Note: I interviewed a number of people for an oral history of my grandmother's family, the Flanagans. After getting help from Jennifer Boutin and Kim Sweet with the transcription of tapes, I put the edited interviews together for the oral history history that I finished in the spring of 1992 at the University of Maine.
"Mom" is Mary Etta Cushing Flanagan. Uncle Will Cushing is her mother's brother. The house is 41 Willow St. in Rockland, Maine.
Eleanor Frances "Pat" Flanagan Rich, or "Auntie Pat," as many of us called her, lived from 1900 to 1993.
The eldest surviving Flanagan talked about rocking baby brothers with colic and helping around the house, part of the job of a big sister. Dancing lessons in the kitchen and baking bread on weekends mixed the fun and working in the house. She was interviewed in Camden, Maine on December 1, 1990.
Mom was a wonderful woman She started a soup kitchen in Rockland for the hungry men down on Tillson's Avenue with the help of her friends. She formed the Knox Hospital Auxiliary. She took care of many of the poor and hungry, feeding a great many people.
I think Mom counted her blessings. I don't know why. She was educated in a convent, so that might have something to do with it. She felt compelled to do some good.
Everybody she asked helped her 'cause she always had so much to do, and they didn't feel they could refuse. If she asked them to serve, they served.
Mom always fed anyone who came to the house. I think they came because they were hungry -- that's why she used to have that feeding on Tillson's Avenue. Back then, all the bakeries gave bread and stores sold hot dogs and hamburgers at cost. We all helped.
You name it -- Mom could cook it. Everything. Yeast bread, rolls, cake and doughnuts.
Uncle Will Cushing used to buy bread from the bakery on Tillson's Avenue. He used to bring home about six or eight loaves of bread every week. Mom had a bread mixer to mix the dough for bread and rolls. There was one kitchen able you could pull out, and there was a bench against the wall. Many could sit on the bench. The rest sat up around the table.
The kitchen was one of the original parts of the house. Remember, in the those days, that was the meeting place for everything. We, Kathleen and I, used to give the boys lessons in the kitchen, ballroom dancing.
I took turns washing dishes as part of my chores, dusting down the front hall stairs and sweeping them. Others took turns. We shifted, making beds, dusting and so forth. The worst job was sweeping down the front hall because of the banisters.
There was a girl who came later, Margaret Hines, who helped Mom take care of us. She lived with us for four or five years while she went to nursing school at Knox Hospital. She didn't look after any of us, really. She was the housekeeper when she wasn't studying. She was a lovely person. She came from Prince Edward Island, too. I was too young to remember then, but there was probably for or five of us then.
We looked after each other when we got old enough. We took care of everything; it just came naturally. One took care of the other.
I looked after John and Jim when they were born. When they had colic, we used to rock and sing to them all night -- well, not really all night, but it seemed that way at that age.
Oh yes, Dad always helped. I must say if my mother asked anyone to do anything, they did it, because she had so much to do. She was always heading up a campaign. They didn't dare say no. They dared, but they were ashamed to.
We were champions in basketball when Kathleen and Eileen played. It might have been Eileen and Alice who played in Portland. The boys were all athletes.
When the boys were kids, they used to collect garbage around the neighborhood. John and Jim used a cart an the dog used to chase them around. They fed the pigs. We had pigs during the war. Bill had a prized one, and he used to scrub it every day. He would scrub the pig. Then, the pig would turn around and roll in the sludge. He scrubbed it religiously and he won a prize for its huge size.
A heatalator and a kitchen stove kept us warm in the house because we didn't have central heating. We had a little stove, like they sell now, upstairs in the boys' bedroom. Why we didn't burn down, I'll never know. We used to burn wood and sometimes that stove gave off white hear it got so hot.
Two at most shared beds -- three when it got real cold. I used to keep Eileen warm and what must have been Alice.
Flanagan siblings, 1960s, Rockland. Eleanor Frances "Pat" Flanagan Rich is at center, wearing pearls.
From left to right: Rose Virginia Flanagan Webre, James Joseph Flanagan, Sr. Carol Flanagan, Mary Margaret Flanagan Kent, Eleanor Frances "Pat" Flanagan Rich, Anthony Judson "Jud" Flanagan, William Cushing Flanagan John Henry Flanagan, Alice Geraldine Flanagan Roper and Agnes Cecilia Flanagan Fleagle.
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