Charlie Alley: [0:00:00] The date is March the first, and we are at Lillian Huntley’s place, which is number nine in the Gaelic Square Apartments.

Bill Plaskon: [0:00:17] And it’s 2006.

CA: [0:00:19] In 2006, right. We’re interviewing Lillian Huntley. Lillian, would you tell us what day you were born and who your mother and father is?

LH: [0:00:34] I was born February 21, 1921. My parents were Ewart, E-W-A-R-T, and Mineola Beal Lenfesty, and she was the granddaughter of Tall Barney Beal. [Editor’s Note: Bernard Beal, also known as Tall Barney Beal, was a prominent figure from Beals Island, Maine, in the United States. He was known for his remarkable height, standing at around seven feet six inches tall. Beal gained local fame due to his towering stature, and he was often referred to as the “Giant of Beals Island.”]

CA: [0:00:52] Okay, now would you tell us Jimmy’s birthdate and his mother and father?

LH: [00:00:58] Jimmy was born –

CA: [00:01:01] July the [inaudible] –

LH: [0:01:02] – July 31, 1917. Phillip Huntley was born the 30th, I believe. Anyway, he was born the 31st, Jimmy was, I think. That’s what I got it.

CA: [0:01:16] Okay, where were you born, Lillian?

LH: [0:01:18] Well, of course, I was on Beals, but it was part of Jonesport because Beals and Jonesport weren’t separated until 1925.

CA: [0:01:28] About where were you born on Beals?

LH: [0:01:29] So, I was born out on Beals. Where?

CA: [0:01:30] Yeah, about approximately.

LH: [0:01:32] I was born in – well, I have to think because it was what we called the Aunt [inaudible] House. My parents lived there. That was over by the big white house as you go across the bridge; that was my grandmother’s house. I don’t know who owns it now.

CA: [0:01:49] As you go across the bridge from Beals to Jonesport now?

LH: [0:01:51] Yes. It’s a big white house.

CA: [0:01:54] Which side do the –? Which way do you turn when you go – the bridge?

LH: [0:01:57] When you go across the bridge, you turn left to see. There’s a big white house with an “L” on it. Jimmy and I were married in that house and started keeping house there. What we had for our first washbasin – there wasn’t any bathroom – we had an orange crate that we put our little washbasin on. I had the one bathroom in the house – not there.

CA: [0:02:35] Now, where did you live when you were growing up? Right in that same house, or did you live in a different one?

LH: [0:02:42] Well, now, growing up, we had – you know where [inaudible] Beal’s boat is now?

CA: [0:02:347] Yes.

LH: [0:02:48] That was where our home was when I was growing up. The reach used to freeze over. Do you remember when the reach froze over?

CA: [0:02:59] No, when I was born, it froze over those years.

LH: [0:03:01] Yeah, okay. Billy Peck, we called him. William Beal his name was, but he was the mailman. We used to sit there and watch him – the reach would freeze, and then there’d be a strip in the middle that would be open, and he’d take his dory, haul it out onto the ice, put it into the water with the little strip of water that was open, and then pull it out on the other side of the ice to go get the mail.

CA: [0:03:34] Now he lived just as you come off the bridge.

LH: [0:03:36] Yeah, he lived right next door to us.

CA: [0:03:38] If you didn’t turn left or right, you’d run into his house.

LH: [0:03:41] That’s right. We lived right next door to it, just coming this way.

CA: [0:03:44] Okay. Now, when did your father – didn’t you live up to the schoolhouse sometime? Your father owned some land up in there?

LH: [0:03:52] That was the old Lenfesty property.

CA: [0:03:54] That was the old Lenfesty. Oh, okay. [inaudible]

LH: [0:03:55] Yes, George owns that now. George owns that house now at Beals. Somebody owns the property. Well, she owns what we call the bungalow. I don’t know whether you’re familiar with that.

CA: [0:04:16] No.

LH: [0:04:17] Well, anyway, my father – that is the Lenfesty property – ran from that house – now, we’re talking about over at Beals by the edge of this church.

CA: [0:04:26] Now, that house is right – now, the house Ralph lives in right now is where the –?

LH: [0:04:31] No.

CA: [0:04:32] Oh, that’s not it.

LH: [0:04:32] No, no. (Joyce?) owns it. She bought the house, but she doesn’t own –

CA: [0:04:36] Oh, she owns that, too.

LH: [0:04:37] She only owns the white house. The rest of it is this woman, as I say, that owns the property from – (Joyce?) owns just where the house is. Then there’s a big field that goes out of there.

CA: [0:04:51] It was a lot of land with it one time.

LH: [0:04:52] I was going to say. Yes, I was going to tell you about that land. The Lenfesty property went from that house up by – you know where the Adventist church is over there.

CA: [0:05:03] Yes.

LH: [0:05:04] Right out around, right to the ocean, and right straight down around the flying place, and that was every bit the Lenfesty property.

CA: [0:05:16] That was quite a chunk of land.

LH: [0:05:18] Yes, it was. Yep.

CA: [0:05:21] Now, is that lady only one [inaudible] now, too? Or most of it?

LH: [0:05:24] Yes, she owns –

CA: [0:05:26] I’ve heard them say her name, but I can’t remember.

LH: [0:05:28] I [inaudible] –

CA: [0:05:30] Can’t remember.

LH: [0:05:31] If I felt well, I might remember it, but I can’t remember it.

CA: [0:05:33] Now, was your grandfather born in Gurney?

LH: [0:05:36] Guernsey.

CA: [0:05:37] Guernsey.

LH: [0:05:37] In the English channel. He was French.

CA: [0:05:39] Okay, and he was born there.

LH: [0:05:41] He was born there. Yes. He left there on a sailing ship when he was twelve years old and never did go back to the island of Guernsey.

CA: [0:05:49] Now, he went to Head Harbor. What possessed him to go to Head Harbor?

LH: [0:05:52] Well, because that’s where my grandma – that’s where they lived. Everybody lived on Head Harbor.

CA: [0:05:56] Yeah, but he wasn’t married then. How’d he get –?

LH: [0:05:59] No, he was on the sailing ship, I told you. The ship stopped there because there was a store there, that is, a little one, and there was a school and a church on Head Harbor when my grandmother lived there. She was married to Ernest Kelley’s grandfather.

CA: [0:06:18] Yep, Leaman Kelley.

LH: [0:06:19] He was drowned. They had Uncle Anson and a daughter. She died of a nosebleed. Right? She bled to death.

CA: [0:06:30] I know she died young.

LH: [0:06:32] She bled to death.

CA: [0:06:33] And are both buried down to Graveyard Point.

LH: [0:06:35] I didn’t know where they were buried.

CA: [0:06:39] Now, your grandfather married Sylvia.

LH: [0:06:43] Yes.

CA: [0:06:44] Where did they live first?

LH: [0:06:46] On Head Harbor in the beginning.

CA: [0:06:47] They lived down to Head Harbor for a while.

LH: [0:06:48] Yes.

CA: [0:06:53] And then they moved up, and he bought this piece of land.

LH: [0:06:55] Yes.

CA: [0:06:56] A big piece of land. Now, what did your grandfather do for a living?

LH: [0:06:59] Farmer.

CA: [0:06:59] He was a farmer?

LH: [0:07:00] Yeah, I have a picture Almena had of him with his horse cart. I should find it.

[RECORDING PAUSED]

CA: [0:07:10] Now, he had quite a big family over there, didn’t he? Your grandfather?

LH: [0:07:15] Six.

CA: [0:07:15] Six of them, yeah.

LH: [0:07:19] It was Uncle Anson because that was the – who’s the oldest in the family? That’s awful.

CA: [0:07:29] Well, that’s okay. I can’t remember that stuff either.

LH: [0:07:32] My father was the youngest one, I know that. He went on the lakes when he was sixteen years old. He went on the lakes.

CA: [0:07:42] Oh, he did? Which one? The Great Lakes?

LH: [0:07:44] Yeah.

CA: [0:07:44] What did he go on?

LH: [0:07:46] I don’t know.

CA: [0:07:46] You don’t know?

LH: [0:07:47] No.

CA: [0:07:50] Now, he didn’t get married until after he came back, though?

LH: [0:07:54] Right.

CA: [0:07:54] Because he was single when he was on the Great Lakes.

LH: [0:07:55] Yes, that’s right.

CA: [0:07:59] Now, who did he marry? Who did your father marry?

LH: [0:08:03] My father?

CA: [0:08:04] Yeah. Was it Mineola?

LH: [0:08:05] Married Mineola Beal. She was Tall Barney’s granddaughter. See, because my grandmother was Tall Barney’s daughter. So, Grampy Barney was my mother’s grandfather.

CA: [0:08:27] I’ve found some cards of my grandmother’s down there, some of them addressed to my grandmother, and Mineola sent them. I presume it must have been Mineola, but I don’t know how she knew my grandmother.

LH: [0:08:41] That’s the only Mineola that there ever was, as far as I know.

CA: [0:08:43] I got two, three cards addressed from Mineola.

LH: [0:08:46] Your grandmother, what’s her name?

CA: [0:08:47] She was Lizzie (Reynolds?) at that time. She lived on Head Harbor.

LH: [0:08:55] That’s the only Mineola there was around here, that I ever knew.

CA: [0:08:58] Now, what did your father do for work after he came back from the Great Lakes?

LH: [0:09:02] Well, that was before he was married that he was on the Great Lakes. But he went seining with a crew. I don’t know whether you’re familiar with the word seining or not, but they used to go.

CA: [0:09:16] Yes.

BP: [0:09:17] Yes.

LH: [0:09:18] He and (M.I.?) Peabody had a two-masted schooner that they used to go from here to Portland with potatoes.

CA: [0:09:28] Potatoes?

LH: [0:09:29] Yep. And sardines.

CA: [0:09:31] Yeah. Where would he pick the potatoes up here [inaudible]?

LH: [0:09:34] I don’t know whether somebody raised them.

CA: [0:09:37] I don’t know.

LH: [0:09:38] But then they would bring back cookies, these big cartwheel cookies.

CA: [0:09:43] Oh, they come in barrels.

LH: [0:09:44] Yes, they came in barrels. There’d be some broken in the stores where they went. We loved to get those cartwheel cookies.

CA: [0:09:52] I remember them. When I was a kid, you could buy them in the store.

LH: [0:09:56] Yes. We didn’t have that much because my father – there were eight of us in the family. I haven’t told you that yet, have I?

CA: [0:10:03] Nope.

LH: [0:10:03] I was the oldest of eight. There are seven of us still alive. My sister Lavonne is the only one who’s died. My oldest brother has had the stroke – Chester. So he’s an invalid.

CA: [0:10:20] Oh, he is? I didn’t realize that.

LH: [0:10:22] Yeah. At my birthday party, the six of us sang. So that was a special birthday party.

BP: [0:10:32] You said that was on the –?

LH: [0:10:34] The nineteenth.

BP: [0:10:35] The nineteenth of this month, February.

CA: [0:10:38] That was before your birthday.

LH: [0:10:39] Yeah. They had it early. My granddaughter-in-law, Gordon’s wife – very thoughtful. She planned it.

CA: [0:10:47] Okay. Who did your father go seining with, or don’t you remember?

LH: [0:10:52] Who did he go seining with?

CA: [0:10:53] If you don’t remember, it’s okay.

LH: [0:10:57] No, I don’t, but I know he didn’t earn much money. If he had enough to pay – we used to get our groceries charged down at Perio Point. That was a grocery store.

CA: [0:11:08] Who owned the grocery store at that time?

LH: [0:11:09] Uncle Fred Beal. Now, he was my grandmother’s brother. (Erwin?) Alley used to clerk there before he was married. (Erwin?) Alley married my cousin. He knows him. [inaudible]

CA: [0:11:21] Yes. I know who you mean.

LH: [0:11:23] I got to tell you this little story; it’s part of my life.

CA: [0:11:26] Well, that’s part of the interviews.

LH: [0:11:27] Yeah, right. Because we didn’t have any money, if he got enough money to pay his store bill, she charged the groceries. If he got enough money to pay the store bill, that was it at the end of the year, at the end of the season. So, my mother – now, I was little – can’t tell you how old, but you’ll know I was quite little when I tell you the story. She told me to go up store and get some groceries. She had the list. I said, “I want a penny.” She said, “I don’t have the penny.” She wasn’t lying; she didn’t have the penny. But I held off, didn’t want to go. She kept telling me to go. After a while, I said, “If there’s any pennies back, can I have one?” She said, “Yes. If there’s any pennies back, you can have one.” I can hear her right now because [inaudible]. So, I went down and gave (Erwin?) the grocery list and waited a little while. It dawned on me. I said, “(Erwin?), if you don’t bring any money with you, there ain’t no pennies back, is there?” He said, “No.” So, he gave me a piece of candy, and he called me “pennies back” for the longest while. [laughter]

CA: [0:12:44] [laughter] Now, in your father’s later life, didn’t he go on sardine boats?

LH: [0:12:49] Yes, he did.

CA: [0:12:50] Quite a lot?

LH: [0:12:51] Yes. That’s what I say. He ran that –

CA: [0:12:55] Yeah, he was on the schooner. But then, from there, he went on sardine boats, didn’t he? Who’d he go with?

LH: [0:13:00] Yes. Was that with M.I.? Was that when he –? M.I. Peabody?

CA: [0:13:06] Did he go with Marshall Kelley sometime?

LH: [0:13:09] Marshall, yes, he did. Yes, he did. That was Chester that went on the [inaudible]. I was thinking the [inaudible], but that was Chester and Verlon that went on the [inaudible].

CA: [0:13:18] Yeah, I was thinking he went with Marshall. Sometimes Marshall. Marshall had quite a few different sardine boats.

LH: [0:13:23] Yep, you’re right. I’m not remembering, especially now that I’ve got this problem.

CA: [0:13:29] Oh, you’re doing fine. Where did you go to school, Lillian?

LH: [0:13:38] I went to Beals Elementary School. It was down by where the town office is now. And there were – let’s see. There was one junior when we graduated, and there were four seniors. I was valedictorian. We used to take an eighth-grade entrance test. Now, I’m bragging. It’s part of my life.

CA: [0:14:08] I can remember. I took it, too.

LH: [0:14:10] Yeah. When I took that eighth-grade entrance test, my grade was either four or six months. I got the record somewhere because I found it just a little while ago and showed it to Matthew, one of my great-grandsons. I tested either four or six months in the tenth grade, and I was an eighth grader. I’m bragging.

CA: [0:14:35] [laughter] Well, you’ve got to brag because there’s no one else around there then to brag for you.

LH: [0:14:39] That’s right.

CA: [0:14:40] They’re all gone from then.

LH: [0:14:41] Now, Harry Crowley Jr.’s alive. Two of them are dead. Two of us are dead. But Harry Jr. – and I’ve got a picture of our fiftieth alumni, the two of us. He was a professor at Bates College. That’s what he did.

CA: [0:15:02] Now, how was it like growing up on Beals? Was there much going on?

LH: [0:15:09] There was an ice-skating pond. Again, that’s up where the town office is. You remember where the big – there was a big pond and a little pond.

CA: [0:15:16] No, I don’t remember the ponds. I remember the town office. I remember the schoolhouse.

LH: [0:15:20] Yeah. Of course, there were no refrigerators. And Uncle Charles Henry Beals, again, was my grandmother’s brother, a Tall Barney son. He used to cut that ice in the big pond. He would cut all these great big blocks of ice, almost big as that stand, and take them up. That building is still there, up by where – I don’t know who lives there now. Esten Jr. used to live there. On the Ralph Alley property, on Ralph’s wharf, on the other side, there’s a big old building. That was an icehouse where he would keep these great big blocks of ice as long as he could. Because bought got fish – codfish, haddock, or whatever. You could eat anything then. They won’t let you eat it now. Won’t let you catch it even. That’s what he used to – well, of course, use some of them as they were. Then, they would split them and dry them, and weren’t they good? [inaudible] Newell Pendleton.

CA:[0:16:31] I remember the name.

LH: [0:16:32] Newell Pendleton used to dry them on the wharf that Ralph Alley owns now, on that big wharf. He’d have those big flakes of fish out there drying. Those codfish.

CA: [0:16:45] Who owned that wharf that Ralph’s got –?

LH: [0:16:47] Jerome Alley.

CA: [0:16:48] Jerome Alley. Jerome Crowley had it, I remember.

LH: [0:16:52] Yeah. Jerome Alley was his grandson. Yes. Weren’t they good? But this big ice pond – you was [asking] about what we did when we were children. We used to go skating on that in the wintertime because we were poorer than – talk about poorer than Job’s turkey. We were poorer than Job’s turkey. But my grandmother, bless her heart, was very thoughtful. After my grandfather died, I used to live with her – stay with her nights and during the day and whatever. I wanted a pair of skates for Christmas. They were four dollars. Of course, Mama couldn’t buy them. So, Grammy brought me those skates for four dollars.

CA: [0:17:41] That was a lot of money in those days.

LH: [0:17:43] Yes, it was.

CA: [0:17:45] Lillian, I think in those days, most people were poor, but I don’t think –

LH: [0:17:48] We didn’t know it.

CA: [0:17:49] You didn’t realize it.

LH: [0:17:50] No, we didn’t know we were poor.

CA: [0:17:50] Because everyone else was in the same boat.

LH: [0:17:52] That’s right. Was as happy as could be. FDR [Franklin Delano Roosevelt] was the best president we ever had, as far as I’m concerned. Because he started the WPA [Works Progress Administration], and that was the best job my father ever had. He worked down at Quoddy. They started to do something down there, but they didn’t finish it. We could work in the school system for – I think it was – I know I got six dollars a month. It was a dollar and a quarter a week that I could – a dollar and a half a week. Yes. Twenty-five cents an hour is what I was thinking it was. The wage now – what year did it start? Do you know?

CA: [0:18:37] No, I don’t.

LH: [0:18:38] I think it was ’38.

CA: [0:18:39] I really [inaudible] –

LH: [0:18:40] Because I was working in the sardine factory. When I was in the eighth grade, I started working the sardine factory. You could work. There wasn’t any age limit then. When it started, I think it was 1938, and I graduated in 1938 and wanted to go to college. But as I say, there was no student loans. I was the oldest of eight children. There’s just no way and no bridge from Beals Island. So, there was no way I could go to college. So, I got married. Then, after my daughter got married and my son went to vocational school – now, he’s vice president of a bank right now. But he went to electrician’s school, and I went back to college after I’d been out of high school twenty-six years. Yes. And I taught school four or five years. Then they needed an administrator at the little church-sponsored nursing home, which is now – well, it’s the same location, but it’s a different nursing home.  They built onto it and all. So, I got my administrator’s license and was administrator of that nursing home for six years. Do you remember that?

CA: [0:20:12] I do. Where did you meet Jimmy? You married him in the meantime.

LH: [0:20:19] Jimmy was in the CCC [Civilian Conservation Corps]. And that was an FDR program, of course, for young men. They had to send twenty-five dollars a month – I think they got five dollars a month to keep. Of course, that was a lot of money in those days. They had to send twenty-five dollars home to some relative. Then, he went – Uncle (Ferman?) Beal – you remember him? He was one of my uncles. He went in the service, and Jimmy tended his lobster traps for a while. So then, as I say, he was drafted in [inaudible]. What year was that? Well, I’m ahead on the story a little bit. As I say, he was in the CCCs. He’d come home weekends. I used to see him on weekends because I had to go over to the farm after the milk, and he’d stay down by this bird rock. That’s where we used to sit. I’ve got a picture of it, sitting on the bird rock – seat rock. He would stay and wait until I went up and got the milk. Then we would just walk around, and he was only home on weekends. Then, after I graduated in ’38, as I say, I couldn’t go to college, so we got married. Then, he went in the service in ’44. He went in the service in ’44, and he was in there two years. Then he came home, got a gang of traps, and went lobster fishing.

CA: [0:22:37] Now, when did you buy your house on –?

LH: [0:22:39] Over at Beals or Jonesport?

CA: [0:22:40] No, in Jonesport. What year was that?

LH: [0:22:42] In ’52.

CA: [0:22:43] What street is that on?

LH: [0:22:46] Ocean Street.

CA: [0:22:46] Ocean Street, okay.

LH: [0:22:48] Now, we lived there fifty-two years. Did we move there? I [should] have written this down, shouldn’t I?

CA: [0:22:55] That’s okay. You went there 1952. That’d be about right.

LH: [0:23:00] We lived there fifty-two years.

CA: [0:23:01] That’d be 2004, and then you sold it.

LH: [0:23:03] Hmm?

CA: [0:23:04] That’d be somewhere near right.

LH: [0:23:06] Whenever, yeah. Whatever.

CA: [0:23:15] Now, Jimmy went lobstering from the time you moved over there for those fifty-two years. At least all of that time?

LH: [0:23:25] Yes. I have a great-grandson, one of them – (Sean?) Kelley – went with them for a while. Well, he did a seminar for U of M [University of Maine] in Orono. Then they told him – Jimmy couldn’t go alone even then. They told him if he would – (Sean?) this is – told him that if he would come and work for them, they would pay him to finish his college education. Right now, he’s in South Carolina, a supervisor for International Pulp and Paper. That’s where (Sean?) is.

CA: [0:24:12] Now, you and Jimmy – didn’t you run a restaurant once, too?

LH: [0:24:18] Yes, we did.

CA: [0:24:19] Now, was that before the nursing home or after?

LH: [0:24:23] That was before.

CA: [0:24:28] Now, did you own it, or was you just running it for someone else?

LH: [0:24:32] I bought it. I bought it. Because here, again, religion has been a part of life. I don’t know how much I’m supposed to talk about religion, but it’s always been a big part of my life. We believe in our church in the RLDS [Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints] church it was then; it’s now COC [Church of Christ]. I never joined the COC church. But we believed in paying our tithing, a tenth of increase, not a tenth of earnings, a tenth of our increase. So, I owed because Jimmy didn’t join the church until later in his life. But when this happened, I said, “I’d like to buy that restaurant to pay my back tithing.” That’s what I wanted to do. Because I say I had paid a little bit from the time I was eight years old. We [inaudible] a tithing statement which we were supposed to. I owed $1,549 dollars back tithing. So, that’s what I bought the restaurant for, to pay my back tithing. I kept it two years, but it wasn’t a part of lobster fishing. He thought he had to be down there at half past four in the morning. We’d go down – he’d would. He’d go down. I didn’t go down at half past four. And set up before he went to haul, make the coffee, set the mugs out on the counter, leave the door unlocked. The fishermen would go in there, or anyone who wanted to – would go in there and have their coffee and leave their dime. It was ten cents a cup, and they’d leave the dime outside the cup. You couldn’t do that now, could you?

CA: [0:26:17] No, You wouldn’t break even. [laughter]

BP: [0:26:19] Where was the restaurant?

CA: [0:26:21] Oh, never asked you. Go ahead and tell him where you had it.

LH: [0:26:23] It’s across from – it burned. Remember when they –? It was the (Roger’s Plot?) [inaudible] Church.

CA: [0:26:31] [inaudible] Church right across from where John Church is now. That blocked that burned – it was in the western end of that block.

LH: [0:26:38] Yeah, but it was both sides of the road, the block. See, there was a little drugstore on one end of it. There was two buildings there, one on each side of the road, where John Church’s is. Then, on the other side, was where the restaurant was and the IGA store.

CA: [0:26:58] Yeah, the IGA and then the restaurant. George Harmon used to have a drugstore there.

LH: [0:27:05] That’s right.

CA: [0:27:06] But that drugstore was closed when you had the restaurant.

LH: [0:27:08] Yes, but that’s where it was, on the main street in Jonesport.

CA: [0:27:15] You say you only ran that for two years.

LH: [0:27:17] Two years. And it [inaudible] part of Jimmy’s lobster fishing, so I sold it.

CA: [0:27:22] Seems if you had it longer than that, though.

LH: [0:27:26] No, I didn’t.

CA: [0:27:25] [inaudible] believe you.

LH: [0:27:26] No, I didn’t. At the end of the two years – because I paid good wages. I wasn’t familiar with the restaurant business. And these girls that had worked there, I paid them. They made good money because I paid them a wage, and they got all the tips, too. And I didn’t realize that waitresses get a lot of their money in tips. So, they had more money than I did. But anyway, when I got done, I cleared $1,549.

CA: [0:27:56] [inaudible] just about break even.

LH: [0:27:57] Yeah, I had forty-nine dollars for the two years with that. [laughter] That was all right.

CA: [0:28:03] Now, after you got done there, how long before you took over the nursing home?

LH: [0:28:10] What did you ask me?

CA: [0:28:11] How long before you took over administrating [inaudible]?

LH: [0:28:14] I took over [as] administrator in 1974 and had it until 1980. And then, because I had taught school four or five years in the meantime, and I was gettings sixty dollars – no, I started at forty-nine dollars pension with my teaching. It was free with my teaching retirement. I took retirement at sixty. Then, I wanted to increase it, so I went back to work for the Department of [Health] and Human Services and stayed there six years. I’ve been jack of all trades. I hope master of some of them. I don’t know if any of them I failed in, tell you the truth.

CA: [0:29:03] Now, before that was a nursing home, didn’t Chester Gray have that as a rooming house?

LH: [0:29:07] Yes, he did. But then when we went there, Jimmy was maintenance person there because we lived right on the end of the street where the – well, it’s where the nursing home is now. It was Rest Haven then. It was called Rest Haven. We lived right on the end of the street, and he was the maintenance person. They’d call him out in the middle of the night anytime. He didn’t mind. He did it. Then, as I say, when Marshall and Gertrude got done, we took it over.

CA: [0:29:39] Oh, Marshall was the administrator before you?

LH: [0:29:41] Yeah, Marshall.

CA: [0:29:44] Now, that building, what was that before Chester took it over? Do you know? I can’t remember.

LH: [0:29:51] Yeah, it was a rooming house.

CA: [0:29:53] Even before Chester took it?

LH: [0:29:54] Yes.

CA: [0:29:55] Who had it before Chester? Do you remember?

LH: [0:29:57] Oh, a woman. Her name was Norma, but I can’t tell you what her last name was. It was a woman and her mother that ran it for a while before Chester took it.

CA: [0:30:08] Now, what did they do? Tear that down when they built the other building for Sunrise?

LH: [0:30:16] Did they?

CA: [0:30:17] Oh, what is that? That isn’t there now, or is part of it there?

LH: [0:30:20] Part of it’s there. When it was church-sponsored, Bill Guthrie – you remember that – he was one of the missionaries.

CA: [0:30:27] Yes, I remember Guthrie.

LH: [0:30:29] He built onto it. Jimmy helped him. They built onto it. But did that burn?

CA: [0:30:37] No, I don’t think it burned.

LH: [0:30:39] No, it didn’t burn. It must have –

CA: [0:30:40] Just must have renovated it somehow.

LH: [0:30:43] Yeah, I guess so. But I know we built on sections so that we can have more patients than [inaudible] –

CA: [0:30:48] Yeah, now you’ve got them all on one floor.

LH: [0:30:51] Yeah, we had patients on that –

CA: [0:30:52] Oh, I know now. On that eastern end was [inaudible] – that’s where dining room is and the administrator’s room is where you go up there now [inaudible]. You go upstairs to see him.

LH: [0:31:04] Yeah, there was patients up there then.

CA: [0:31:06] Yeah, but now it’s all on one floor.

LH: [0:31:07] Yes. They did build onto it.

CA: [0:31:14] And then, what did you do after you got done being the administrator?

LH: [0:31:20] I got done being an administrator. I went to the Department – worked for the Department [of] Human Services –

CA: [0:31:25] Oh, that’s right. You said for six years.

LH: [0:31:26] – to build up my retirement. I worked there six years. While I was over at college, they needed an eighth-grade school teacher in Harrington. So I taught school for a year and then went back and got my degree. So, I got my degree in 1969.

BP: [0:31:48] From which college?

LH: [0:31:50] Washington State it was then. Machias.

BP: [0:31:53] Okay, Machias.

LH: [0:31:54] Yes. I think your sister –

CA: [0:31:56] My sister rode with you.

LH: [0:31:57] We commuted.

CA: [0:31:58] Yeah, she rode with you.

LH: [0:31:59] Yeah, she went with me. Donna.

CA: [0:32:03] Yeah. Now, after you got done being administrator, did you – that’s just last time you worked out? Yes, you haven’t told us the whole thing. You used to make donuts.

LH: [0:32:17] Oh, land. I make donuts all my life. That was the beginning, Charlie. We got to [inaudible] this story. As I say, we’ve always been – religion’s always been a part of our life. We used to have up at Brooksville Campground – the COC church owns it now, I believe. I really don’t know who owns it. But it was [inaudible] campground. Jimmy and I – we used to get surplus food. Do you remember when they used to get surplus food?

CA: [0:32:50] I remember when they had surplus food.

LH: [0:32:51] Oh, didn’t I love that surplus food? We’d get butter and lard and flour.

CA: [0:32:56] And cheese.

LH: [0:32:57] And sugar and cheese and peanut butter. Oh, I loved to get that government surplus food. At church camp, is when we got it. I didn’t get it at home, but we got it up at church camp. I would have some fun cooking with it. We used to have two hundred people staying there.

CA: [0:33:13] Yeah, I remember it.

LH: [0:33:14] And three hundred people on Sunday. But they had tents. We used to have [inaudible] up there we called “tent city” because there were so many tents there.

CA: [0:33:23] I’ve been there before.

LH: [0:33:24] Yes, sir. That was the best part of our life, really.

CA: [0:33:27] Do you remember the name of the lake it’s on?

LH: [0:33:30] Winneagwanauk.

CA: [0:33:31] That’s right. It’s a hard name to pronounce.

LH: [0:33:33] It’s an Indian name. It means “living waters,” “pretty water,” or something to do with water. Winneagwanauk. It’s at Brooksville. Still, I miss it if I don’t get up there even now.

CA: [0:33:47] Okay. Now, when did you start making these donuts and pies and biscuits?

LH: [0:33:51] Oh, I’ve made donuts forever. I’ve made donuts forever. That’s what we used to do in the wintertime.

CA: [0:33:59] But then you started putting them around to some stores and selling them.

LH: [0:34:03] Not donuts.

CA: [0:34:04] Didn’t you put donuts?

LH: [0:34:05] No, I didn’t put – I put pies and biscuits. I never did put donuts in the stores, though we used to sell them.

CA: [0:34:12] I thought you sold them.

LH: [0:34:14] We did sell them. That’s what we’d do in the wintertime is make donuts. We didn’t make too many pies when Jimmy was around. That was after he died that I made the pies.

CA: [0:34:26] Starting making pies?

LH: [0:34:27] Yes.

CA: [0:34:31] How many different kinds did you make to put in the store?

LH: [0:34:33] Three kinds. Sliced pumpkin, homemade mincemeat – I wouldn’t make mincemeat unless it was made out of moose or deer meat – and apple was the three kinds of pies I made. The sliced pumpkin was the favorite.

CA: [0:34:47] Is that right?

LH: [0:34:48] That’s a local pie. You’ve probably never heard of it, did you? I don’t know whether you’ve had it or not.

BP: [0:34:52] Not sliced pumpkin.

LH: [0:34:53] But it’s good.

CA: [0:34:54] That was my grandfather’s favorite pie.

LH: [0:34:56] Mine too. Mine too.

CA: [0:34:57] My son likes it – Jason. He likes the sliced pumpkin pie.

LH: [0:35:00] Yeah, yeah. I’ve got a big pumpkin over there that I’ve had ever since before Thanksgiving. I haven’t got to doing the pie yet.

CA: [0:35:07] You better get it before it spoils.

LH: [0:35:10] I hope not before I’m spoiled.

CA: [0:35:13] Then you used to make biscuits, didn’t you, too, to sell?

LH: [0:35:15] Yeah, I used to put those in the IGA. Oh, I couldn’t make enough biscuits to keep them going in the IGA.

CA: [0:35:21] Now, people used to come around to your house to get your donuts, then?

LH: [0:35:24] Yeah. We would take them up to the school. The schoolteachers would order them. Take them up to the elementary school. On the weekend, usually is when would take them up there on a Friday. They’d have orders for them. We took [inaudible] twenty-two dozen a week up there.

CA: [0:35:41] That’s a lot [inaudible].

BP: [0:35:43] How long has the IGA been in existence, do you know?

LH: [0:35:47] Since ’52, I believe.

BP: [0:35:48] ’52.

CA: [0:35:49] Never that long, has it? No, [inaudible] town.

LH: [0:35:52] It was an opera house.

CA: [0:35:54] It was an opera house. When I was a kid, it was an opera house. Then, (Bert?) bought it. He operated it a few years. He had it for a little bit of everything. Then, the IGA took it over. It’s probably been here twenty-five, thirty years anyway. We used to have an IGA in town. Bill Church was [inaudible] IGA, down the same block as the restaurant she was in. Okay. Now, there’s one thing else you haven’t told me about. Your May baskets. That’s got to go on here.

LH: [0:36:23] He’s got a tape of that.

CA: [0:36:24] Well, that’s alright. We want it on this tape.

LH: [0:36:26] Oh, you want me telling about it?

CA: [0:36:28] Telling about – sure – what you did. You ain’t got to tell us how you made them, but you got to tell us how you started and what you did.

LH: [0:36:35] Well, [inaudible] Alley used to make them, and he would go down to the shore – Morris would – and get the little boxes. They didn’t have the school milk boxes, but he would go down there and get quart milk boxes.

CA: [0:36:54] The ones that drifted in from the tide?

LH: [0:36:55] You could throw everything away. You could throw [inaudible] in the ocean then. So, he’d go down and gather them up, bring them up, and she’d cut them. But when I started, she said – when she got done, she said, “I think you and Leona” – and Leona Kelley belonged to the church. Leona Clark she was then. She lived next door to me. She said, “I should think that you” – (Bea?) did. “I think you and Leona would make them and make money for the church.” They used to decorate the school with paper. They can’t now. But they used to have a couple hundred dollars’ worth of paper. That was cheap then. So, there was a lot of paper.

BP: [0:37:41] That was crepe paper?

LH: [0:37:42] Yes. They could decorate for graduation.

CA: [0:37:43] Yeah. Just about the same width that she needed.

LH: [0:37:46] Yeah. So, we made one year seven hundred big ones and seventeen hundred small ones. But now, it’s kind of died. People aren’t doing it anymore as much.

CA: [0:37:56] What did you get for them when you first started? Can you remember?

LH: [0:38:03] I know not over twenty-five cents. Probably, it was less than that. But up at the bank where my son works, there’s a girl – the little milk boxes that they get from school now is what I used and is what she used. She sold them for a dollar and a quarter, the little ones, last year, and she couldn’t make them fast enough. I made over four hundred last year, so they’re still using some.

CA: [0:38:31] Are you going to make them this year, Lillian?

LH: [0:38:33] Yeah. When I need to.

CA: [0:38:34] You started yet?

LH: [0:38:35] No, because I had some left last year. First time I ever had any left. No, I’ve been into quilts right now. I’m doing my quilts.

CA: [0:38:41] You told me you’re making quilts the other day.

LH: [0:38:43] Yeah, I’m doing my quilts now. I’ll tell you that’s been a – when my two older great grandsons – well, not the oldest ones, but the ones – Gordon’s boys that are in – one of them is in vocational school now in Calais. The other one’s in high school. So, when they went on their eighth-grade class trip, I made them a quilt, and they sold it on tickets to earn money for the class trip. So, now I have an eighth grader, and he reminded me that I made them a quilt, so I made him a quilt. So, they have that on tickets now. They’ve sold – well, the last I heard – between two hundred and fifty and three hundred dollars’ worth, and they’re still selling them. (Bethanie’s?) in charge of that.

CA: [0:39:30] I’m sure they’ll do pretty well [inaudible] that.

LH: [0:39:32] They’ll get a good thing on their class trip. But here again, I did – there’s a picture there of two of my great-granddaughters, and I made them a quilt for Christmas. See those girls wrapped up? And then this great-grandson is the one who wanted me – the great-grandson in the picture – he’s in vocational school. Their mother told me, “They use them every day. They wrap up in them, watch TV.” And then my great grandson said to me quite a while ago, long before Christmas, because I had to quit and [inaudible] them. And he said, “I have two favors I’d like to ask of you. I would like to borrow your car for a week” because his was broken down, “and I’d like to have a blue quilt.” So, I’ve got his blue quilt almost all done. Well, I’ve been sick, so I haven’t done anything for a couple of weeks. I’d like to show you that quilt. Can I? Or don’t you want to see it?

[RECORDING PAUSED]

CA: [0:40:39] Hey, I think you’re stepping on it. [laughter]

LH: [0:40:41] Am I?

CA: [0:40:41] No, you’re not.

LH: [0:40:42] No, no.

BP: [0:40:43] No.

CA: [0:40:44] [inaudible] put it there.

LH: [0:40:46] You never saw anything like that before probably.

CA: [0:40:48] You see that okay, Bill?

BP: [0:40:49] Yeah, I have it. How long have you been working on that?

LH: [0:40:54] Oh, it takes a long time. Takes a long time. I have to take these bottoms, our old sheets, and I cut those out a certain size. Then, I cut these strips, all three inches and a half, and then put them together, but it gives me something to do, and I can’t do much of anything else. It turns out pretty, I think.

CA: [0:41:19] Yeah, it looks good. [RECORDING PAUSED] Okay, now, where was Jimmy born?

LH: [0:41:25] Jimmy was born on Grand Manan Island.

CA: [0:41:28] Oh, he was born on Grand Manan?

LH: [0:41:30] Yes, but his birth [inaudible] Kelley said that he was born in Jonesport so he could get into CCCs because he was a poor kid that needed help. So, [inaudible] Kelley put on his birth certificate [that] he was born in Jonesport, but he was born on Grand Manan because that’s where his mother came from.

CA: [0:41:56] His mother and father –

LH: [0:41:58] His father’s from Jonesport. He went over there to get him out of the war – Raymond did.

CA: [0:42:04] Oh, Raymond did?

LH: [0:42:05] His father.

CA: [0:42:06] Now, where did he meet his wife? He met her over there while he was over there?

LH: [0:42:09] Yeah.

CA: [0:42:12] What did his father do for a living?

LH: [0:42:15] He worked in Underwood’s Factory.

CA: [0:42:17] Yes, I remember now, them telling about working up there.

LH: [0:42:20] How neat he was. [laughter]

CA: [0:42:21] Yes. There’s a story about that, Bill, if you want to put it on there. They said that Raymond is someone that is so neat he wouldn’t have a bit of dirt on him. So, he climbed up on this ladder one day, and they thought they’d have some fun with him. Well, they used mustard in the sardines, so someone put some mustard on the rungs going up where he had to come down by. They don’t know how he ever did it, but he got down by without getting the mustard on him. They don’t know how he did it.

LH: [0:42:50] Yeah, he was neat. Jimmy was, too.

CA: [0:42:52] Jimmy picked it right up; he inherited it.

BP: [0:42:55] Who is Raymond?

CA: [0:42:56] His father.

BP: [0:42:57] Jimmy’s father?

CA: [0:42:57] Raymond Huntley is Jimmy’s father.

LH: [0:42:59] Yes. His mother’s name was Eva Wilcox.

CA: [0:43:06] Now, I got her down here. That’s probably what she went by. But I got her down here as Victoria.

LH: [0:43:11] No, that was her half-sister (Vicki?). She came over here to take care of Jimmy’s mother.

CA: [0:43:18] What do you know, that’s who’s –

LH: [0:43:20] Victoria was his stepmother, but he came over here –

CA: [0:43:26] How long did he live in Grand Manan?

LH: [0:43:28] How long?

CA: [0:43:30] His people. How long before they moved back?

LH: [0:43:35] Lester Alley told me about it – if I can remember. He came over on a boat, a kind of boat with Lester Alley. It was a sardine boat or something.

CA: [0:43:52] Oh, smack probably. Probably lobster smack.

LH: [0:43:54] Lobster smack. Yeah, right. He told how seasick that Jimmy’s mother was coming over. Victoria – (Vicki?) they called her – was her half-sister. She came over here to take care of her because she was sick when they brought her from Canada. She was sick. So, (Vicki?) came.

CA: [0:44:14] And so she was a sister.

LH: [0:44:16] Half-sister.

CA: [0:44:18] A half-sister to Eva.

LH: [0:44:21] To Eva. Half-sister to Eva. Yeah. Winslow. They had two – Winslow and Clarence. They had two children, Raymond and Victoria. Winslow is still alive, lives in Kansas City.

CA: [0:44:36] Okay. They had two children.

LH: [0:44:39] Yeah. Clarence died in 1946, I believe when Jimmy was getting out of the service.

CA: [0:44:48] Well, he must have got out of the service ’46. He wasn’t in very long.

LH: [0:44:49] Yep, you’re right. He went in ’44. He went in June of ’44 and came out in January ’46.

CA: [0:44:54] Because I know he’s – I can remember when I was in high school. I got out of high school; he was lobstering. Where did they live after they come over here? Do you know where Jimmy used to live when he was a kid?

LH: [0:45:06] A tenement. There was a tenement at Underwood’s Factory.

CA: [0:45:10] Underwood’s Factory’s tenement.

LH: [0:45:10] Yeah, where people lived in housing. Then, where Jimmy grew up was down in – they had three camps down across from where (Dickie Gray?) lives. There were three camps; they called them the three crows, just little camps. That’s where Jimmy – that’s where they lived when Jimmy was growing up.

CA: [0:45:32] Now, where’d Jimmy go to school? Right here in Jonesport?

LH: [0:45:35] He only went to the eighth grade because he had to go to work.

CA: [0:45:38] Yeah, that’s what a lot of people did. They worked to help support the family.

LH: [0:45:43] Yeah, that’s right. Flora Kelley wanted him to go to high school and live with her, but he couldn’t; he had to go to work.

CA: [0:45:55] Now, some of his people didn’t live too far from him – Harold Huntley.

LH: [0:45:59] Harold, yeah.

CA: [0:46:00] Who was Raymond’s brother. You went lobstering with Jimmy for a while.

LH: [0:46:07] Yes, I did. After (Sean?) went to work for International Pulp and Paper, I went lobster fishing. Jimmy couldn’t go alone. But I said – I told – (Wendy?) and (Tuddy?) were married. I said, “You’ll go on the boat with him.”  She said, “No, I don’t like the boat.”  I said, “Some of the best years I remember were years I spent on the boat with him lobster fishing.”

CA: [0:46:30] How many did you go with him, Lillian?

LH: [0:46:32] How many years?

CA: [0:46:32] The last [inaudible]?

LH: [0:46:34] Oh, the last of it? I was with him when he died.

CA: [0:46:40] Would it hurt you to tell about that? [inaudible]

LH: [0:46:42] No, no. I’d just [inaudible].

CA: [0:46:43] Do you want to tell about it then?

LH: [0:46:45] I will, yeah. He had told someone – he was eighty-two years old. He was still lobster fishing. He couldn’t go alone. I was with him because – and I couldn’t get down over our bank and get into the skiff. If it hadn’t been for the marina, I couldn’t have gone. But I’d go down there and walk the ramp. Then he had an orange crate that I stepped down into the boat in. So we went lobster fishing. He had told somebody just a month before this happened – Fred Beascon, Viola’s brother-in-law –

CA: [0:47:29] Yeah, I know him.

LH: [0:47:30] – told me after it happened that they were – and Fred lived in Otis, Massachusetts, and he used to come and talk. They’d sit out front and talk when he was here visiting. He told me after this happened – he said they were talking about retiring, and Jimmy said, “I don’t want to retire. I want to die in my boat hauling my traps.” That’s exactly what he did, and I was with him. He was silly anyway. Jimmy was silly, but he was special. And he was serious. He could be serious when he needed to be. But we were – I used to [inaudible] my pockets, so many pockets, and have them ready. Then I’d go sit on the – well, it was a gas tank, but it was covered. He had it boarded in – covered. I was sitting over there. He looked at me, that silly grin on his face, and he said, “Have you said ‘Good morning, Lord.'” Because there was a minister that had been on TV around six or eight months before that, I guess. And every once in a while after that, he’d say, “Good morning, Lord” – Jimmy was, as I say, silly but serious – with a grin. So, on the way down, that’s when he said that. He said, “Have you said, ‘Good morning, Lord?'” Because, as I say, the minister used to say that this drunk man would come home on a Saturday night and get up in the morning; he’d say, “Good Lord, morning.” And the minister said, “I say, ‘Good morning, Lord.'” Just say it in a different way. So, that’s what he asked me on the way down. We weren’t in a bad place at all. Well, you know where it was – the Brothers, they called it.

CA: [0:49:31] Down camp [inaudible] Brothers. Okay.

LH: [0:49:33] Yeah. There was rocks, and then there was a little flat place in between. My two brothers, Verlon and Chester – you see how I was taken care of. My two brothers were lobster fishing right outside the island. Verlon owns the IGA. He didn’t need to go, but Chester did. So, he would go with Chester so Chester could go. They were right outside the island. Jimmy had a trap in the boat, and there was another one that he – I think he had both traps in the boat, but the [inaudible] were caught in the wheel somewhere. Whatever. On the side of the boat where I was, he had a big oar. He said, “Pass me the oar.”  So, I passed him the oar, and he started to push us off of where we were. He just dropped the oar on the side of the boat. Now, I knew he must – I got thinking about it afterward, and I know he must have known that he didn’t [inaudible] or he would have either fallen overboard, or he would have lost the oar overboard, I think. But instead, he laid it on the gunnel of the boat, on the side of the boat, and just started to lie down. I said, “If there’s anybody that can do CPR, Jimmy is unconscious on the floor.”  Verlon said, “I can do CPR. We’ll be right there.” As I say, they were right outside the island. He came and got into the boat, and there was no pulse. It was quick as that. So, they – here again, I was taken care of. Wilford [inaudible] that was my brother, younger brother. They started down, and somebody called the Coast Guard. Maybe I told them to. I don’t remember that. So, the Coast Guard came down, and I came home with them and Chester and Verlon. One of them got into my boat – or our boat – and brought that boat home. So, see how I was taken care of?

BP: [0:51:48] What year did that happen?

LH: [0:51:51] Seven years ago in August. It will be seven years in August. 1999.

CA: [0:51:57] August the 9^th, 1999. [RECORDING PAUSED] Any story you’d like to tell us that you think’s nice, comical, or just interesting?

LH: [0:52:07] Well, I’ve told you about the penny. Of course, I was Mrs. Tall Barney in the pageant – you know that – and I have pictures of all that.

CA: [0:52:21] Tell them you won. You won at the Tall Barney pageant.

LH: [0:52:25] Yeah, I did. I was Mrs. Tall Barney, and I have all these pictures.

CA: [0:52:29] What year was that? Two years ago?

LH: [0:52:30] How many years? Three or four years ago.

CA: [0:52:32] Three or four.

LH: [0:52:34] Three or four years ago.

CA: [0:52:37] If you can’t think of anything else you’d like to say, we’ll finish this now and start taking some pictures.

LH: [0:52:44] You want me to sing a little, don’t you?

CA: [052:46] If you want.

BP: [0:52:47] If you want to.

CA: [0:52:48] If you’d like to sing, we’ll put that on that, too.

LH: [0:52:49] Well, I’m showing off. Aren’t I showing off?

CA: [0:52:51] We’ll close with a song.

LH: [0:52:52] Huh?

CA: [0:52:53] We’ll close with a song.

LH: [0:52:54] Well, this isn’t a serious one; this is just a funny one [inaudible].

CA: [0:53:01] Okay, I remember.

LH: [0:53:04] [singing] “Many, many years ago, when I was twenty-three. I was married to a widow who was pretty as could be. This widow had a grown-up daughter who had hair of red. My father fell in love with her, and soon, they, too, were wed. This made my dad my son-in-law and changed my very life, for my daughter was my mother because she was my father’s wife. To complicate the matter, even though it brought me joy, I soon became the father of a bouncing baby boy. My little baby then became the brother-in-law [inaudible], and so because my uncle, then it made very sad. For if he was my uncle, then it also made his brother to the widow’s grown-up daughter, who, of course, was my stepmother. Father’s wife had a son who kept him on the run, and he became my grandchild, for he was my daughter’s son. My wife is now my mother’s mother, and it makes me blue because although she is my wife, she’s my grandmother, too. If my wife is my grandmother, then I’m her grandchild. Every time I think of it, it nearly drives me wild. For now, I have become the strangest case you ever saw. As husband of my grandmother, I am my own grandpa.” [laughter]

BP: [0:54:32] [laughter] Very good.

LH: [0:54:33] That’s silly.

CA: [0:54:34] [laughter] That’s good. That’s a good one to end it on.