A Hand-Me-Down Harvest; Every Lake Has a Monster
- Transcript
<v Woman 1>[inaudible recording] <v Woman 1>When you look at traditional lore in Vermont, you find a large body of material <v Woman 1>quite apart from the ballads, folk songs and fiddle tunes collected in the <v Woman 1>30s, 40s and 50s in New England by Helen Hartness Flanders. <v Man 1>When Mrs. Flanders first began her collection in the 30s, <v Man 1>almost no one respectable was collecting folklore. <v Man 1>About the only thing that you could collect was a very small contingent <v Man 1>of songs that were known as a child ballad. <v Man 1>They didn't collect superstitions or costumes or legends or tales or beliefs because <v Man 1>that wasn't really thought to be the proper thing for anyone to do. <v Man 1>Uh but legends are closely connected to songs in that they very often <v Man 1>are located pretty closely in time and in place. <v Man 1>And the chief purpose of the legend, it seems to me, is to
<v Man 1>give some historical information. <v Man 1>To preserve some kind of historical event. <v Man 1>Also, uh it is a way to <v Man 1>demonstrate what the consequences of certain historical <v Man 1>events can or may well be. <v Man 1>Now, in the town of Fairfield, there is a <v Man 1>pond named on the map, Fairfield pond. <v Man 1>But, the local name is quite different from the name topographer <v Man 1>gives it. <v Woman 2>Around the 1840s there came to that vicinity, <v Woman 2>a man by the name of Eugene Clifford, who was a deserter <v Woman 2>from the British Army. <v Woman 2>And he met and married a young widow who had a 50 acre farm <v Woman 2>along the shore of Fairfield Pond.
<v Woman 2>But he soon tired of her because he had met <v Woman 2>a young widow on the other side of the lake who also had a small <v Woman 2>farm. But on October 15th, 1842, <v Woman 2>he came home from work that day early and he said to his wife, <v Woman 2>I'm going to take you and the baby for a boat ride. <v Woman 2>So she hurredly placed a shawl, a woolen shawl <v Woman 2>around her baby and across her own shoulders she put a silken shawl, <v Woman 2>which she had brought from Ireland. <v Woman 2>So she took the baby, she climbed into the forward part of the boat, <v Woman 2>and he started paddling. <v Woman 2>He paddled around a point of the land 'til he was out of sight of the shore <v Woman 2>and his neighbors. <v Woman 2>After several hours went by, he was seen returning <v Woman 2>with just him in the boat. <v Woman 2>He sat hunched over and as he rowed ashore, the neighbors
<v Woman 2>saw that he was crying, so they begun to question <v Woman 2>him as to why he was crying and where was his wife and <v Woman 2>child. <v Woman 2>Now he said that the baby became cold and so <v Woman 2>his wife took her prized possession of her silken shawl, <v Woman 2>off of her shoulders, and as she placed it around her little baby babe, <v Woman 2>she toppled with the baby into the water. <v Woman 2>And he said they both drowned and he said in spite of all his efforts, <v Woman 2>he could not save them. <v Woman 2>So all the neighbors searched all the dark and all next day, <v Woman 2>'til late afternoon before they found the bodies. <v Woman 2>Not too far from shore, but while plans were bein' <v Woman 2>made for a funeral, one of the people remembered <v Woman 2>there were two shawls when they left to go in the boat. <v Woman 2>So they questioned Mr. Clifford about the shawls and he said,
<v Woman 2>how should I know how they are? <v Woman 2>So they begun to be suspicious of him. <v Woman 2>And then their theory that he had murdered his wife and child were stonger. <v Woman 2>When they recalled that a week or so before that when they were sittin' <v Woman 2>around the ?pot bellied stove? <v Woman 2>in the store, he had asked them this question, <v Woman 2>if my wife and child should die, would I inherit my wife's <v Woman 2>farm free and clear? <v Woman 2>So they arrested him and they placed him in the care <v Woman 2>of a keeper. But of course, the evidence was only circumstantial. <v Woman 2>But that night, the day before the funeral, uh Mrs. uh <v Woman 2>Abigail Marven, who was a close friend of Mrs. Clifford, had <v Woman 2>a dream. <v Woman 2>She dreamed that if she uh went down a certain road and crossed <v Woman 2>a certain fence and went through a woods to a point
<v Woman 2>on the shore of the palm, there would be a hollow tree there. <v Woman 2>And in that hollow tree, there would be a flat stone. <v Woman 2>And underneath the flat stone, they would find the shawls. <v Woman 2>So she talked her neighbor into going with her and they went along <v Woman 2>this road, which was so clear in her mind from the dream. <v Woman 2>Cross the fence and through the woods to the edge of the pond. <v Woman 2>And there was a hollow tree. <v Woman 2>So they looked in and there was a flat stone and <v Woman 2>on liftin' the stone out, she and her neighbor discovered the two <v Woman 2>shawls. <v Woman 2>In the court room the next day after the funeral, when <v Woman 2>she described how she knew the shawls were there through her dream, <v Woman 2>there was complete silence in the courtroom. <v Woman 2>Now, Mr. Clifford was convicted of atrocious murder
<v Woman 2>of his wife and child. <v Woman 2>And so today, this is how Fairfield Pond is sometime <v Woman 2>called Dream Lake. <v Man 1>It is to me exceedingly interesting that this place should be called Dream Lake <v Man 1>and that this belief in dreams that is so popular in Scotland and Ireland <v Man 1>should come across the water and reappear here with such <v Man 1>vitality. <v Woman 1>Stories are often preserved in song, which makes sense because the rhythm <v Woman 1>and the lyric and the rhyme of the song makes them much easier to remember so <v Woman 1>that while Dream Lake is a legend, Springfield Mountain is remembered in song. <v Man 2>[recording playing] <v Man 2>?inaudible? This song has got a lot of different ways of singin' it. <v Man 2>Some think it was from a ?inaudible? <v Man 2>family, some think it was from somebody else. <v Man 2>But eh the way I sing it, it's uh [inaudible singing].
<v Man 1>Tells the story of a young man who was bitten on <v Man 1>the heel by a snake. <v Man 1>He was 21 years old. <v Man 1>He was Lieutenant Myrick's only son. <v Man 1>Lieutenant Myrick, being a man who fought in the American Revolution <v Man 1>and the song indeed has been known since the late <v Man 1>18th century.
<v Man 1>Well, there is a Springfield Mountain in Vermont. <v Man 1>And not very far away is the town of Myricks <v Man 1>in Massachusetts. <v Man 2>[inaudible singing] <v Woman 1>And there are many, many versions of one story or one song and Springfield Mountain <v Woman 1>is a good example of this. The boy may go out to start his hang on a Friday, which <v Woman 1>traditionally is a very bad day to start anything. <v Woman 1>Or he may be hang on Sunday, which of course, breaks the religious taboo that you <v Woman 1>shouldn't work on Sunday. <v Woman 1>And you may get a more generalized version where he simply goes, hang on <v Woman 1>a summer's day.
<v Woman 3>Um, I learned this one from my father. <v Woman 3>[singing] On Springfield, Mountain, <v Woman 3>there he dwelled, a lovely youth I know him well, one summer morning, he <v Woman 3>did go down to the meadow for ?tomorrow?. <v Woman 3>Dear Rudy ooh, dear Rudy hey, dear Rudy ooh, dear Rudy hey, dear Rudy ooh, <v Woman 3>dear Rudy hey. He had not mowed ?inaudible? <v Woman 3>round the field when a poison serpent bit his heel. <v Woman 3>They brought him home to Molly dear, and oh, it made <v Woman 3>her feel so queer. Dear Rudy ooh, dear Rudy hey, <v Woman 3>dear Rudy ooh, dear Rudy hey. <v Woman 3>Now, Molly had 2 ruby lips with which the poison <v Woman 3>she did sip. But Molly had a hollow tooth <v Woman 3>and so the poison got them both. <v Woman 3>Dear Rudy ooh, dear Rudy hey, dear Rudy ooh, dear Rudy hey.
<v Woman 1>Songs and stories are often attached to specific places, <v Woman 1>but sometimes there are more than one of these places. <v Woman 1>For example, Springfield Mountain could be in Vermont or there's also a Springfield <v Woman 1>Mountain in Massachusetts. <v Woman 1>However, it was important uh to make these legends or tales <v Woman 1>or songs local. <v Woman 1>And uh the story of Emily's ghost is another good example <v Woman 1>of a story or a tale that is attached to a particular place. <v Woman 1>And this is attached to a ?bridge and stall?. <v Man 3>People love ghost stories. <v Man 3>They survive you'll find them all over the country. <v Man 3>People don't really know if there ghosts or not. <v Man 3>There the believers who argue they are, the nonbelievers who try to debunk <v Man 3>any ghost story that comes along. <v Man 3>So it's a gray area in our culture.
<v Man 3>The believers, obviously, if they believe in ghosts, <v Man 3>need to have stories that prove that there are ghosts. <v Man 3>Folk traditionals supply it. <v Man 3>Stories such as the st- uh Tale of Emily's Bridge is a good example. <v Man 4>Emily is all we know of her name, <v Man 4>the ghost of a young woman who inhabits a covered bridge on Gold Brook, <v Man 4>which is in this dull, hollow section of stone. <v Man 4>The bridge was built, oh, probably 1840, 1850, <v Man 4>tucked back in the woods right where you'd expect to find a little covered bridge. <v Man 4>But as the story goes, Emily was a young lady <v Man 4>destined to be married on the following day. <v Man 4>Who was said to have been crossing the bridge when a team of <v Man 4>runaway horses were coming down the hill and uh <v Man 4>forced her to jump.
<v Man 4>And she jumped and was killed on the rocks below the bridge. <v Man 3>Here we've got a covered bridge in a dark valley. <v Man 3>At night it's a scary looking place. <v Man 3>It's an ideal place for a ghost legend to develop. <v Man 3>People tell the story, this happened nearby, this happened down the road. <v Man 3>This is the cover bridge we know about. <v Man 3>Listen to this story. And we have it. <v Man 3>The legend survives as long as the landmark is there. <v Man 4>Uh many people have said they have seen or had things happen to them. <v Man 4>Be walking through the bridge on a warm summer day and feel a cold breeze, <v Man 4>have a hat blown off. <v Man 4>Uh simple things like that. <v Man 4>I have seen things in the bridge myself that I don't <v Man 4>uh I don't know how to explain. <v Man 4>It was almost midnight. <v Man 4>And I'm sitting in the bridge and a friend of mine heard voices, <v Man 4>he heard- then he said, let's get out of here.
<v Man 4>So we took off in the car and went up the roadways. <v Man 4>And he said to me, did you hear that noise? <v Man 4>And I said, no. And I said, what was it? <v Man 4>And he said, it was someone saying, Help me. <v Man 4>Help me. <v Man 4>And at which point I said, well, let's go back and find out. <v Man 4>Maybe somebody does need help. <v Man 4>And we went back and this time we were sitting and the bridge going the opposite <v Man 4>direction. So where he had heard the voices is now on my side of the car <v Man 4>and I looked out the driver's window and there right on the- right <v Man 4>in the middle of the bridge, right on the wall where I could just about reach and touch <v Man 4>it was a very brilliant flash of light. <v Man 4>Six or eight very quick flashes like a strobe light going off. <v Man 4>I- no way they could have been coming from inside the car. <v Man 4>And unless somebody was hanging from the rafters above the car, I don't think it <v Man 4>could have been done even with the flashlight and have 'em quite so intense and so quick. <v Man 4>So I do believe that there is a ghost.
<v Man 4>I want to believe that it's Emily's ghost in the bridge. <v Man 4>Um someday I'd like to talk to her, find out exactly what happened. <v Man 3>Teenagers now go and park there at night. <v Man 3>They tell the stories. I can imagine. <v Man 3>You know, the young fellow in the car telling the girl with him the story. <v Man 3>She's frightened. She's scared. It's a perfect situation that he wants. <v Man 3>It's also warning the girl, don't go down there and park at night. <v Man 3>We have this beautiful dilemma contained in this story. <v Man 3>The story itself entertains on one level. <v Man 3>It gives a warning on another level. <v Man 3>The stories work. What was the kernel of truth? <v Man 3>Was there a death there at one time? <v Man 3>We don't know, but it's the telling of the story that's <v Man 3>important. <v Man 3>Uh it's a logical explanation when no other explanation can be found. <v Man 3>People who do not believe in ghosts- something happens <v Man 3>that they can't explain.
<v Man 3>How do they answer it? Well, they have no way. <v Woman 1>In the scientific world of today, the possibility that ghosts and monsters <v Woman 1>exist is pretty intriguing, and some people believe that where <v Woman 1>there's smoke, there's fire. If there's a story of a ghost or a sighting <v Woman 1>of a monster, that something must be feeding this. <v Woman 1>Th- these things exist, others tend to look for a more scientific <v Woman 1>explanation, uh perhaps, that ghosts of the <v Woman 1>past left such a dramatic stain um on the <v Woman 1>environment that these ghosts live on, or that a monster, <v Woman 1>uh maybe some kind of prehistoric creature that when all its other kind <v Woman 1>disappeared, that it somehow escaped extinction. <v Man 3>Virtually every lake of any size in the United States has a monster in it. <v Man 3>Vermont has two lakes that have monsters. <v Man 3>Lake Memphremagog has one.
<v Man 3>And of course, the most famous, of course, is the Champ, the Lake Champlain Monster. <v Man 4>I've been uh boating on Lake Champlain for the last five years and <v Man 4>I've been seeing the odd newspaper report and been hearing <v Man 4>the odd comments by tourists uh on some <v Man 4>sea monsters, sea serpent that they dub Champ. <v Man 4>And my very first impression of that was, uh no, <v Man 4>there's such a thing can't exist. <v Man 4>It's got to be alternative reasons. <v Man 4>However, as weeks go by in the summer, more and more reports <v Man 4>come in from eyewitnesses, uh reliable people, doctors, <v Man 4>nurses, lawyers, 17 nuns crossing the ferry <v Man 4>from Essex that have all seen at the same time, uh <v Man 4>police constables, preachers. <v Man 4>And I I I still could not convince myself that something could exist like that uh
<v Man 4>in our modern times. <v Man 4>At 9 September of 1980, on the <v Man 4>Plattsburgh side, a couple was enjoying some <v Man 4>uh hamburgers, by the beach and all of a sudden they heard some splashing offshore. <v Man 4>They looked around and the only way to describe their sighting was Dino, the dinosaur. <v Man 4>There's been a photograph taken by Sandra Mansi in 1977 <v Man 4>off the shores of St. Albans of Champ. <v Man 4>It's not something that has just happened in a year or two ago. <v Man 4>It's for generations that people have <v Man 4>reported sightings. <v Harold>This had happened back in May of 1960, late as the <v Harold>20th of May, if I recall correctly. <v Harold>Mrs. Pat and I were living on a little street up here in <v Harold>East Haddock, Vermont and we decided to go for a camping trip.
<v Harold>So we packed a picnic and our camping duffel. <v Harold>And ample time we had to travel to South en route to <v Harold>the point where not so many years ago there was three picnic <v Harold>tables on the left, right across from the lake. <v Harold>We decided at that time we should have some dinner. <v Harold>Well uh, the day was perfect for observing anything <v Harold>on Lake Champlain. <v Harold>This was right across Dylan ?inaudible? bay towards the north ?inaudible? <v Harold>and I were looking at the time and no mirror was ever smoother <v Harold>than the Lake of Champlain was at that time, there wasn't a ripple on it. <v Harold>My wife was ?inaudible?, leave something to be desired. <v Harold>Said there's something. <v Harold>Makin' a motion out on the lake. <v Harold>She said how. <v Harold>Well, I said probably some birds jumpin for fly.
<v Harold>Well, [clears throat] another minute of doin', she said there's somethin' movin' out <v Harold>there, Harold. <v Harold>So I turn around and look, my God <v Harold>?almighty? I says that is a Champlain monster. <v Man 3>In folk tradition, if we go back centuries, <v Man 3>uh there was a constant ambivalence about worlds that we <v Man 3>couldn't see. And one world was the world under water. <v Man 3>There were things under the water that we just didn't know about. <v Man 3>Well, in a sense, that happened here in Vermont with the size of Lake Champlain, a <v Man 3>tradition grew up that there was a monster in there. <v Man 3>What's interesting about the tradition in the 19th century, it's more <v Man 3>of a tall tale tradition. <v Man 3>The accounts that appear in the newspapers are obvious tall tales <v Man 3>and not belief legends at all. <v Man 3>Latter part of the 19th century. We have some outsiders come in <v Man 3>who have heard the stories, observe phenomena on the lake,
<v Man 3>that they can't explain. <v Man 3>Again, we're dealing with people uh who already are conditioned to <v Man 3>believe maybe there is a monster. <v Man 3>Something happens that they can't explain. <v Man 3>The monster explains it beautifully for them. <v Man 3>If you are prepared to believe that maybe a monster is out there. <v Man 3>And so you see something which your eye is not prepared to interpret. <v Man 3>You've got to explain it. <v Man 3>You've got the Lake Champlain monster. <v Harold>This uh creature. <v Harold>Had three distinct uh humps up into the air, <v Harold>apparently, as far as I could guess, two or three feet high. <v Harold>One behind the other. Not down flat on the water, but up in the air <v Harold>vertically. <v Harold>His uh his head at that distance, even with binoculars, <v Harold>wasn't uh magnified enough so that I could tell you how many front teeth he <v Harold>had or what color his eyes are or anything of that sort of thought.
<v Harold>But I could see enough to indicate to me that the head was <v Harold>not shaped exactly like of snakes. <v Harold>No ground snake at least. <v Harold>Well, there's quite a bit larger and uh <v Harold>in all probability, as far as I could guess, he was between 20 and 30 feet long. <v Harold>If he straightened out into a straight line. <v Harold>Well, ?inaudible? <v Harold>and part of the time I sat facing the road. <v Harold>And part of the time I sat looking at that beast out there. <v Harold>He had started from the shore of the lake a little farther south down <v Harold>the bay, and was going diagonally above north east, <v Harold>and he had gone very, very slowly he wasn't making much progress at all. <v Harold>He was out for a nice, comfortable swim. <v Harold>And before we decided to leave him and head on for our camping trip, <v Harold>he made up his mind he'd better get back home to supper or something. <v Harold>As he slowly turned around and headed back towards where he
<v Harold>came from. <v Man 4>Many people come forth and say it is sturgeon because the lake is known to have very <v Man 4>large sturgeon in the mid summer months sturgeon mate, swim <v Man 4>together, swim close to the surface, which would account for a sighting <v Man 4>of humps. <v Man 4>It does not account for the sighting of long necks. <v Man 4>And to be able to stick a neck six feet out of the water of which are <v Man 4>60 percent of 170 sightings. <v Man 4>It takes quite a body behind it to lift that neck out of the water. <v Man 4>So we dig back into our archives and we come on a creature called <v Man 4>the Plesiosaur, which is a an extinct reptile. <v Man 4>Another theory has it that this is a ?Zubadan?, which is an extinct <v Man 4>whale. <v Man 3>The Vermont House passed a resolution this year <v Man 3>uh this spring saying Champ is a protected creature, but if you
<v Man 3>look at the resolution very carefully, it's kind of tongue in cheek. <v Man 3>A lot of times when people hear folk narratives being presented, <v Man 3>particularly legends, the first question they ask is, well, did that really <v Man 3>happen? Is there a Lake Champlain monster? <v Man 3>And we're really missing to ask that question, we're missing the point to a great extent <v Man 3>of folklore. We don't ask whether a Steinbeck novel was true, <v Man 3>whether a Faulkner novel is true. <v Man 3>But yet we ask are stories about the Lake Champlain monster true. <v Man 3>We're looking at an art form, an oral art form, and <v Man 3>even historical legends, legends such as the tale of Fairfield <v Man 3>Pound or Dream Lake is presenting folk <v Man 3>view of history, which may be or may not be <v Man 3>the same as standard history. <v Man 3>Folk history focuses on those things that a community considers
<v Man 3>important. Believed history is as important <v Man 3>in folk community as actual history. <v Man 3>In fact, we can't separate them. And it's testimony to folklore <v Man 3>and how it survives and how it continues to survive. <v Woman 1>There's no question that folklore feeds popular lore, and Champ is a very good <v Woman 1>example of this. Here he's gone well beyond folk belief and captured <v Woman 1>everybody's imagination. He's made the papers. <v Woman 1>He's become a lure to tourists. <v Woman 1>He's uh talked about on the radio. <v Woman 1>And of course, people living on either side of the lake [music plays] have also made the <v Woman 1>most of it. <v Woman 1>
<v Bob Maker>Bob Maker for the Emerald City of Oz. <v Bob Maker>We're on a small craft on Lake Champlain and we're about to rendezvous with Champ, the <v Bob Maker>Lake Champlain monster. [seagulls calling] <v Champ>Oh! <v Bob Maker>Here comes champ now. <v Champ>Hey, buddy. <v Bob Maker>Hi, Champ. Would you like to tell the people why you've gone public? <v Champ>Oh, I was ?inaudible? Emerald City. You know what I mean? <v Champ>I've been sleeping on water since I was knee high to a brontosaurus. <v Champ>Those old spooks come along and show me just how beautiful all my bedrooms can be, all <v Champ>their gorgeous furniture makin' my eyes ?bug? right outta my head. <v Bob Maker>What'd'you like best about ?inaudible?. <v Champ>Draws, man. Storage space if you catch my drift. <v Champ>But ?inaudible? <v Bob Maker>Just how big are you exactly? <v Champ>Well, I ain't no guppy [chuckles]. <v Champ>?inaudible? Comin'. I gotta go. <v Bob Maker>Stay tuned for more live coverage of Champ. <v Bob Maker>This is Bob Baker signing off. <v Bob Maker>Sleep like a champ. <v Champ>Yo! <v Bob Maker>On a waterbed from the Emerald City of Oz. <v Man 4>And what people are, individuals are investigating now is the possible existence
<v Man 4>of an unidentified animal. <v Man 4>Uh for the moment, we are calling Champy unknown, unidentified uncatalogued <v Man 4>species of marine life. <v Man 3>But it's it's real folk tradition. It's how it works and people wanna believe. <v Man 3>[folk music plays] <v Woman 1>The producers of this program would like to thank the following people for their <v Woman 1>participation. Harold Patch, Ed Groves, Dave <v Woman 1>Salomon, Mary-Alice Flyer, Evelin Stanley, Ethel Ones <v Woman 1>and musicians Ron West and Ronnie West. <v Woman 1>Thanks also to folklorist Dix ?inaudible? <v Woman 1>of the University of Vermont and to folklorist Morris Beck, ethnomusicologist <v Woman 1>Jennifer Quinn, and director of Public Relations, Ron ?Leaf? <v Woman 1>all of Middlebury College.
<v Woman 1>Special thanks to Vermont state folklorist Jane Beck of the Vermont Council <v Woman 1>on the Arts. <v Woman 1>The engineer for this program was Sam Sanders. <v Woman 1>The program was produced by Bonnie Morrissey and Ev Rhymes. <v Woman 1>With funds provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. <v Woman 1>I'm the executive producer, Betty Smith, and this is a production of Vermont <v Woman 1>Public Radio.
- Series
- A Hand-Me-Down Harvest
- Episode
- Every Lake Has a Monster
- Producing Organization
- Vermont Public Radio
- Contributing Organization
- The Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia (Athens, Georgia)
- AAPB ID
- cpb-aacip-526-dn3zs2md2j
If you have more information about this item than what is given here, or if you have concerns about this record, we want to know! Contact us, indicating the AAPB ID (cpb-aacip-526-dn3zs2md2j).
- Description
- Episode Description
- This episode of A Hand-me-down Harvest discusses folk tales traditional to Vermont and how they go on lasting for generations to follow. First, the story of Dream Lake is discussed. A song is sung about a similar legend. Next, a ghost story called The Tale of Emily's Bridge is told. The speakers reflect on how this story is similar to ghost stories all around America and how strong oral tradition can be. Finally, the Lake Champlain sea monster is discussed. People who claim to have seen the monster tell their stories.
- Series Description
- "The series A HAND-ME-DOWN HARVEST is a culmination of efforts begun in VPR in 1978 when it became known to us that a truly remarkable collection of folklore was archived at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vt. Having only the year before been transcribed by the Library of Congress, this extraordinary collection was largely unknown even within scholarly circles and had never been widely distributed to the general public. Properly referred to as the Helen Hartness Flanders Ballad Collection, it consists of 250 wax cylinders, 1500 discs and 55 tapes, as well as letters, field notes and photos of people interviews by Mrs. Flanders in New England, beginning in 1930 at the request of the Committee of Traditions and Ideals of the Vermont Commission on Country Life and continuing as Mrs. Flanders['] life work until her death in the 1950's. In 1979 we received a grant from the NEA for the purpose of studying the collection and producing a one-hour pilot program which was broadcast locally in 1980 and nationally as part of the NPR 'Options' series in 1981. Then, in cooperation with Vermont State Folklorist, Jane Beck of the Vermont Council on the Arts, we applied for a second grant from the NEA for the purpose of [remixing] the pilot into two half-hour programs and for the development of six new [segments] designed to test whether elements of the material collected by Mrs. Flanders were still a viable part of the social fabric today. 4,000 staff hours, 18,000 miles of travel and 74 miles of recording tape later, our production team, headed by Producer Ev Grimes, has demonstrated that the heritage documented originally by Mrs. Flanders is alive and flourishing in our region. This series combines archival and contemporary material in a rich tapestry of voices, songs, stories, beliefs and traditions. Recorded actualities effectively span 50 years. The series offers an unusual opportunity to participate in traditions which can be traced back literally hundreds of years. It echoes with ancestral voices which continue to enrich our lives today."--1984 Peabody Awards entry form.
- Broadcast Date
- 1984
- Created Date
- 1984
- Asset type
- Episode
- Media type
- Sound
- Duration
- 00:28:55.632
- Credits
-
-
Producing Organization: Vermont Public Radio
- AAPB Contributor Holdings
-
The Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection at the
University of Georgia
Identifier: cpb-aacip-c10851b557d (Filename)
Format: 1/4 inch audio cassette
If you have a copy of this asset and would like us to add it to our catalog, please contact us.
- Citations
- Chicago: “A Hand-Me-Down Harvest; Every Lake Has a Monster,” 1984, The Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed December 7, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-526-dn3zs2md2j.
- MLA: “A Hand-Me-Down Harvest; Every Lake Has a Monster.” 1984. The Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. December 7, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-526-dn3zs2md2j>.
- APA: A Hand-Me-Down Harvest; Every Lake Has a Monster. Boston, MA: The Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-526-dn3zs2md2j