Tales of Cape Cod

  • Collection DOI:
    Principal Investigator:
    Louis Cataldo
  • 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/ 

Interviewee Sort descending Collection Description Interviewer Date of Interview Location of Interview Affiliation
Elsie Chadwick Tales of Cape Cod

Born in 1903, Ms. Chadwick describes her experiences growing up on Main Street in the village of Osterville. She describes the stores on Main Street in 1912; her school experiences at grammar school, Hyannis high school and two years at the State Normal School. She relates her experiences at holidays and describes Dr. Higgins, who had the first automobile in town.

Frank Rudd Osterville, MA The William Brewster Nickerson Cape Cod History Archives
Emma Marshall Tales of Cape Cod

February 28, 1978 interview with Emma Marshall of Provincetown, born July 1893.

Betty Richards Provincetown, MA The William Brewster Nickerson Cape Cod History Archives
Eugenia Fortes Tales of Cape Cod

Tales of Cape Cod Interview with prominent Civil Rights activist Eugenia Fortes (1911-2006),  who founded  the Cape Cod chapter of the NAACP in 1961. Mrs. Fortes describes the Cape Verdean community on Cape Cod, school segregation, and her participation in the Civil Rights Movement.

Frank Rudd Hyannis, MA The William Brewster Nickerson Cape Cod History Archives
Heaton Vorse Tales of Cape Cod

"It's expensive to live down here now and so, for that very reason, many of the artistic groups have gone to Truro and Wellfleet and further down the Cape."

Betty Richards Provincetown, MA The William Brewster Nickerson Cape Cod History Archives
Helen F. Snow Tales of Cape Cod

Mrs. Snow was born in Orleans in 1896.  She is a Mayflower descendant from Nicholas Snow who came on the ship Ann to Plymouth in 1623 and who married ConstanceHopkins who came on the Mayflower as a child.

Betty Richards Truro, MA The William Brewster Nickerson Cape Cod History Archives
Helen Pulcifer Doland Tales of Cape Cod

Born in 1894 at 382 Main Street, Yarmouth Port, Mrs.

William Steere Yarmouth Port, MA The William Brewster Nickerson Cape Cod History Archives
Horace & Malcolm Crosby Tales of Cape Cod

Malcolm “Max” Crosby age 85 (born 1893) and Horace M. Crosby Jr.

Betty Richards Osterville, MA The William Brewster Nickerson Cape Cod History Archives
Howard Atwood Tales of Cape Cod

"See, in the latter part of my grandmother being at the lighthouse, President Roosevelt was off the backshore in a government boat on a vacation.  They told him about her being the only woman lighthouse keeper in the country.  He said he would like to meet her.  So, they brought him around, around Provincetown and into Wellfleet Harbor.  They rode him ashore.  He shook hands with my grandmother."

Unknown , Wellfleet, MA The William Brewster Nickerson Cape Cod History Archives
John Bonnell Tales of Cape Cod

Born in 1892, Bonnell describes his experiences living on Cape Cod  including bullraking, digging clams, and tautog fishing; transportation to the Cape by train, early automobiles and motorcycles; early electric lights and kerosene lanterns; dentistry on the Cape in the early 20th century; Billingsgate Island; rum runners, and being the captain of a charter fishing boat.

Betty Richards Orleans, MA The William Brewster Nickerson Cape Cod History Archives
John G. Lewis Tales of Cape Cod

John G. Lewis interview with Tales of Cape Cod, June 06, 1978 in Osterville, MA.  Born on July 29, 1907 in Osterville, Mr. Lewis recalls that his father was a laborer and his mother was a paper hanger and house cleaner.  His father cut ice on Joshua Pond in the winter and also worked for Mr. Crosby who had oyster plots in the village.  Mr.

Frank Rudd Osterville, MA The William Brewster Nickerson Cape Cod History Archives