JM: Did he live longer than his wife, or was it the other way around?

Eileen: He died first. He had a heart attack. Of course, he had no phone. So he had to walk to the neighbors to summon help. By the time he did that, he had extensive damage. So he didn't survive. Back then, we didn't have an ambulance. You would go to the hospital in the back of a Hearse and they would give you oxygen. His wife lived till six or seven years later, I think. Allen left quite a bit of money to take care of her and left about $50,000 to my brother.

JM: That's an awful lot of money.

Eileen: I don't know why he deprived himself. But he still enjoyed life. He had a camp. He went to the lake and did freshwater fishing, but then he sold the camp when he got older and used that money to help educate us. When he retired, he had awful bad arthritis in his knees. And, of course, he had done all that walking all his life. So it was really hard for him. But other than that, he really didn't have any health problems.

Allen and my father owned a house on Indian Island, which is a Canadian island off Eastport. It was left to them by Allen's brother Harold. And because Harold had no children either, when he died, my dad and Allen inherited it. And it was really great. It was a very old house, and we would go over in the summer and stay there, but Allen would not come with us. But from his porch, Allen could see the beach on Indian Island, and every night we would go down and flash the flashlight so that he knew we were alive and well, and he would flash his porch light to answer us. Of course, we didn't have cell phones or anything like that then. So that was the only way that we could acknowledge that we were okay. Some nights, if the weather was really bad or the fog was in, and we couldn't see, we'd always wonder if Allen knew if we were alright. I had a wonderful childhood, and Allen was a wonderful part of it.

JM: Did you also work at the canneries?

Eileen: Yes, I worked in the factories. I packed sardines.

JM: How old were you when you started?

Eileen: About 15 or 16.

JM: And were you working there all year round or just in the summer?

Eileen: Just in the summer, but it was six days a week, and you worked until the fish were gone, maybe till 8 or 9 at night. They had a bus that came around to everybody's house and picked you up and took you to work. And they'd take you home for an hour at lunch. And they'd come pick you up and take you back to the factory. It was great. And everybody worked. I mean, all your friends were there, so it was fun.

JM: How were the working conditions?

Eileen: Well, it was wet and cold, but nobody thought about it. And you had to tape your fingers up or you'd get cut. I had a table partner. She was an old lady. She would scoop her fish, but she wouldn't take time to drop her scissors, so she would use her hand with the scissors in it, and if I wasn't careful she would poke me with her scissors. So I had to really be on the lookout. She got me a couple times, but nothing drastic.

JM: Was it piece work?

Eileen: Yes.

JM: So the more you put out, the more money you made.

Eileen: Yes. But I was pretty slow, so at the end of the day the old ladies would help me fill my last case by packing a couple of cans and dropping them in the tray. The older workers looked out for the younger ones.

JM: I talked to the son of one of the other kids that worked in the Eastport canneries, and he said that his father always told him that the kids competed for these jobs.

Eileen: Well, when I was there, anyone who wanted to work there could get a job, because there were quite a few factories. So there didn't seem to be a shortage of jobs available. The boys didn't usually pack; they worked on the machinery. The women and the girls were the ones that packed. I'm sure it was very different when Allen was there, because I think at one time there were 13 factories in the area. And there were a lot more people. It was a much bigger community. I think the children felt proud to be able to help their parents and families.

JM: Did you go to college?

Eileen: I went to nurses' training in Bangor (Maine). When I was getting ready to go to nurses training, I needed to take a chemistry course at the high school. I was packing fish, and the factory owner let me have the time off to take the class every day, and I would go up in my fish clothes, which didn't smell too great, and with my hands all taped. And I would take the class, and nobody said a word. I just sat there with the other kids and studied, and then when I left I went back to the fish factory. I did that for a year.

JM: When you went to nurses' training, did you live there, or did you have to travel back and forth?

Eileen: You lived right in the hospital back in my day. I did that for three years. And my brother went to Maine Maritime Academy. Allen was very proud of him.

JM: Were you a nurse most of your life?

Eileen: I still am. I love old people and take care of them in their homes.

JM: Have you lived in the Eastport area all your life?

Eileen: I've never lived anywhere else. I love Eastport. I still have my parents' home. When Allen died, his wife moved into an elderly housing complex and gave her house to my brother. And when my brother died, his widow sold the house. So somebody from away owns it now. But they fixed it up beautiful.

JM: Lewis Hine spent about 10 years, between 1908 and 1917, going around the country just taking thousands of photographs. The National Child Labor Committee had hired him. Their mission was to get child labor laws passed. At that time, there were few child labor laws in the country. When he went to Eastport, I don't think he would have been particularly welcome, so he probably had to sneak around quietly.

Eileen: I don't know. Eastporters would have welcomed him.

JM: But his mission was to expose child labor, and he might have been viewed as a threat. You can tell by the photos that he was seldom allowed in the canneries. He had to wait for the kids to go to work or come home from work, to take the pictures.

Eileen: Well, the factory owners wouldn't have been happy about it. The workers themselves probably wouldn't have minded at all; but on the other hand, if they needed that income to survive they would have been upset if he had stopped their children from working. That's food on the table.

JM: You can correct me on this, but I think most of the kids that worked when they were real young were working mostly in the summer. Hine took the photos in August.

Eileen: Yes, it must be, because Allen went to school. I believe they had truancy laws. Like I said, Allen was very smart. I think that if we had lived in a different place with more opportunity, he probably would have gone to college. But he helped his older brother go, and Harold got his degree in English, in fact he actually got his doctorate. He actually received it after he died. He was blind and had diabetes. He had some toes amputated and what not, and my mother was a nurse. She would tend to his needs medically, and then she would read to him. And then he would tell her what to write. And so she helped him write his thesis. And then after he died, they awarded his doctorate.

JM: Where did he go to college?

Eileen: Bowdoin (in Maine). Then he taught high school English in Vermont. He didn't come back home until he was old and sick. Well, he wasn't that old. He died in his 60s.

JM: It's interesting to look at Allen's picture. Given the situation, most people would probably think that he didn't have any chance of going very far, and yet he was pretty successful and made quite a bit of money.

Eileen: I had no idea that he had this kind of money. But he wasn't rich. He was pretty middle class all his life. He was very frugal, almost to the point of being stingy. I mean, right down to how often you flushed the toilet, or how often you took a bath. He watched every penny. So you knew when you got a gift from Allen, it was very treasured. He worked very hard, and I think that came from this factory work and living in a poor town. All of his friends were in the same boat. Everybody was working hard, but it wasn't a bad thing. He didn't know any different. If he hadn't been working as a child, he'd have been home alone with nobody to play with, because all his friends would have been working. A lot of kids don't get that experience of work until they're older. I live on a farm, so my kids all get to work in the hay fields. It's their favorite time, being all together as a family. There are some dangers at times. We've had some farm accidents, but fortunately nothing has been too tragic.

I think Allen would want to be remembered as being very faithful. He never went to church, but he loved life and his family. And he loved nature. I think that was really what gave him happiness. It wasn't money. He saved it, and watched it, and counted every penny, but that was not his happiness. He said grace before every meal and thanked God for his blessings. Allen always took care of others. His mother moved in with him when she got old, and he took care of her until she died. He also helped his brother, who lived next door until he died.