commercial Street, called The Littlefield Co. In the summers he ran a store on Peaks Island. It was through her father’s store that she met her husband – her brother fell ill and the meat cutter recommended his nephew, visiting family for the summer, for a temporary position. Mrs. Watson laughed during her interview when she recounted that he extended his stay that summer. They were married in 1917.

Childhood memories she recounted during her interview included the introduction of peanut butter in stores, where they purchased a large tub from which customers would receive a scoop; entertainments that centered around the piano – she and her sister would play while her brother sang; and her father teaching her about finance and record keeping.

Her advice for future generations: get their education, don’t marry too young.

Alice Skofield Whittier Biography

Alice Skofield Whittier was born in 1898 to Eugenie Skofield and Dr. Frank Whittier.

Her father was a professor of Pathology and Bacteriology at Bowdoin Medical School; as Maine’s first forensic pathologist, he was the first pathologist to testify in open court that each bullet has a unique signature. He was also on the building committee at Bowdoin, and the college’s football field still bears his name.

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Dr. Whittier attended Brunswick High School and Bryn Mawr before pursuing her advanced degree at Yale University Medical School. She then returned to Maine to open a practice as the first woman pediatrician in the state. She served as the Chief of Pediatrics at Maine Medical Center in the 1950s.

Growing up in Brunswick, Dr. Whittier travelled to Portland by train since her father never owned an automobile. On special occasions, such as when they travelled to Lewiston to hear Theodore Roosevelt speak, they would rent an automobile for the day. The family home in Brunswick – now operated as a museum by the Pejepscot Historical Society – did not have a telephone until Dr. Whittier was in high school.

During her interview, Dr. Whittier recalled the pride she took in hanging May Baskets on the first of May with her mother, who crocheted her baskets out of tissue paper. Her mother was president of the Saturday Club in Brunswick, which Dr. Whittier described as being similar to the Literary Club in Portland. Her mother’s club would stage plays, including the Pinafore and Mikado.

Christmas was not a large family affair, but she did recall one occasion in which she accompanied her father in his quest to find a tree – an event made all the more memorable as she “nearly froze to death.”

After a lengthy and devoted career, Dr. Whittier passed away in 1994 at the age of 96. Her obituary stated, among her many professional achievements, that “She was noted for her candor, touched by Yankee humor, and her extraordinary generosity. The amount of free medical care and the countless hours she gave to clinic patients was not known to many people because her generosity was matched by her modesty.”

For more information on the Skofield-Whittier House, please refer to the Pejepscot Historical Society web page: http://pejepscothistorical.org/visiting-us/swh

For more on Whittier Field at Bowdoin College, please refer to Bowdoin’s Athletics web page: http://athletics.bowdoin.edu/information/facilities/files/whittier

Alice Cutter Willman Biography

Alice Cutter Willman was born in Wallaston, MA, on July 25, 1899, to William R. Cutter and Edith Emma Libby Cutter, daughter of Joseph R. Libby and Louise Helen Larrabee. She was the older grandchild of J.R. Libby, and grew up across the street from Victoria Mansion, at 116 Danforth Street. Her father was the Vice President of the JR Libby Company.

The Cutter home was a large three-story house, boasting at least 13 rooms, with four bedrooms on the second floor and three on the third floor. The house was equipped with gas lighting, which was later converted to electric, and coal furnace, also converted later, to oil. There was running water and indoor plumbing, made possible by a water tank on the third floor. There were six fireplaces, including one in the bathroom.

At that time, Portland had two competing telephone line companies, and telephone calls could only be made between telephones connected on the same line. To ensure that they would receive a call no matter the line used by the caller, they had two telephones, one for each line.

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Maine Historical Society Coll. 1892

To run a house of this size, her family had Irish maids who “lived in.” However, this did not exempt Mrs. Willman from daily chores: she couldn’t go outside to play unless her room was tidy, and after her Grandfather Cutter moved in, she had to make his bed as well.

She attended McLellan School, Park Street School, Butler, Waynflete, and Portland High School, then studied at Bradford Academy for three years. At the urging of her parents her course of study at Bradford was vocal studies, but she had wanted to study business. She was greatly influenced by her Grandfather Libby, whose business acumen and focus she admired.

Her first job was in ready-to-wear at the JR Libby store, where she worked for seven years before leaving to study in New York. After an unsuccessful first marriage, she became the residence director at the YWCA in Portland, then worked at the civilian center during the war. She moved to Providence after marrying William Willman; when she was widowed in 1954 she worked the desk at Boston’s YWCA-run Pioneer Hotel, a hotel for career women with high-paying salaries. After retiring she moved to Limington.

As a girl, she had piano lessons, first with a Miss Woodbury for the fundamentals, then with Miss Cobb. She attended Wilson’s dancing school, with lessons in the ballroom of the Maine Charitable Mechanics Association building, where she learned to waltz. She and her friends would spend twenty-five cents to sit in the balcony of the Jefferson Theater for musicals.

She spent much of her childhood at the Mansion with her grandparents. As the oldest grandchild, she admitted to being spoiled and having the run of the cookie jar whenever she would visit, which was frequently. Every day after school she would stop in to visit with her grandmother, who she described as a wonderful, understanding woman. Whenever her parents went out of town, she would stay at the Mansion. When she was little she slept on a chaise lounge in her grandmother’s room, and when she was older she stayed in her own room, the Red Room.

She recounted many happy childhood memories of the Mansion in her interview – from sliding down the bannisters to playing in the third floor billiard room. She recalled breaking a vase in the upstairs living room, which was knocked over when she and a cousin were playing. They ran and hid, afraid of being scolded, but nothing was ever said of it. Her favorite room of the Mansion was the library, where she loved being surrounded by books. Sundays and holidays were spent at the Mansion. Twenty to twenty- five people were present for Thanksgiving, and there was always a tree in the upstairs living room at Christmas.

She idolized her grandfather, who she remembered as stern but loving. She revealed that he took her to the circus every time it came to town, but he loved the circus so much that she suspected that he used her as an excuse to go himself.

Mrs. Willman was a life honorary member of the Victoria Society of Maine. At the end of her interview, she was asked what the most special thing about the Mansion was to her, and she said that it was her relationship with her grandmother and grandfather, and their influence on her life. Mrs. Willman passed away in 1989.

Provenance: Victoria Society of Maine

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Maine Historical Society Coll. 1892

Processing Note: Each tape has been listened to in its entirety. Some tapes are in better condition than others, and digitization is highly recommended to protect the content of the collection.

Container List: The collection is housed in four boxes – one document box and three oblong boxes. The document box houses folders assigned to each interviewee; each folder may contain signed consent forms (referred to in the inventory list as Permissions), indexes, notes, summaries, obituaries, and transcriptions, in addition to a brief biographical sketch on the individual. The cassette tapes are divided – alphabetically – among the three oblong boxes.

Inventory:

Box 1

Folder 1: Anonymous (1904 - )

- Permission

- Biography

- Index

- Interview notes

- Summary of tape

- 1 tape (Box 2)

Folder 2: Abbie Andrew (1897 – 1994)

- Permission

- Biography

- Obituary

- Information Sheet

- Index

- 1 tape (Box 2)

Folder 3: Dwight Kilton Andrew (1900 - )

- Permission

- Biography

- Information Sheet

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Maine Historical Society Coll. 1892

- Index

- 1 tape (Box 2)

Folder 4: Eva Orissa Curtis Bowering (1908 – 1995)

- Permission

- Biography

- Obituary

- Index

- Transcript (Excerpt)

- 1 tape (Box 2)

Folder 5: Roger Calderwood (1911 - )

- Permission

- Biography

- Information Sheet

- Index

- 1 tape (Box 2)

Folder 6: Mildred Cameron (1908 – 1994)

- Permission

- Biography

- Obituary

- Index

- Transcript (Excerpt)

- 2 tapes (Box 2)

Folder 7: Elizabeth Thomas Soule Chapman (1914 – 1989)

- Permission

- Biography

- Obituary

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Maine Historical Society Coll. 1892

- Index

- Transcript (Excerpt)

- 2 tapes (Box 2)

Folder 8: Barbara Cloutier (1900 - )

- Permission, with a stipulation

- Biography

- Information Sheet

- Index

- Transcript (Excerpt)

- 1 tape (Box 2)

Folder 9: Dorothy Mason Craig (1899 – 1989)

- Permission

- Biography

- Obituary

- Information Sheet

- Index

- 1 tape (Box 2)

Folder 10: Robert H. Cram (1904 - )

- Permission

- Biography

- Information Sheet

- Transcript (Excerpt)

- 1 tape (Box 2)

Folder 11: Mira Louise Dolley (1897 – 1994)

- Permission

- Biography

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Maine Historical Society Coll. 1892

- Obituary

- Information Sheet

- Index

- 1 tape (Box 2)

Folder 12: Helen Dwelley (1900 - )

- Permission

- Biography

- Information Sheet

- Index

- 1 tape (Box 2)

Folder 13: Abraham Gordon (1907 - )

- Permission

- Biography

- Information Sheet

- Transcript (Excerpt)

- 1 tape (Box 2)

Folder 14: Vergn Hewes (1889 – 1992)

- Biography

- Obituary

- Summary

- Transcript (Excerpt)

- NO Permission

- 2 tapes (Box 2)

Folder 15: Greta Kerr (1890 – 1984)

- Permission

- Biography

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Maine Historical Society Coll. 1892

- Obituary

- Information Sheet

- Index

- Transcript (Excerpt)

- 2 tapes (Box 3)

Folder 16: Dorothy LeButt (1905 - 1998)

- Permission

- Biography

- Information Sheet

- Index

- Transcript (Excerpt)

- 2 tapes (Box 3)

Folder 17: Sidney Levine (1912 - 1999)

- Permission

- Biography

- Obituary

- Information Sheet

- Index

- Transcript (Excerpt)

- 1 tape (Box 3)

Folder 18: Philip Milliken (1889 - )

- Permission

- Biography

- Information Sheet

- Index

- Transcript (Except - typed and handwritten)

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Maine Historical Society Coll. 1892

- 1 tape (Box 3)

Folder 19: Edward Norris (1908 – 1998)

- Permission

- Biography

- Obituary

- Information Sheet

- Index

- 1 tape (Box 3)

Folder 20: Katherine Norris (1901 – 1991)

- Permission

- Biography

- Obituary

- Information Sheet

- Index

- 2 tapes (Box 3)

Folder 21: Josephine O’Hare (1905 – 1995)

- Permission

- Biography

- Information Sheet

- Obituary

- Index

- Transcript Excerpt

- 5 tapes (Box 3)

Folder 22: Ruth Frances Nickerson Olesen (1902 – 1993)

- Permission

- Biography

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Maine Historical Society Coll. 1892

- Obituary

- Information Sheet

- Transcript Excerpt

- 2 tapes (Box 3)

Folder 23: Hilda Ives Palmer (1909 - )

- Permission

- Biography

- Information Sheet

- Index

- Transcript Excerpt

- 1 tape (Box 3)

Folder 24: Marian Brown Payson (1896 – 1993)

- Family Tree

- Permission

- Biography

- Transcript

- 1 tape (Box 3)

Folder 25: Frances Wilson Peabody (1903 - )

- Permission

- Biography

- Information Sheet

- Transcript Notes (Typed and handwritten)

- 1992 article

- 1 tape (Box 4)

Folder 26: Helen Hartley Pease (1896 – 1984)

- Permission

33

Maine Historical Society Coll. 1892

- Biography

- Obituary

- Notes (Handwritten and typed)

- 1 tape (Box 4)

Folder 27: Isabel K. Pease (1900 – 1990)

- Permission

- Biography

- Obituary

- Information Sheet

- Index

- Transcript Notes

- 2 tapes (Box 4)

Folder 28: Dorothy Plummer (1899 – 1994)

- Permission

- Biography

- Information Sheet

- Obituary

- Index

- 3 tapes (Box 4)

Folder 29: Elizabeth Ring (1902 - )

- Permission

- Biography

- Information Sheet

- Handwritten Biography

- Handwritten Notes

- Handwritten Index

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Maine Historical Society Coll. 1892

- 1 tape (Box 4)

Folder 30: Ruth Sawyer Smith (1893 – 1992)

- Permission

- Biography

- Obituary

- Information Sheet

- Index

- Handwritten Notes

- 1 tape (Box 4)

Folder 31: Dorothy Talbot (1897 - )

- Permission

- Biography

- Information Sheet

- Transcript Excerpt

- 1 tape (Box 4)

Folder 32: Jennie Thompson (1892 – 1989)

- Permission

- Biography

- Obituary

- Information Sheet

- Index

- Typed and handwritten notes

- 1 tape (Box 4)

Folder 33: Harvey Wallingford (1893 – 1987)

- Permission

- Biography

35

Maine Historical Society Coll. 1892

- Obituary

- Information Sheet

- Index

- Transcription

- 1 tape (Box 4)

Folder 34: Evelyn Frances Watson (1893 - )

- Permission

- Biography

- Information Sheet

- Index

- 2 tapes (Box 4)

Folder 35: Alice Skofield Whittier (1898 – 1994)

- Permission

- Biography

- Obituary

- Information Sheet

- Index

- Transcription

- 1917 article

- 1 tape (Box 4)

Folder 36: Alice Cutter Willman (1899 – 1989)

- Permission

- Biography

- Obituary

- Information Sheet

- Transcription

36

Maine Historical Society Coll. 1892

- Notes

- 1 tape (Box 4)

Box 2

Anonymous (1 tape)

Abbie Andrew (1 tape)

Dwight Kilton Andrew (1 tape)

Eva Orissa Curtis Bowering (1 tape)

Roger Calderwood (1 tape)

Mildred Cameron (2 tapes)

Elizabeth S. Chapman (2 tapes)

Barbara Cloutier (1 tape)

Dorothy Mason Craig (1 tape)

Robert Cram (1 tape)

Mira Dolley (1 tape)

Helen T. Dwelley (1 tape)

Abraham Gordon (1 tape)

Vergn E. Hewes (2 tapes)

Box 3

Greta Kerr (2 tapes)

Dorothy LeButt (2 tapes)

Sidney Levine (1 tape)

Philip Milliken (1 tape)

Edward Norris (1 tape)

Katherine Norris (2 tapes)

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Maine Historical Society Coll. 1892

Josephine O’Hare (5 tapes)

Ruth Olesen (2 tapes)

Hilda Palmer (1 tape)

Marian B. Payson (1 tape)

Box 4

Frances Peabody (1 tape)

Helen Pease (1 tape)

Isabel Pease (2 tapes)

Dorothy Plummer (3 tapes)

Elizabeth Ring (1 tape)

Ruth Smith (1 tape)

Dorothy Talbot (1 tape)

Jennie Thompson (1 tape)

Harvey Wallingford (1 tape)

Evelyn F. Waters (2 tapes)

Alice Whittier (1 tape)

Alice Willman (1 tape)

38