|
THE HISTORY PROJECT COLLECTION CONTINUES TO GROW
On April 10th, Tony Prohaska and Martha Kalser deposited an additional
14 completed interviews and an updated index with the Pennypacker
Long Island Collection of the East Hampton Library. This brings
to 50 the number of transcribed and indexed interviews in The Collection
along with 500 accompanying photographs and other printed materials
donated by our subjects. Michele Allison continues to enjoy her
work and is producing about one transcription a week. She sends
them to our new location in Florida, where we check them against
the original audiotapes, index them and mount them in binders, with
their accompanying photographs. We will be coming back to East Hampton
in October and bringing many new interviews to be added to The Collection.
OUTSIDE INTEREST IN THE PROJECT
 |
You may remember that George DeWan of Newsday
has used excerpts from several of |
| our interviews to produce full-page articles in
their "Long Island Our Story"section. Now, we have given permission
for an excerpt from our interviews with Abigail Field, to be
included in two Terra Nova Reading and Language Arts Tests,
which are used by elementary schools throughout the country.
Abigail Field was 102 this year and it's wonderful to know that
her story will live on, not only in the hearts of her neighbors
on Long Island, but will now reach a far wider audience. |
|
IN MEMORIAM
We note, with sadness, the passing of Carl Jennett, interviewed
in November, 1977, Tony Moltisanti, interviewed in March,
1998 and Sis Gardell, interviewed in March, 1997. Their interviews
join those of others who have gone, but whose words live on
in The History Project collection.
|
| RECOLLECTIONS… |
 |
Dorothy Vollmer Jones (age 90), recalled
what it was like to be a schoolteacher in the 1930's in East |
|
Hampton. "Oh, we were above reproach. We weren't able to
take a drink, we weren't able to smoke. And I remember that,
um, one time, do you remember Alice Hughes? And Helen Bond?
They had been there, they were older than we were. And they
took us down to the water so we could have a cigarette down
there, and we'd be looking around to see if anybody was looking.
(Laughter) Oh, yes, it was fine at that time. And I guess
we, we went down there and had a drink. …Skipper [Leon Q.
Brooks, Principal of East Hampton Middle School] used to say
when we first got there, 'If you want to kick up your heels
in any way, if you want to smoke or if you want to drink,
go to the other side of the Shinnecock Canal. Just, just (laughter)
don't, don't, don't do anything this side of the Shinnecock
Canal.'"
|
 |
Norton "Bucket" Daniels recalls "Then in school, in sixth
grade I had Helen Bond. I was supposed to have |
| Irene Hedges, but in 1932, the school board decided
because of complaints from the people, 'cause that was the start
of the Depression, that no married teacher should teach, because
that would be two incomes coming in for one family. 'Cause the
husband's working and the wife, it's not fair." |
|
Your continued support is needed.
Even with the library's help, we still
need funds to cover our expenses. We hate to keep asking,
but we have two more years to go until The Project is finished
and our expenses will continue until then.
|
|
INTERVIEWS CONTINUE IN FLORIDA 
Even though we have substantially completed the
interviewing phase of our project, here in Florida, there are
still more people to talk to. In the past few months we talked
with…
 |
Mary Venegas, (age 97) whose
husband was well known locally as a ham radio operator. Just
prior to World War II he operated an electrical |
| supply business in East Hampton Village. During
the War, her husband was unable to get electrical parts because
of shortages and finally had to close the business, leaving
a number of people owing them money. Mary told us that although
some members of the "summer colony" never paid their bills,
each and every Bonacker paid them every penny, even if they
had to pay them off over time. |
 |
Bill Bain told us about growing
up while his father was running Rowe's Pharmacy on the corner
of |
| Newtown Lane and Main St. Rowe's was an institution
in East Hampton. Eventually, Bill went to college, became
a pharmacist and took over the business from his father. In
Bill's and his father's time, pharmacists actually mixed all
their elixirs and compounds on the premises. Now retired in
Florida, Bill has all the old chemical jars and ingredient
bottles on shelves in his living room. Photographs of these
reminders of olden days will be added to the Bain interviews.
Frances Bain, nee Griffing, told us about her family
and her childhood in East Hampton and the years helping Bill
run the soda fountain and the pharmacy. |
Michele Allison has
been working for the East Hampton Library since November. Her
primary responsibility is to transcribe The History Project interviews.
Now that Michele has been working on The Project for 8 months,
we have asked her to share her thoughts with us. This is what
she would like you to know.
As the work of transcribing the tapes goes on (steadily, but
slowly) I am more and more impressed by the importance and value
of these interviews. Each voice on tape is a unique perspective
on the vanishing way of life on the East End. This wealth of information
is an unduplicatable resource about the history of this particular
place and the people who lived here over the last hundred years.
The work of transcribing, editing, indexing, and assembling
each interview into book form takes between two and three weeks.
Nearly 175 interviews have been taped; only 70 have been completed
and over 100 remain to be done. Speeding this process by adding
additional transcribers ought to be a priority, as several transcribers
working simultaneously would bring the completed books up to pace
with the completed interviews.
The value of The History Project is realized through its use.
Housed in the Long Island Collection of The East Hampton Library,
it's a tremendous resource for the community. But the value of
these stories goes beyond the East End. As the Long Island Collection
slowly works to get parts of its collection online, The History
Project should also be made available to a universal audience.
The interviews ought to be available to students, historians,
sociologists, genealogists, and those who simply enjoy listening
to tales of the past. Far too much work and effort has gone into
collecting the interviews, and they are too rich a resource to
be limited to patrons of The East Hampton Library.
As with most good ideas, what is needed is hard work, commitment,
and money to bring them to fruition. Martha and Tony contribute
much of all of these things, but the Project requires, and is
worthy of, more than what the three of us can provide. Please
continue your valuable support of this work so we can put this
project out into the world.
...
Michele Allison
|
 |
TONY'S COLUMN I remember being surprised,
while interviewing Bill Jenkins of Amagansett, that he'd
had Mrs. F. Norton Griffing as a teacher. So did I, albeit more
than twenty years later. While conducting interviews, I see
that I became interested in who else had Mrs. Griffing, and
then, in East Hampton, who had Miss Ebell, Mr. Thayer, et al. |
Elsie Edwards, one of the more forthright people we've
talked to, explained the friction between Laura Ebell
[History] and Mrs. (Ethel Sherman) Shiffleger. [English}
"Ebell drove 'Shifty' nuts, " she said, "because she piled
on the homework. I used to go get reference books and
my father said, "What in the world are you doing breaking
your back, bringing all that stuff home for? You know
you'll never get |
|
|
through it.' Nobody dared go to history class unless
their homework was done. And so they just slighted the
English. And oh, it made Shifty so mad!" Well, all I
can say is, it was still going on when I was in school.
People would copy the same thing over and over…write
nursery rhymes, anything to get more papers. Laura Ebell
was out of control, and for generations nobody dared
stop her.
|
 |
In Amagansett, in the 50's, a spinsterish, little white-haired
woman, taught 5th grade. Her name was Miss Ward. She used
to do magic tricks, the kind with a coin. She'd pick a
coin out of your ear or rub it into your elbow and make
it disappear. All the kids loved her. My sister was in
her class the year she died. In interviewing Harrison
|
| Schneider, I learned
that it was he who had to go looking for her when she
didn't show up at school that day. He found her in her
garage, slumped over the steering wheel; the crack under
the garage door stopped up with rags. My sister had bad
luck with teachers in grade school. The following year,
Marion (Mrs. F. Norton) Griffing, (wife of Toby Griffing
who owned a small dairy on Atlantic Avenue in Amagansett.)
without warning, dropped her head down on her desk and
expired in front of the whole class. She had been an force
to be reckoned with in Amagansett, a strict disciplinarian,
quick to accurately analyze any problem child, and full
of old time sayings, especially those of Ben Franklin.
Empty wagons make the most noise, was one of her favorites.
|
|
In East Hampton, Pop Cheney seems to have gone back to The Year
One. At one time, he was coach of the football team. That was before
Sprig Gardner came. In fact there were two other coaches, Kuhn and
McGaughley, before Sprig came. That's according to Bucket Daniels,
whose memory is steel-trap, especially about sports.
Pop Cheney was still there, although an old man, when I was in
EH High School (1956 - 1960). I was in the same class as his son,
Pete. Pete has given me permission to tell the following story:
If it weren't for his old man, I'd still be in high school. After
I got kicked out of Harry Thayer's class (Now HE would take a book!)
in my freshman year, for being terrified both of him and of algebra,
I had to take the class over in the summer, with Pop. He "assisted"
me, with both his eraser and pencil. "Well, lets see," he'd say,
working out the answer to the problem on paper, "does this like
right?" "Mm hm. Mm hm, " I'd say. "Well then, the answer must be
this, right?" And I'd fill in the blank with the correct answer…and
so it would go.
Today's teachers are considered hip and outrageous if they wear
jeans and let you call them by their first names. In the old days,
they had personalities like Greek gods.
...
Tony Prohaska
|
