Family Life in Rural Maine
Up to World War II

The Page Farm and Home Museum began organizing an oral history project in September of 1995 with Museum staff and volunteers. The project was initiated to record the memories of people who grew up on or worked on Maine farms or in Maine farm communities before World War II. Volunteer Project Coordinator Mary Jo Sanger began soliciting volunteers to help with interviews and transcription in October. Twelve people were trained with the assistance of Edward "Sandy" Ives to begin the project. Since the initial training, another eight volunteers have been added.

In October 1995 we also began seeking people to be interviewed. From an initial list of twenty, we have received an affirmative response from sixteen individuals or couples. An additional twenty-five names were added with the help of Joni Averill who wrote about the project in the Bangor Daily News. As word has spread throughout the fall and spring we have been contacted by thirty-one more individuals or family members who are interested in the project, not all of these have yet agreed to participate.

Initially most of the respondents were from the Bangor area of Penobscot County and most were men. Now the potential pool to be interviewed represents a larger area of the State ranging from Madawaska in Aroostook county to Machias in Washington county and Portland in Cumberland county with the nucleus still in Penobscot county. We have also expanded the focus of the project to include the roles of women and children to help draw more women into the project to be interviewed.

We have conducted forty interviews to date with fifteen either completely or partially transcribed. We applied to the Maine Humanities Council for a grant to assist with the expense of transcription and have received that money to fund the project. Now that the weather is improving and travel should be easier we hope to conduct three or four interviews per month for at least the next six months.