VT Untapped

Episode 8: The Perks of Being a Storyteller

VT Untapped is produced by the Vermont Folklife Center.

June is a month when we celebrate our fathers, so we would like to use this month's VT Untapped episode to show you Vermont through the eyes of a unique father and daughter team: Perkins Flint (1878-1969) and Katharine Flint DuClos (1907-2010).

Perkins Flint lived and farmed in Braintree, Vermont, in the late 19th and early 20th century. His great-great-great-grandfather, William Flint, was one of the first settlers of the town, and Perkins (or Perk, as many affectionately called him) grew up hearing his own father’s stories about the social and geographical landscape of the town. Years later, Perkins brought his daughter up on those same stories and continued to add his own to the growing collection. She interviewed him in the mid-60s and with help from her mother painstakingly wrote down many of the stories he told. When folklorist Greg Sharrow met her in 1974, he began to uncover her family’s unique place as keepers of the town’s history.

Perkins was struck with TB when Katharine was very young, and she had to learn essential skills for helping out on the farm, becoming his “right-hand man.” According to Katharine, most women in that day couldn’t hitch up a team or drive a Model T, but she did all of that and more.

Episode 7: Out on the Ice

This month on VT Untapped we take a trip to the “Retreat Meadows,” a flooded, marshy area at the convergence of the West and Connecticut rivers in Brattleboro, Vermont, that regularly freezes over in winter. It was on this icy plain that Vermont-based Colombian photographer Federico Pardo noticed a small village of rough, squarish structures spring up each season. These ice “shanties” intrigued him and he began documenting them in 2016.

The VFC became involved when Vision & Voice Gallery Curator Ned Castle met Federico and the project expanded to include a series of interviews with shanty owners. In these conversations, the fishers speak of their shanties as structures, remark on the amenities and people they house, detail the practice of ice fishing, and, directly and indirectly, reflect the relationships, connections, and community they reinvent each year at the Meadows.

Learn more about the Vermont Folklife Center here on our website. 

Episode 6: Remembering Martha

Martha Pellerin was a musician, scholar, advocate, educator and song collector—to name just a few of her many roles. Her family immigrated to Vermont from the Eastern Townships of Quebec in the 1960s, settling in Barre. Growing up, Martha navigated a complicated landscape of culture and identity. While her family spoke French at home and maintained strong ties to Quebec, Martha also spent much of her life immersed in American culture and the English language.

Ultimately she found her calling, unifying these dual elements of herself and proudly identifying as a Franco-American. Martha worked her whole adult life to understand the nuances therein, to draw out, document and sustain the stories, songs and traditions of her family and community and to help others do the same. She was committed to “progressing the culture” of Franco-Americans in Vermont and beyond.

Martha died of cancer in 1998 at 37 years old - much too soon. In this episode we hear recordings of Martha from the VFC archives as well as interviews with her son, Ian Drury, and with Burlington-based musician Michele Choiniere, one of many Franco-American Vermonters whose life was touched by Martha.

Episode 5: Vermont Women

Three Extraordinary Vermont Women

To celebrate Women’s History Month, we honor the achievements of three extraordinary women: Nellie Staves, Daisy Turner, and Gert Lepine—all of whom were interviewed extensively by Vermont Folklife Center founder (and pioneer in her own right) Jane C. Beck.

Nellie Garnet Dunbar Badger Staves was born in West Danville, Vermont, in 1917 and grew up on Walden Mountain. She was an avid outdoors woman and conservationist, as well as an artist known for the engraved images she created on tree fungus. Nellie passed away in 2009.

Born in Grafton, Vermont, in 1883, Daisy Turner was one of thirteen children of Sally and Alec Turner, both of whom had been enslaved in Virginia prior to the Civil War. Daisy was a master storyteller whose extensive repertoire included the epic arc of the Turner family—beginning with enslavement in Africa, life in the antebellum South, the Civil War, emancipation, and ultimately freedom on a hill-top farm in Grafton, Vermont.

Daisy passed away in 1988 at 104 years old.

Gert Lepine was born in Hamsud, Quebec, in 1927 and moved to Vermont with her family in the 1930s. After completing school Gert set out to be a teacher, but the call of farming was strong and she eventually left the profession to farm full time with her family.

Gert still lives on the family farm in Morristown, Vermont.

 

Episode 4: Meet Cute

‘How did you meet?’ is probably one of the most common questions couples receive. In the spirit of Valentine’s day, we share these love stories recorded by VFC staff through interviews with friends, neighbors, and family.

So what do we mean by “Meet Cute”? Well, the term refers to the conditions under which two potential partners meet—trust us, it’s in Oxford English Dictionary. Your true love could be on the other side of the desk at a job interview, at the end of a scavenger hunt, or the last one out of the clown car. Yes, these are all true stories and you’ll hear them in this episode!

To learn more about the Vermont Folklife Center visit www.vtfolklife.org

Episode 3: Stalag Luft III

Major J. Francis Angier tells the gripping story of being shot down over Germany during World War II, surviving as a prisoner of war, and saving two ships carrying hundreds of soldiers from certain doom.

In the early 2000s Greg Sharrow and audio producer Erica Heilman conducted a set of interviews under the auspices of the Vermont Folklife Center for the Veterans History Project of the Library of Congress. From those interviews, an audio documentary was produced called “Prisoners of War: A Story of Four American Soldiers,” which focused on a group of Vermonters who had been captured during the Battle of the Bulge. Over the course of our research, we interviewed several veterans who shared powerful stories with us about their POW experiences but were not included in the documentary. In this episode of VT Untapped, we’re proud to share one those stories through an interview with Maj. J. Francis Angier.

For more information visit the Vermont Folklife Center website.

Episode 2: Deer Stories

Based on interviews with hunters conducted by the Vermont Folklife Center, Deer Stories doesn’t advocate for or condemn hunting but rather explores the experience from an insider’s point of view. This episode features excerpts from an original twelve part series produced by Greg Sharrow and Erica Heilman. Deer hunters introduce us to their world through stories that illustrate hunting practices and core values.

Episode 1: The Rainbow Cattle Co

What's my drag?

That’s the question photographer Evie Lovett found herself asking after spending time with Kitty, Mama, Candi, and Sophia, all drag queens at the Rainbow Cattle Company, a gay bar in Dummerston, Vermont.

Teaser: The VFC has a podcast!

Welcome to VT Untapped, a podcast from the Vermont Folklife Center that explores the cultures of Vermont through the voices of its own residents.

Check out our preview and look for the first full episodes in early December!