Edited interview with Barbara Geagan, niece of Phoebe Thomas,
and Barbara's husband Tom. Interview conducted by Joe Manning (JM) on September 30, 2009.
JM: What year were you born, Barbara?
Barbara: 1944. My mother was Evelyn, Phoebe's youngest sister.
JM: What did you think of the pictures?
Barbara: My first reaction was that I couldn't believe it was Phoebe. But then, as I looked at her
face, I could see somewhat of a resemblance. Then I remembered my grandmother talking about the factory they worked at.
JM: As you know, about two months before your mother passed
away, I sent her the pictures of Phoebe. What did she think of them?
Barbara: She had never seen a picture of Phoebe that young. In that photo of her looking at the
photographer, my mother thought she looked beautiful. She said, ‘Wasn't she cute.' She told me that Phoebe had blondish
hair. We think my grandmother - Phoebe's mother - was a blonde as a young girl. She was either German or French, as well as
Lebanese.
JM: By
taking these photos, Hine was saying that children should not be subjected to working in the cannery and other factories,
and that there should be laws to prohibit it.
Barbara:
Well, it's good that Phoebe ended up being a poster child for the attempt to pass child labor laws, but you have to remember
that this was not illegal then. So for these people, they didn't see anything wrong with it.
JM: You are correct. The laws in Maine at that time allowed children under 15 to work, but only
if they attended at least 16 weeks of school a year. Most of the New England states had already limited child labor to age
14 or older, though enforcement was spotty. Phoebe was only eight years old when she was photographed.
Barbara: I think you might be a little surprised, but Phoebe
had special needs. Phoebe wasn't able to go to school. That may be a reason why she was working at such a young age.
JM: What made her a special needs child?
Barbara: She was delayed. I don't think they would have
accepted her in school. All the children in the family went to school except Phoebe. But she was not so far removed that she
couldn't live on her own and work when she was an adult. She married, but she was definitely slow.
JM: Would her condition be called retardation now, or just
a learning disability?
Barbara:
A learning disability, I would think. In those days, the schools didn't know what to do with them. They just rejected them.
Tom: If it was any retardation,
it was very mild.
JM: Tell me
about your grandparents, Phoebe's parents.
Barbara:
Her father, Charles, was born in Lebanon, and then went to New Brunswick, Canada. Mabel was sent from Lebanon to marry him.
She landed in Boston, and he met her there and took her to Canada. She was only about 14 when she arrived.
JM: When they lived in Eastport, what was Charles doing
for a living?
Barbara: He was
a merchant and a trader, which was common for people coming from Lebanon. He worked over the border in Canada. He was always
traveling. Mabel probably did some of that, too, but she was mostly busy having kids.
Tom: She had a very good mind for business. One of the stories we remember was that when they were
living in Boston, she was looking for a loan, about $4,000, to buy a rooming house. She went to a local bank and they asked
her what she had for collateral. She just pointed to her face, saying, ‘My face is the collateral.'
Barbara: They gave her the loan. That was her second rooming
house.
JM: Did they go directly
to Boston when they finally left Eastport?
Barbara:
No, they went to Macon, Georgia. They opened a restaurant there. It was American style, and my grandmother learned to make
Boston cream pie and lemon meringue pie. My mother
had a nanny, named Lottie, while she lived there. The kids worked in the restaurant. But the restaurant ended up failing,
so they didn't live very long in Macon. Tom:
So they went to Boston, and Phoebe's father obtained an ICC license to operate a moving company. It was called Thomas Trucking.
Eventually he lost the business.
Barbara:
But he continued to be a salesman. Then he died of tuberculosis (1947). When they came to Boston, my grandmother bought her
first lodging house, which was on Newbury Street. Somehow, my grandfather had the money for it. So they started taking in
roomers. My grandmother was a real entrepreneur. She enjoyed it. All of her children, including my mother and Phoebe lived
there. And then they bought the second house. But the third house is the one I remember. It was at 14 Garland Street. It was
taken over by eminent domain later and demolished. My grandmother owned one more house, at 9 Upton Street. By then, my grandmother
was a widow and much older and not up to owning a home. That's when Bob, her roomer, bought it from her.
JM: Your grandfather's WWII draft registration in 1942 states
that his place of employment was at 200 Shawmut Avenue.
Barbara: He had a little storefront. I once saw a picture of him sitting on a wooden chair in front
of the store, and he had a big handlebar mustache.
JM:
Let's get back to Phoebe. You said she was slow. Could she speak well and carry on a conversation?
Tom: She spoke pretty well, but she had trouble understanding
things.
JM: What are some of the
things she couldn't do that most people can do easily?
Tom:
She couldn't do math, and she couldn't read and write. If you were talking with her, you would eventually realize you were
talking to someone that had some limitations.
Barbara:
She never drove. She didn't have a license.
JM:
Did she cook?
Barbara: Yes. My
grandmother taught her to cook. She was one of the older children, and my mom was the baby. She remembers Phoebe taking care
of the little ones.
