Cecil I. Goodspeed
Tales of Cape Cod
The Tales of Cape Cod Oral History Collection consists of interviews of life long residents of all the towns in Barnstable County conducted between ca. 1972-1978. Louis Cataldo, then president of the Tales of Cape Cod board, oversaw the project, staff included Franklin S. Klausner, Roland Barabe, David J. Boudreau, Charles H. Hodgson and Renee Magriel, and interviewers included Betty W. Richards, Lee Anne Sullivan and William Pride. Interviewers asked older Cape Residents about changes in transportation, the arrival of electricity and telephones, their memories of school, holiday celebrations, foodways, family histories and more. Residents shared stories and anecdotes about summer people, the fishing and cranberry industries, agriculture, local businesses, the Great Depression, World Wars I and II, Prohibition, race relations, economic change, major storms and much more. For more information, contact the William Brewster Nickerson Archives in the Wilkens Library at Cape Cod Community College: http://www.nickersonarchives.org/
National Capital Contracting
Born in 1898, in West Barnstable, Mr. Goodspeed recalls that his grandfather was lost at sea. At the age of 5 he lost his father and went to live with his aunt in Osterville. He describes what school life was like in Osterville. He went to a three room nine grade school. He would come home for lunch and after school he would have chores like chopping wood. He helped install central heating to his aunts home in 1915 and helped with indoor plumbing in1923. The industries in the Osterville area were tourism, carpentry, boatbuilding, harvesting oysters, and retail shops such as general stores. Mr. Goodspeed describes wages in the early 1900’s and recalls that tradesmen would earn extra money skippering boats of wealthy summer residents. He describes the Wianno Junior and Senior boats built by the Crosby Boatyard. He recalls his experiences as a caddy at the Seapuit Golf Course in town which was reputed to be one of the first or second golf courses in the United States. He remembers earning 20 cents for caddying nine holes. The inn on the course and the property was later purchased by the Davis Homes for housing. Mr. Goodspeed describes the process of securing land in the 1640’s.
He describes his working experiences. In 1918 he became a bookkeeper for Daniel Brothers which was the largest home builder in the area. In 1932 he started a real estate and insurance business.
He remembers the railroad being extended to Provincetown in the early 1900’s. He also recalls the advent of electricity in the 1920’s, and his first sighting of an automobile on the Cape in 1909, a Stanley Steamer. Mr. Goodspeed recalls his service in the Navy during WWI, life during the depression and his recollections of bootleggers during Prohibition.
Notes: The Tales of Cape Cod Oral History Collection is housed at the William Brewster Nickerson Archives in the Wilkens Library at Cape Cod Community College in West Barnstable, Massachusetts. For more information about the collection, please contact the Nickerson Archives, http://www.nickersonarchives.org/.
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