The History Project News Letter

"The Good Old Days..."
They were hard, but they were good!

We dedicate this issue to what many of our interview subjects remember as "The Good Old Days." Their lives may seem harsh to us in light of today's modern conveniences, but in listening to their voices and reading their words, we can feel the nostalgia for a time when they were accepting of their lot and happy with their lives. It's a feeling that pervades the body of our work and leaves us, who have been privileged to conduct these interviews, with a deep respect and admiration for the way the people of East Hampton lived their lives during the first 50 years of the 20th Century.

Recollections...

"We used to do I.Y. Halsey's laundry. We use to do Mr. & Mrs. E.T. Dayton's. I can't think of the local ones now. We had to go pick it up and then do it and then deliver it back. We had a gas mangle. We had to iron sheets. The old machines was just regular washing machines that you put things through the wringers, you know? We had a big washtub, like a bathtub. And that was where you did your rinsing. We had 25 families at one time, in the summertime. In the wintertime it was just local. As soon as I was big enough to get in there, I use to pull the wagon with the clothes baskets on it, out to the clothesline, so the women could hang up the laundry. Good old days? I didn't get away with anything. My grandfather built me a stool, so I could reach, to stand on. And when I wasn't working in the laundry, I was helping my grandmother in the kitchen." ...Agnes Cisek, born 1927

Recollections...

"In those days, they had an ice house down there on Landing Road (Accabonac Creek). And, as a matter of fact, if you look there, the remains of it are still there. I can remember as a kid in the wintertime, my grandfather and a couple of neighbors used to go down and cut blocks of ice and stick it in this thing, and then covered it with seaweed which they got off the meadows. Out of the creek. In a little head of the Creek. In those days, you know, a lot of seaweed used to float up on the meadows. And we used to gather it. And then in the wintertime they'd use it for insulation. And I remember, the farmhouse sat on stones, you know? There was no foundation. We would build maybe a two foot thing around the house and then we'd pack it with seaweed to keep the wind from blowing under it." ...Walter Hackett, born 1921

Cutting ice on Tuthill Pond, 1930. Large house on hill was home of Benjamin Tuthill, son of Capt. Edwin Tuthill. Horses were hired from Emil Gardell with special cork shoes so they could walk on the ice. A horse would pull a "plow" with a series of blades across the ice and lay out a grid, cutting the ice about half way through. Photo courtesy of Perry Durea

"We had an old icebox, great big old hunk of ice in the top, you know? We put this old newspaper over the top of the ice, hopin' it'd keep it a little bit better, and a pan underneath for the drainage. The ice truck use to come through here years ago. East Hampton Ice Company. So you'd go out and buy a big hunk o' ice, fifty cents. Half a great big cake of ice, and they'd bring it in and put it in your ice box. I wish I kept that old ice box. That'd be a novelty today, wouldn't it? ...Marguerite Smith, born 1909

Tony's Column

For 300 years, until mid-twentieth century, the local population in East Hampton lived a relatively isolated life, year round, Tending to most of their own needs, they had, at different times, sold crops; potatoes, cabbage, cauliflower; raised livestock, such as cattle, chickens and ducks; mined sand and gravel, caught fish, made wine, ran rum, rented vacation rooms, and harvested wood for fuel, ice for refrigeration and seaweed for insulation.

Then came a new historical period, more earthshaking, from a cultural point of view, (that's an editorial opinion, of course) than any since the founding of the original English settlement in the mid 1600s. Over the course of a few decades, a large population of people from New York City and its suburbs made the East End their "second home" in such numbers that their identity was imprinted on the place. "Go East, young upwardly mobile men and women." The die was cast by the 1960s, when speculators trading large blocks of real estate drove up the price of land to a point where development was the most profitable option.

The dynamics involved in the clash of cultural forces is a complicated subject, one already being examined and written about by experts, pundits, and pulp novelists, In contrast, The History Project is documenting the last historical period during which the participants still felt comfortably at home in their part of the world, pursuing lives in a place they never thought would disappear. Our project deals with that last time period in which the local population, to quote an anonymous voice of envy, "had the place all to themselves."

Oral history has become a valuable addition to the list of traditional historical research tools that includes newspapers, court, town, business, birth and death records, diaries, letters and books. While news articles, essays, and editorials necessarily are concerned with space, and use of compression and deletion as part of technique, oral history goes on the principle of "leave it all in." We have no way of knowing what people in the future will want to know about the period through which we have lived. We know, though, that details about specific instances, such as individual and personal reactions to places and things, as well as anecdotes, stories and myths, are important. And that is the reason we felt that an inquisitive, conversational interview with a significant sampling of the local population was needed. We hope it will make a difference in the way the future sees this recent history which is looked back on, by its people, with such love, care, and narrative flare.

Tony Prohaska
Project Director

Recollections...

"We did not have electricity in Springs when I was growing up. That didn't come 'til my high school days. We had kerosene lamps. That's one of them over there that's been electrified. A student lamp. You had to read by lamp...huddled around a table in the middle of the room. I could not have Christmas tree lights and all those things that kids think they want when they're growing up." ...Mary Louise Dodge, born 1915

East Hampton Electric Company turbine, 1921. William Greene, father of Martha Greene. ...Photo courtesy of Martha Greene

"When we were kids growing up, we had a radio in the house. But it was battery operated, because we had no electricity. We had kerosene lamps for the light and our radio was battery operated. And about once a week you had to take it...the battery, this big square battery...take it up to Jack, at the Battery Shop and have it charged. Cause otherwise you wouldn't be able to hear Amos and Andy that week." ...Olga Collins, born 1916

History Project Collection Continues to Grow

In May, an additional 17 completed interviews and an updated index were deposited with the Pennypacker Long Island Collection of the East Hampton Library. This brings to 107 the number of transcribed and indexed interviews in The Collection along with 845 accompanying photographs and other printed material donated by our subjects. We still have 73 interviews to transcribe! Close to two years of work ahead of us!

"Manhattan Style" Uses History Project for Article on Prohibition

Author Michelle Napoli made extensive use of The History Project archives at the East Hampton Library while researching her excellent article on Prohibition in the Hamptons, for the June issue of "Manhattan Style" Magazine. This issue, which celebrates summer in the Hamptons, should still be available...so look for it.

Recollections...

"I remember in that big old kitchen, towards the back would be those old laundry tubs. Everybody hung their wash out in the back, 'specially when it snowed. I didn't remember having any fancy, pretty print sheets, Everything was white. Then they'd be absolutely stiff on the line, you know. God you could hardly get them off...you had to really yank them after you got the clothespins off." ...Sue Steele, born 1925

In Memoriam

We note, with sadness, the passing of Robert "Pete" Barns, John Collins and Francis Smith. Their interviews join those of others who have gone, but whose words live on in The History Project collection.

Recollections...

"I went there to (Springs) school and then it burned down. And then they moved us into Ashawagh Hall. And we went to school there. On the Springs Fireplace Road side, they build an outhouse. Cause there was no running...There was a pump in there, but there was no running water and there was no bathrooms."
...Walter Hackett, born 1921.

"My sister, Bertha, used to go out there and scrub it (the outhouse) down every week. Had that old Sears Roebuck catalogue hung up there, you know. She put a note on the door - Please wipe your feet and come in. (Laughter) God, she had the old toilet seat shining. That old wood, you know? The more you scrub it, and get it nice and bleached, you know? Oh I thought, she was some fussy about that toilet.
Then, of course, that old Depression come along, after that things got tough. But, people were happier in those days. They were family. And they were a lot happier. And they got more comfort out of one another than they do today. My God, my mother was always huggin' and kissin' us and showin' us affection. My father, too. Many a time my father'd...if my mother was busy and she didn't have time to comb our hair or braid it, our father would comb our hair for us, braid it for us. They worked together. Had nothin', but yet they were happy." ...Maggie Smith, born 1909

"We walked out of the house, eight o'clock on a Saturday morning, came home five, five-thirty, six, ragged, tired, dirty, and very happy. Meanwhile, we'd been floating on anything that could float at Hook Pond, say, or doing something in the ocean, or hiding, or having bb gun fights, using the golf course as our battlefield." ...Trevor Kelsall, born 1930

Recollections...

Tony Prohaska: And you were still cooking on the wood stove?

Abigail Field: Well sure! You don't buy a coal when you're living on a farm with a wood lot! Heavens sakes!

"I put in many a fifteen hour day, I'm telling you. Oh yes. The laundry to do and some ironing, some mending. What about stockings? You mended them, you didn't throw them out!

Well, we called them flatirons. They had a hot handle too, you had to have your holders. You'd have about four irons on the stove heating and by the time one was cool, you'd set it back and rotate the four. Four irons."

Franklin Farm homestead. Photo courtesy of Abigail Field

"When I was canning, there were six of us altogether, I used to put up 50 quarts of tomatoes, and if there was enough peaches I'd put up as many as I had. If it made 50 that was wonderful. And pears, a dozen quarts or so maybe and, after a while I canned apples and had apple sauce. And brother Sam said, "Now listen, you cook that apple sauce until it's clear. No little air bubbles." He said, "then it will keep." And we had apples, they were sweet enough without sugar. And I used to take out the cores, the stem and blossom end, slice them up skin and all and put them in the jars and then I could put another 30, 40 quarts." ...Abigail Field, born 1898

"A lot of seaweed used to float up on the meadows. And we used to gather it. And then in the wintertime they'd use it for insulation. And I remember, the farmhouse sat on stones, you know. There was no foundation. We would build maybe a two foot thing around the house and then we'd pack it with seaweed to keep the wind from blowing under it. When you grow up on a farm, everybody has their things to do...and my chore was to keep the wood boxes filled. We had that wood burning cooking stove in the kitchen. Then...in the wintertime we had a big, old, pot belly stove in the little living room and I had to keep that one filled up." ...Walter Hackett, born 1921

"Carl Shaeffer, who ran the bicycle shop at the East End hardware, had a nickname. Everybody used to have, in that generation, had nicknames. Nobody had a straight name. But he was called Dree-Dree, Dree-Dree Shaeffer. When they were little kids in school, the Shaeffers had a telephone. Practically nobody else did. But they had a taxi company, so they had to have a telephone. And so he announced it in the whole school that they had a telephone, and the teacher said, 'Oh, that's wonderful! And what is your number?' He said 'Dree Dree Four' (laughter). And he was Dree Dree from then on. But if you knew the story, you never forgot the phone number. (laughter)." ...Charlie Squires, born 1931

"The fellows were all kind of trying to get started in life. Ed Pospisil was building houses and Phin Dickinson was doing cattle and a number of the others of us had businesses, so that it was a group of people that enjoyed getting together. I don't recall ever feeling neglected because I lived in Montauk. There was a certain charm of living here. There was community activity and most of the fellows were in the Fire Department for a while and all that sort of thing. Typical small town life, I would say. I don't think anyone felt neglected." ...Perry Duryea, born 1921