Courtship (LCSH)
Families (LCSH)
Marraige (LCSH)
Sexual division of labor (LCSH)
Slaughtering and slaughter-houses (LCSH)
Sound Recording Content Interview: Helen discusses the division of labor on the farm. Talks about her feelings about animal slaughter, taxes and land and hers and Kenneth's different degrees of attachment to the farm. Kenneth discribes his correpsondence with Helen and neighbors durng World War Two, his courtship with Helen, and life on the farm before he and Helen married and televisions he's owned. Discusses children and his fondness for them. Marriage and children. His experiences during Wrold War II in Italy sharing his PX with local children.
Brick, Richard (Interviewer)
Opton, Suzanne (Interviewer)
O’Donnell, Helen (Interviewee)
O’Donnell, Kenneth (Interviewee)
Richard Brick/Last Stand Farmer Collection -- VFC2003-0007. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.
Audio recording copyright Richard Brick.
1 sound tape reel (Scotch 3M 208 polyester) : analog ; 7 1/2 ips, full track, mono. ; 7 in., 1/4 in. tape, 1 1/2 mil.
digital audio file (MP3)
sound recording
Cows (LCSH)
Dogs (LCSH)
Livestock (LCSH)
Farm life--Vermont (LCSH)
Sound Recording Content Interview: Kenneth discusses livestock and challenges of raisng livestock. Discusses problems with animals after birth, differences between individual animals. Dog attacks on livestock and deer. Gardens. Flowers. Presence of stones in Vermont soil. Stone boats. 'I belive stone grow too. Because you can pick a piece in damn good shape and the next time you plow it you'll find pretty near damn as many right on it. But they say they don't, but I believe they do.' 'And then they tell the story according to the Bible, 'he without sin throw the first rock.' Well Vermonters must be damn sinful because they never picked no rocks. You'll find rocks everywhere you go in Vermont. Ledges and rocks.'
Chelsea (inhabited place)
Vermont (state)
Depressions--1929--Vermont (LCSH)
Income distribution (LCSH)
Maple sugar industry--Vermont. (LCSH)
Maple syrup (LCSH)
Taxation (LCSH)
Food habits--Vermont (LCSH)
Sound Recording Content Interview: Kenneth dicusses hard times, state jobs and economic problems. Discusses the impact of the Great Depression on his generation. Frugality. Describes how he helped people during the Great Depression and how his farm got the name 'Haven of Rest.' People would come to stay with him and work on the farm. 'We all had the same thing: nothing.' Discusses sugaring, ratios of sap to syrup, better and worse weather for sugaring. 'I've seen sap go from Fancy down to A, and A down to B, and then you'll get a good snowstorm--heavy snowstorm--and you come back to A again. I've seen the color come back. Just a big snowstorm brought the color back.' Discuss grade C syrup and it's use in chewing tobacco and other products. Discusses sap beer (14:42)--'They used to use the last end to make a sap beer. The old fellas that used to sugar always used to make a keg of sap beer at the last end. And they'd use the black stuff, the last end of sugaring. Well if I was going to make sap beer I'd want to make it out of the first, and really have something....Oh boy, it's great stuff if it's made right. Boil 5 barrels of sap down to one, then put your hops and your yeast. And if you--if it ain't quite sweet enough for you, you put in some more syrup or sugar, and then leave it set and then she'll start to work, and that will work out through the bung for about a week. Then bung it right up tight and let it set by a couple of weeks. And a water glass makes you walk on your toes. It's really good stuff.' 'Yup, the old fellows always used to have that barrel of sap beer, you know, from the last end.' 'We never made it--except but one year, my dad made some sap beer. And boy that was sap beer. Tasted just like Moxie. Oh boy, that was a beautiful taste. But you got a waterglass down and pretty soon you knew you had something in there besdies Moxie. Boy that was--kick up an awful fuss.' 'Now I don't imagine there's hardly anybody that makes it now. Probably they don't care anything about it.'
Hunting (LCSH)
Labor unions--Vermont (LCSH)
Logging (LCSH)
Water-supply (LCSH)
Wool industry--Vermont (LCSH)
Sound Recording Content Interview: Kenneth and Helen O'Donnell. Discuss deer hunting, tells several good deer hunting stories. Household water supply from wells and springs. Logging firewood and pulp. Wool industry in Vermont. Labor unions. Cotton industry in Vermont. Discusses use of animal parts by Polish neighbor, how firewood is gathered in Italy during World War Two. Discusses rural architecture in Italy. Italian craftsmanship--supervising Italian POWs to make a desk for a colonel out of cartrdige boxes.
Hay--harvesting (LCSH)
Real Property (LCSH)
Sound Recording Content Interview: Kenneth describes haying the the challenges of haying depending on weather. Frustrations of his garden, potatoes in particular. Discusses brush and trees growing in, clearing land. 'They say the bugs and the trees gonna rule the world. And I think they are. You take your place up there--if you move right off and didn't see it for five years, you wouldn't know it.' Discuss selling property. Discusses Great Depression. 'But just as sure as God made the little apples, they're not going to have any farmers here. All they're going to have is a bunch of brush, and they're going to depend on the Western farmers to feed them. And somebody's going hungry.' 'You can jump into a car--you can jump into your truck out here--and I can take you, and I can show you 10,000 acres that could be growing crops, but it ain't growing nothing--only weeds and bushes. Good land, too. And most of your farmers down in the valley--on your bottom land--they ain't raising anything to eat outside of milk. They're just dairy farmers, most of them. There ain't any reason why they can't raise plenty of stuff to eat. The land is the best here in Vermont. A little hard work, and you almost always get a season, get a crop here in Vermont. So people going to be hungry if they keep on.' Discusses his frustrations with foreign interests and the export of jobs abroad. Discusses self sufficency.
Farm management (LCSH)
Social change--Vermont (LCSH)
Vermont--Economic conditions (LCSH)
Vermont--Social conditions (LCSH)
Sound Recording Content Interview: Kenneth discusses economics, property and taxation. Compares taxation in the 1920s to taxation in the 1970s. Describes what farmers used to do to pay taxes. Kenneth and Richard discuss real estate development in Vermont. Roads, crime, traffic. Discuss farming. How Kenneth's father learned to farm. Describes his father working in woods at nine after his father (Kenneth's grandfather) died. Tells story of his grandfather's death in a logging accident. Describes loggers riding the tops of spruce trees to ground. Talk about firewood and lumber.
Fuelwood (LCSH)
Maple syrup industry--Vermont (LCSH)
Sound Recording Content Amibient (0:00-9:14): Chain saw, tree or branch falling (2:18-2:26). Interview (9:15-24:09): Logging, hurricane of 1938. Economics of logging. Rising costs. Firewood. Maple sugaring and economics of sugaring. Tells story about sugaring in a sugar house with out a roof using 'an old flat pan.' 'It's kind of a gamble and it's something you like to do.' When saps starts, if you don't sugar, I don't know, something's lost all the rest of the season. All summer. You don't got no money to buy seeds with, you know, phosphate. You lost the whole year until the next year.'
1973-12-29; 1974-01-02
AU2010-3149 -- Wild Sound Kenneth and Helen
Maple sugar industry--Vermont (LCSH)
Maple syrup industry--Vermont. (LCSH)
Sound Recording Content Interview: Government regulation. Maple sugaring. Changes in the timing of the maple sugaring season--it ends earlier than it used to. Used to run until May, now it runs until April. Describes carrying full sap buckets and working in sugar woods in the snow. Kenneth debates whether or not he will be healthy enough to sugar this year. Describes the health condition of his long-time sugaring partner, Arthur. Discuss pricing of syrup--$9-$10 dollars a gallon. Talk about propery and income taxes. Social security and the impact of land ownership on the ability to receive social security. Propery taxes.
Audio recordings copyright Richard Brick.
AU2010-3150 -- Wild Sound O'Donnell Farm
Sound Recording Content Interview: Discusses marriage, age. Prices and increasing costs. Taxes and schooling. Class issues in Vermont--divide between farmers and white collar workers. Describes how he paid off farm in 1940s and vowed never to mortgage it again. Richard asks about whether or not Kenneth has ever thought about what he might do differently if he could live his life again. Kenneth reflects on this topic. 'Usually you work hard all your life and if get to where you can take it a little bit easy, something will turn up to happen so you can't.' Discusses his life and work philosphy. Talks about the Great Depression and the impact it had on farmers in the region.
Dreams (LCSH)
Sound Recording Content Interview: Talks about how, without his soldier's pension, he would not be able to survive economically. Talks about his property and his attachment to it. Talks about his dreams--about horses he owned when he was young. Poetic descriptions of his dreams about driving horses and cars. Provides details on tricks for crank starting early 20th century automobiles. Talks more about dreams.
Horses (LCSH)
Sound Recording Content Interview: Discusses his pension and taxes. Talks about the increasing cost of schools and his opinions about contemporary schooling. They discuss attachment to the land and the history of Kenneth's farm and his family. 'I took over in '29 and I've been here off and on ever since. I put four years in the service, and outside of that that I was here most all my life.' 'I bought it in '29 and I had one good year, and then the Depression took over and I pretty near lost it then. And I stared after the Depression, I started building it up, and along comes Uncle Sam and says, 'I need you' so I went in for 4 years in the service and came back, and I been here ever since.' Talk about buring his horses on his land when they die, 'They earned their keep.' Discusses his perspectives on fate, destiny and divine intervention in relation to his World War II experiences. Discuss dreams.
Aging (LCSH)
Sound Recording Content Interview: Kenneth talks about how older people reflect more on the past. Talks about his health and pain and how it prevents him from working in the woods logging and sugaring. Tells stories of logging when he was younger (3:00-6:00). Talks about nervousness. Describes how nervousness used to impact him in his youth, but how now it doesn't bother him. 'But if you always carry the idea that there ain't nothing you can do about anything, there 's no use in getting nervous.' Impact of having been a soldier on his worldview, and how the difficult experiences of war allow soldiers to be satisfied with what they have (8:33-10:10).
Sound Recording Content Interview: Richard asks Kenneth to tell him about his favorite season, Kenneth talks about Spring. 'The world weren't so fast, people didn't have to have everything, and everybody was practically happy. Geared it down to where people could live. Everything is too fast now.' 'Of course there's a lot of things you wouldn't want to turn back--there's lights and refrigeration and that--you wouldn't want to turn that back. It would be a hard thing now. The weather has changed so much, you couldn't freeze a beef up and have it keep all winter. Because one day it's 20 below, and next day it's 20 above. Then you get some warmer than that, up above freezing. And if you've got any beef hung up, same way as we used to hang them up, they'd all thaw out and spoil. We used to hang a beef in the shed along in November, that beef wouldn't thaw out until Spring.' Discusses the impact of mechanization on farming. Discusses people buying things on credit.
AU2010-3155 -- Wild Sound EFX Exterior country, horse, Etc.
Sound Recording Content Ambient: Horse being saddled and unsaddled (01:00-04:22). Horse drinking (04:38-06:34). Horse neigh (05:23). Unidentified sounds, walking, birds, rustling noises (06:34-07:27). Ducklings, unidentified sounds, birds, metal banging, walking, rustling noises (07:28-08:53). Flies buzzing (08:54-10:59). 'Country ambience exterior'-insects or frogs, car (11:00-12:40). Sound from different project--Urban site? group of children--apparently in New York City--saying phrase 'I'm stuck,' 'I'm really stuck' and variations on the phrase repeatedly (12:59-14:09). Urban site? 'Two boys running on sidewalk' (14:10-15:12.). Bicycle bell (15:13-15:26). 'Bike bell, bike horn,' drums in background, traffic (15:27-16:34)
Brick, Richard (Recordist)
Swine (LCSH)
Sound Recording Content Interview: Side A: Aging. The need to stay busy when retired. His pension. His reasons for still keeping livestock. 'It's something to do.' Shares opinions of local shop keepers. Side B: Kenneth and Helen discuss maple sugaring. Kenneth tells a story about when he was 3 years old and fell through the ice on the farm pond (2:59-4:00). Kenneth reflects on aging and memory, and tells a nuber of stories from his early childhood 1911-12. Kenneth tells the story of the first car he saw in 1911 (4:24-5:10), story of the family moving back to VT to NH. Talks about book keeping on the farm. 'Well, they say an honest man don't get nowhere, and I think it's true. But if you was brought up honest it's kinda hard to be anything else.' Talks about social change and taxation. Church and religion: 'But my folks never went to church much too much. We could have gone if we wanted to, but we had more things we'd rather do than go to church' (11:10-12:40). Logging: tells stories about his father working in the woods. Talks about how his father used axes rather then a cross-cut saw. Describes his father's skill with an axe. Talks about using different kinds of tools (12:55-18:05). Talks about his father and discipline. Being hit with his father's belt, his mother hitting hi. (18:08-19:56). Free time with his brother. 'We used to do everything. We had homemade snowshoes. We traveled all over these hills on wooden snow shoes made out of pine boards. And then we had skis, even homemade skis. And we had snow jumpers. Take a tree it's got a crook in it and shave it down until about an inch thick. And then put a 4X4 on to that and then a seat on to it, and you ride down these hills--really go places' (20:00-21:08)
1 sound tape reel (Scotch RB-7 polyester) : analog ; 7 1/2 ips, full track, mono. ; 7 in., 1/4 in. tape, 1 mil.
Sound Recording Content Interview: Kenneth and Richard discuss real estate and the valuation of property in Vermont. Talks about people purchasing real estate and possessions on credit. Discusses state government and taxation. Discuss taxes and property valuation of neighbors. 'Out of Staters' moving in to Vermont and buying land at high prices driving up taxes for everyone. Discuss the greater impact of taxes on farmers in the present compared to the impact of taxes in the past. Describe how farmers used to raise and sell livestock to pay taxes. Kenneth reflects on change in the state, 'Everything is going too fast anyway.' 'You take back here in 1930--nobody come up here unless they come here to see you. And now 15, 20 cars come through, on an old back road.' Describes the area around his property, walking 10 miles over the mountain to Stratford, VT, logging. Changes in farming. Describes his grandfather's death logging. Riding tree tops down hung up trees. Suspect this recording is a copy of another in the collection.
AU2010-3158 -- Transcription Copy 1. Side 1: Sound Roll 1-2; Side 2: Sound Roll 3-5
Consists of copies of the following recordings: Side 1/File 1 Sound Roll 1 (AU2010-3066) Sound Roll 2 (AU2010-3067) Side 2/File 2 Sound Roll 3 (AU2010-3068) Sound Roll 4 (AU2010-3069) Sound Roll 5 (AU2010-3070)
Brick, Richard (Recording Engineer)
1 sound tape reel (Scotch 3M 208 polyester) : analog ; 3 3/4 ips, full track, mono. ; 7 in., 1/4 in. tape, 1 1/2 mil
AU2010-3159 -- Transcription Copy 2. Side 1: Sound Roll 6-9a; Side 2: Sound Roll 9b-12a
Consists of copies of the following recordings: Side 1/File 1 Sound Roll 6 (AU2010-3071) Sound Roll 7 (AU2010-3072) Sound Roll 8 (AU2010-3073) Side 2/File 2 Sound Roll 9 (AU2010-3074) Sound Roll 10 (AU2010-3075) Sound Roll 11 Sound Roll 12
1 sound tape reel : analog
AU2010-3160 -- Transcription Copy 3. Side 1: Sound Roll 12b-14a; Side 2: Sound Roll 14b-15, 17a
Consists of copies of the following recordings: Side 1/File 1 Sound Roll 12 (side b) Sound Roll 14 (side a) Side 2/File 2 Sound Roll 14 (side b) Sound Roll 15 Sound Roll 17 (side a)
sound recording -- 1 sound tape reel : analog
AU2010-3161 -- Transcription Copy 4. Side 1: Sound Roll 17b, 16a; Side 2: Sound Roll 16b, 19a
Consists of copies of the following recordings: Side 1/File 1 Sound Roll 17 (side b) Sound Roll 16 (side a) Side 2/File 2 Sound Roll 16 (side b) Sound Roll 19 (side a)