Rob Golding, interviewed by Thomas "Archie" Stewart

2007 Rob Golding, interviewed by Archie Stewart, 1961 - 1966. Text: 10 pp. of notes; 120 pp. transcript from April 21, 1961. Recording: mfc_na2007_c0494_01&02, mfc_na2007_c0495_01, mfc_na2007_t1971_01- mfc_na2007_t1986_02, mfc_na2007_audio001 2,200 minutes (37 hours) T 1971 April 21, 1961. Stewart begins by reading a letter he wrote to Golding, consoling him for his failing sight and hearing, and telling him of the help and pleasure he gave to others throughout his life as a Maine Guide and storyteller. Then Rob Golding discusses his family history and genealogy; family's move from Canada to Maine; his great-grandfather's experience as a trapper in the 1820s; compares to his own use of traps; stories about Trapper Golding (the great-grandfather); grandfather Robert's farm; Rob's brothers, Will and Jim, and the things they built, including a cannon and a steam engine; how Will drowned; Rob's school days in Perry and Louis Cove, Maine; bringing June bugs into church; farmer's first use of the telephone; sources of hay and fertilizer for nineteenth-century Maine farmers; farmer's fight with a ram; handling an appendicitis in Washington County before the railroad came; and serving in the army for the Spanish-American war in Maine, Savannah, and Cuba. T1979 May 7, 8, and 9, 1961. Golding discusses a match-selling scam; encounter with thieves in train station in Boston; automobile-related stories; fire in the woods and in a chimney; inexperienced ship's cook; Maine fishing boat captain gets shipwrecked in the West Indies and Labrador; and Stewart tells story about a practical joke played on Golding, involving hiring a woods cook to cook for their sporting party. Golding also talks about sardine cannery inspected by Pure.