Margaret “Mimi” Killinger / Helen Nearing Collection

NA3378 Nancy Berkowitz, interviewed by Mimi Killinger, March 3, 1999 and April 2, 2001, Blue Hill and Harborside, Maine, respectively.

March 3, 1999: Berkowitz talks about Helen’s novels Living the Good Life and Loving and Leaving; Helen’s relationship with her husband, Scott; Juliette of the Herbs; Helen’s interaction with visitors to the farm; astrology and mysticism; Scott’s death; Helen’s relationship with Berkowitz and her family; Scott’s granddaughter Elka Schuman and her Bread and Puppet Theater in Glover, Vermont; Scott’s letters from Central and South America; Helen’s relationship with Berkowitz’s children; Scott’s 100th birthday party; Helen’s relationsip with Dr. Lovell; Helen’s relationship with her family; Elliot and Susan Coleman; Jean and Keith Hebron.

Text: 15 pp. transcript Recording: mfc_na3378_c2496_01,mfc_na3378_c2496_02 62 minutes

April 2, 2001: Also present: Rachel Glickman and Henry Zacchini, resident stewards of Forest Farm. Berkowitz talks about the history of Forest Farm; how she came to live there; her duties; Brett Brubaker, builder of the house; growing and storing their own vegetables; changes in Blue Hill; Sunday music nights and Monday meeting nights; speaker Alicia Bay Laurel; the interior of the house; Helen and Scott and their trip to Europe; the Common Ground Fair; University of Maine Environmental History professor Dick Judd; her neighbors the Burts and Dietrichs; the introduction of the telephone at Forest Farm; life at Forest Farm; artist Max Schuman; friend Bill Copperthwaite; Helen’s practice of recycling cards; the Clivis Multrum Abby Rockefeller toilet; their Thorndike stove; painter Connie Caney; the Bread and Puppet people of Vermont; Pusso the cat; Helen’s travels after Scott’s death; Gail Disney; Paul Breedman; painter Cole Morgan; Rachel and Henry’s experiences living in Africa; Cuban patriotism.

Text: 50 pp. transcript Recording: mfc_na3378_c2494_01, mfc_na3378_c2495_01 and 02 131 minutes

NA3380 Gail Disney, interviewed by Mimi Killinger, March 5, 1999, South Brooksville, Maine. Disney talks about the Nearings: Scott Nearing’s (SN) participation in the Arden Community in Wilmington, Delaware in the 1930s; living with the Nearings at Arden; Helen’s (HN) travels in Europe with Krishnamurti; separating HN and SN for Killinger’s feminism class; HN’s opinions on vegetarianism; HN’s love of animals; SN’s belief in communism; Forest Farm; HN’s and SN.’s colleagues Elliot Coleman, Keith Hebron, Stanley Joseph and Greg Sommers; SN’s Monday night lectures; HN’s travels to Cuba; HN’s publishing house, the Social Science Institute; SJ’s suicide; SJ’s contributions to the community; SJ’s book The Maine Farm; HN’s relationship with her family; HN’s personality and idealism; HN’s friend Nancy Cudle Johnson; the effects of SN’s death on HN; HN’s knitting; SN’s mentorship of HN; the effects of HN’s death on the community.

Text: 25 pp. transcript Recording: mfc_na3380_c2497_01, mfc_na3380_c2497_02 64 minutes

NA3381 David Trager and Merle Trager, interviewed by Mimi Killinger, October, 14, 2001, Jamaica, Vermont. Also Present: Joshua J. McCloud. Trager talks about Scott Nearing: Scott being fired from Princeton for his views; Scott Nearing’s marriage to Helen; Scott Nearing’s followers; the Norm Williams house and its history; realtor Jim Howard, who sold his house to the Tragers; the Trager’s stone house; Scott Nearing’s colleagues Wes Frost and Norman Williams; Ron Curtis’s work on the Trager’s house, colony member Pearl Buck; the history of the Trager house, its construction and work done to it.

Text: 20 pp. transcript Recording: mfc_na3381_c2498_01, mfc_na3381_c2498_02 44 minutes

NA3384 Jeanne Gaudette, interviewed by Mimi Killinger, March 3, 1999, Blue Hill, Maine. Gaudette talks about Helen Nearing (HN) and her life: Scott’s (SN) mentorship of his wife; SN’s paternalism towards HN; HN’s travels and relationship with Krishnamurti; how HN met Krishnamurti; HN’s book Loving and Leaving; teacher CW Leadbetter, friend of Annie Besant; theosophy; the disintegration of HN’s romantic relationship with Krishnamurti; SN’s unwillingness to have kids; German photographer Lotta Jacobi; SN’s colleague Eliot Coleman; Peitra Mueleman, President of the Theosophical Society of Holland; friend Ellen Laconte; book Making of a Radical; HN’s relationship with her family; SN and HN’s relationship; HN and SN’s astrological relationship under their signs; friend Diane Fitzgerald; Barbara Damarosch; HN’s accidental death; friend Karen Frangoulis; the possibility that HN committed suicide; Gaudette’s participation in the simple life; colleagues Stanley Joseph and Keith Hebron; HN’s personality.

Text: 27 pp. transcript Recording: mfc_na3384_c2500_01 and 02, mfc_na3384_c2501_01 and 02 110 minutes

NA3385 Rebecca Lepkoff, interviewed by Mimi Killinger, December 29, 2001, New York City, New York. Also present: Gene Lepkoff and Sarah Pandiscio. Lepkoff talks about Helen Nearing (HN) and her life in VT 1950-1954: the Nearings’ Good Life Farm in Jamaica, VT; neighbors and colleagues Norm and Natalie Fields, Norm and Winnie Williams, Hilda and George Wendland and the Smiths; the Nearings’ exploitation of their neighbors; Hilda Wendland’s braided rugs; colleague Charles Kent; Jewish neighbors Miriam and Herb Leider; Scott Nearing’s (SN) lectures; John Saltmarsh’s autobiography of SN; SN’s debating skills; SN’s views on capitalism; Jerry Goldman’s views on SN; HN’s friend Toby Goldman; how meeting and marrying Scott changed HN’s lifestyle; the Nearings’ dietary practices as vegetarians; SN’s rules for living; the Nearing’s choice to sell their land to George Breen; writer Pearl Buck; the Williams’ and their home, which they sold to the Tragers; artist Peter Wendland, creator of the Stratton Arts Center; recluse Gary Washburn; Werden’s history of Jamaica, VT; Lepkoff’s photo display at the Deider Gallery in Chicago, IL.

Text: 33 pp. transcript Recording: mfc_na3385_c2502_01, mfc_na3385_c2502_02, mfc_na3385_c2503_01, mfc_na3385_c2503_02 82 minutes