89 Shared Podcast from the Radical Centrist: Indivisible: Daniel Webster and the Birth of American Nationalism

 Indivisible - Daniel Webster and the Birth of American Nationalism: 

A Conversation with Author Joel Richard Paul

This is a Podcast shared to NH Secrets from The Radical Centrist Podcast

Listen here: https://feeds.podetize.com/l1Zbk03cjt.mp3

Professor Joel Richard Paul

Purchase Indivisible

Daniel Webster and the Birth of American Nationalism

Daniel Webster was at the center of the great issues that defined his times. He was opposed to slavery, vehemently opposed the Indian Removal Act - that ended in the notorious and, illegal, Trail of Tears - with fellow congressman Davy Crockett; argued consistently for freedom of religion and the protection of religious minorities. Yet even today an ambivalence exists about him that reflects a judgment of him based on current standards.

In his book Indivisible: Daniel Webster and the Birth of American Nationalism, historian Joel Richard Paul seeks to draw our attention to the two most abiding principles of Webster: Freedom - that drove his belief that slavery was wrong, and Union, without which securing freedom for slaves in the southern states would not be possible and without which America could not fulfill its most promising ideals.

Paul makes a convincing case that Webster was the force that gave birth to the to the belief that we were Americans, not merely Virginians, or Pennsylvanians or New Hampshireites; That the Constitution of the United States was the thread that wove us together and gave us common cause.

Joel Richard Paul is a Professor of Constitutional and International Law, University of California Hastings College of the Law; Author, Indivisible: Daniel Webster and the Birth of American Nationalism

Celebrating the Corn at Schemitzun

Remains of the Revolution

Dutch Washline at Dusk

Blonde on Blonde

Winter Clouds Over Cannon 

Clouds Over Crawford

The Daffodils

Little Flume Originals

Riding the Carter Presidential Wave to Washington and Beyond: A conversation with Marcel Veilleux

 

Riding the Carter Presidential Wave to Washington and Beyond: A conversation with Marcel Veilleux

Remembering President Jimmy Carter

Listen here:

https://feeds.podetize.com/VDaWb5hwH.mp3

"Always Leaving a Door Open" to Your mind and your future. That seems to be the thread that runs through the life of Marcel Veilleux.

When I heard that President Carter had gone into hospice care I wanted to find a way to celebrate the life of Jimmy Carter that intersected with New Hampshire. It brought to mind a day in 1974 when I walked into the Memorial Union Building at UNH and ran into my friend Marcel Veilleux who was working at a storefront kiosk in the front foyerl.

I discovered he was working on the Presidential Primary campaign of an unknown Georgia Governor named Jimmy Carter. I remember I teased him about it - even though I was helping Jerry Brown and Fred Harris myself.

Little did I know that Marcel had just signed on for the ride of a lifetime as Jimmy Carter went from unknown to rockstar. OK, rockstar may be overstating the case, but Carter's quiet competence and humility was just what the American people needed after the Nixon/Ford/Vietnam years.

A few months later, after Carter won in the NH primary, Marcel was off to help in other states and he worked in the administration after that. This was an achievment that was celebrated by his friends at UNH.

My conversation with Marce was a heartfelt reunion and a celebration of President Carter's many contributions to the world. From his presidency to founding the Carter Center to building thousands of houses with Habitat for Humanity, eliminating Guinea worm - a scourge in Africa - to proving fair oversight for elections around the world.s

Marcel himself has had a consequential life from campaign operative and member of the Carter administration to managing a large professional association as well as his own business, and finally as a Pastor of a church, The Lighthouse Christian Center in Westbrook Maine. 

On the Vineyard - Signed Original

Herb Waters' Home in the Woods

Washday Fresco

Spanish Tower Washday

Ode to Wynn Bullock

Spirit Pony in a Franconia Dusk

Sundown Wash Line in Jefferson

An Outlaw's Lament

Pow Wow Parade Dancer

Portal to Mystical Past

Freeform Parasols

Highland Storm #3 - The Etherial Lupine

Signed Original Prints

Open edition prints

Podcasts produced at Anamaki Studios in Bath, NH. 

This land lies in N’dakinna, the traditional ancestral homeland of the Abenaki, Sokoki, Koasek, Pemigewasset, Pennacook and Wabanaki Peoples past and present. We acknowledge and honor with gratitude those who have stewarded N’dakinna throughout the generations.

Ep 88: Ranked Choice Voting - Why is it important and how will it change a divided democracy? Rep Ellen Read

Ep 88: Ranked Choice Voting - Why is it important and how will it change a divided democracy? Rep Ellen Read

Listen here:
https://feeds.podetize.com/6wSi0L1l7.mp3

Representative Ellen Read of Newmarket has done a lot of thinking about how to heal the wounds that have afflicted our democracy recently. She is a tireless advocate of a shift to Ranked Choice Voting. And she is not afraid to speak her mind about the way that the current system benefits the leadership of both political parties while it ignores the opportunity to give citizens the chance to cast a meaningful vote in any one election.

She compares the gridlock that currently exists with the existing parties with a quote from a friend who was resigning from the leadership of Greenpeace. She asked him why he was leaving and his response was that Greenpeace was no longer concerned with saving the whales so much as it was concerned about keeping the whales endangered - because that was what kept them viable as an organization.  

For example:

In a Presidential Primary a single candidate could feasibly win all of NH delegate votes with only 15% of the vote, leaving the other 85% of the voters in that election without a voice.

Military voters and ballots cast by expatriates living in another country actually have ranked-choice voting now in order not to disenfranchise them in the event of a runoff. 

According to recent polling of Americans nearly ⅔ of Americans say our democracy is broken. Between the poisonous effects of special interest money, the deeply partisan divide, the purging of centrist voices in both parties, Negative campaigning, the tribalism and deep sense of antipathy and mistrust with which most Americans view their government. 

Many people who have been engaged for years in public policy matters have stated that we have lost our ability to take on the big issues of the day because we have allowed Democracy to deteriorate and have disenfranchised citizens, sublimating our American voice, in the quest for power.

One symptom of the problems within our democracy are the number of elections won by candidates where they received 17, 20, 30% of the vote and won simply because the votes had been divided between multiple candidates - thus disenfranchising a majority of voters, leading to a deepening lack of confidence in our democratic system.

Ellen Read is a Democratic member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives, representing Rockingham 17. Read was first elected to the office on November 8, 2016 and re-elected again in the 2018, 2020 and 2022 elections.

After you have listened to this podcast, if you believe that Ranked Choice Voting can help to stem the tide of bitter partisanship and negative campaigning in our country and give us election results that more closely reflect the majority of voters, I urge you to contact your state Reps and Senators to let them know your feelings and encourage your friends to do the same. Believe me when I say that the two major parties often do not know what is in their own best interests and in the end they have a whole lot less influence on your Representative and Senators than we do if we speak out and stand together. , but only if only we speak out.

Ode to Wynn Bullock

Spirit Pony in a Franconia Dusk

Sundown Wash Line in Jefferson

PoplarWind

Milan Paper Birch Monochrome

Flowering of Hope at the Pow Wow

Chillin' at Seal Beach, Monterey, California

The Eyes of Aspen are Upon Us - Signed Original

StormOver a Woodstock Beaver Pond

Fine Art Posters - Affordable Art

Produced at Anamaki Studios in Bath, NH. This land lies in N’dakinna, the traditional ancestral homeland of the Abenaki, Sokoki, Koasek, Pemigewasset, Pennacook and Wabanaki Peoples past and present. We acknowledge and honor with gratitude those who have stewarded N’dakinna throughout the generations.

An Interview with Wayne King

 Nancy West interviews Wayne King with a heartfelt thanks for all he has contributed to the New Hampshire Center for Public Interest Journalism and its daily nonprofit news outlet, InDepthNH.org.

This is a rebroadcast of a 2020 interview with Wayne King by Nancy West Editor and Founder of the NH Center for Public Interest Journalism.

Listen here:

https://feeds.podetize.com/khQRgMsNZ.mp3

Wayne King, podcaster, columnist, and artist

Former state Senator Wayne D. King of Rumney faced tragedy last June when he lost his wife and best friend, Alice. He liked to call her his “girlfriend and forever heart.” And he calls himself an author, artist, activist and recovering politician in the midst of traumatic change.

His struggle to find continued meaning in his life without Alice has given birth to two new podcasts, the “Radical Centrist” and “NH Secrets, Legends and Lore.” He was recently honored for his political column “The View From Rattlesnake Ridge” by the New England Newspaper and Press Association at its annual dinner in Boston. Congratulations, Wayne.

“I am proud to publish Wayne’s work and grateful that he chose InDepthNH.org to showcase his column, podcasts and art work,” said Nancy West, founder of the New Hampshire Center for Public Interest Journalism.

“What shines through in everything he touches is a deep reverence for life and respect for the ideas and opinions of others.”

The NENPA judges summed up their reasons for honoring King’s columns: “Wayne D. King exalts national dialogue in ‘Democracy Should be a Messy Business’ but that solutions are found in differing viewpoints given by people who respect each other. In ‘Looking for Hope: You’ll find it at the dump on Buffalo Road in Rumney,’ King is engaging about history, politics and our unifying bond as everyday people. Few can turn political musings into poetic prose like Wayne D. King.”

A three-term state Senator, he was the 1994 Democratic nominee for Governor and most recently the CEO of MOP Environmental Solutions Inc., a public company in the environmental cleanup space. His art is exhibited nationally in galleries and he has published three books of his images.

His most recent novel “Sacred Trust” a vicarious, high voltage adventure to stop a private powerline has been published on Amazon.com as an ebook (http://bit.ly/STrust ) with the paper edition due in Mid-October. He lives in Rumney at the base of Rattlesnake Ridge. His website is:http://bit.ly/WayneDKing

EP 87 Becoming Mary Baker Eddy - A Conversation with Evelyn Auger

 

Becoming Mary Baker Eddy - A Conversation with Evelyn Auger 

Listen here: https://feeds.podetize.com/zQclKDJjw.mp3

In her 89 years Evelyn Auger has served her state - she worked for Health and Human Services for many years; Served her family, raising five children and served her community with more than 40 years as a planning board member and a few terms as a Selectperson in her hometown of Sanbornton, New Hampshire. You might think that with all this she wouldn't have time for anything else but you'd be wrong. Evelyn has spent much of her life bringing historic women to life in words and dress

Evelyn Auger at Home

It all began when she did a solo performance for her local historical society about Sanbornton native "Mother" Gilman" whose fictionalized correspondence with her son Moses, from the various battlefronts of the Civil War she created from historic records of his time and regiment.  In that first performance, Evelyn read both letters from Mother Gilman to Moses and from Moses to her. When the Historical society asked her to come back for a repeat performance she recruited her grandson to play the role of Moses. With this first performance, dressed in everyday clothes, Evelyn was bitten by the acting bug; but something was still missing and it was right up her alley . . . period clothing. Evelyn loved both history and clothes so the wedding of historic fashion and historic figures was born. 

Her next venture was Hannah Dustin in period clothing. Evelyn would immerse herself, first with the research into the history and fashions of the time and then convey the history by coming as her character.

Her longest-running and most requested appearance was as the famed Mary Baker Eddy.

In addition to her historic characters, she created a living documentary of "Mourning fashion and practices" over the years in which she and  her neighbor Linda Salatiello would explain and model mourning mores and fashions.

Evelyn is also the author of numerous books created from historic documentation and - from time to time - her active imagination.

I sat down with Evelyn at her home in Sanbornton and interviewed her for this episode of New Hampshire Secrets, Legends & Lore.

As Mary Baker Eddy

Joining us for the visit and lending their voices to the discussion from time to time you will hear the voices of her daughter Carol Barbour, friend and neighbor Janice Leighton Boudreau,  and  William Hockensmith, Janice's husband. 

Stonehouse Storm - Originals

The Birches of Orris Road - Original Small Work

Chapel on the Road to the Sun Monochrome - Originals

Washday in Guinea Conakry

Washday Sunlight and Shadows 

Wind on the Rails at Livermore

Reaching into the Past at the Powwow

Maple Moon Mindscape - Open Edition

NEW HAMPSHIRE SECRETS, LEGENDS, AND LORE

PODCAST EPISODE 87 FEBRUARY 6, 2023 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * CONVERSATION WITH EVELYN AUGER * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * CONDUCTED BY: Wayne D. King PARTICIPANTS: Evelyn Auger Carol Barbour Janice Leighton Boudreau William Hockensmith TRANSCRIBED BY: Celeste A. Quimby Northfield, NH (Music.) MR. KING: Welcome to the New Hampshire Secrets, Legends, and Lore Podcast, where twice a month we explore the world of New Hampshire that lies outside of the hard news. I'm your host, Wayne King, and I invite you to join us for an adventure that will take us on a journey together to explore those things that are unlikely to make the pages of your newspaper, the waves of your radio station, or the bits and bytes of your favorite news website. Yet for many of us, these stories will reveal what makes life here in the Granite State truly worth living. Together we'll uncover some secrets, speculate on a few rumors and legends, and we'll meet the people, and a critter or two, both living and long departed, who weave together the colorful tapestry of New Hampshire's past, as well as some who are helping to build our future. We'll explore places, known and unknown, that you will want to add to your bucket list. We'll laugh together, gasp together, and maybe even shed a tear or two. * * * (Excerpted clip.) "MS. AUGER: I've been a selectman. I've been in just about all the things that they have had. The regular ones, I was at least a few years or so on each of those, most every one. And then every time a new one for, yes, whatever they were working on in a specific year, I'd always -- would get on those and... MS. BARBOUR: Committees. MS. BOUDREAU: She was on the planning board forever. MS. BARBOUR: Committees. MR. KING: So you were on the planning board as well for the town? MS. AUGER: Only up to for -- I was on it only up -- for about almost 40 years." (End of excerpt.) * * * MR. KING: That's the voice of Evelyn Auger of Sanbornton, New Hampshire, who has played many parts in her own hometown community over the years. Selectman. Or woman. On the town planning board for 40 years, although she says, "only 40 years." But she's also played some other very interesting parts in her life, parts that she has shared with communities from Madison to Nashua. And that's really what I came to talk with her about. Most famous of all is her depiction in period clothing of New Hampshire's own Mary Baker Eddy. So I sat down with Evelyn at her home in Sanbornton, and here's our conversation. * * * MR. KING: I was remembering that very nice conversation. So tell me a little bit about -- did you grow up here in Sanbornton? MS. AUGER: No. I was across the river in Hill. MR. KING: In Hill. Oh, that's why Janice has mentioned that you have this thing about Hill being flooded. So you grew up there, and how was it that you came to Sanbornton? MS. AUGER: Because who I married had lived in Sanbornton all his life. MR. KING: Okay. MS. AUGER: Yeah. MR. KING: And what was his name? MS. AUGER: Jean, J-e-a-n. French. MR. KING: And you -- you -- Janice tells me that you do a lot with the Historic Society. MS. AUGER: Mm-hmm. MR. KING: And how did you get started doing that? MS. AUGER: I've always liked history. I've always read a lot. Joined the Historical Society, and a lot of times I would be doing -- searching for stuff at home, going over this, doing that, and then suddenly they started saying, "Oh, why don't you do a program, share it." So I did. MR. KING: And then you started to come as the character, dressed in character? MS. AUGER: Yes. MR. KING: How did that begin? MS. AUGER: That began because I was way into the -- I wanted to be a character from Sanbornton. I wanted him to be in the Civil War. I'll be his mother, and we'll send letters back and forth, but there'll be true information in them. So I took her husband -- her son, the woman I had picked to be. I can't remember her first name right now. But anyway, I did it so well, writing the true, if her husband -- if her son was in such-and-such a battle, I put that in there and whatever name. And the men at night, their hair would freeze in the -- in the ice and snow, and their hair would be frozen into the thing. Things like that. Little things you wouldn't think about. MS. BARBOUR: But I think her interest came from she loved history, but she also loves fashion, and so -- MS. AUGER: Yeah, costume. MS. BARBOUR: -- she wanted to be able to dress up -- MS. BOUDREAU: Yeah. MS. AUGER: Yes. MS. BARBOUR: -- in this fashionable way while sharing her knowledge of history, and it was a nice blend of the two. MS. AUGER: Yeah. MR. KING: Ah. MS. BARBOUR: Yeah, that was what got you started. MR. KING: So the first character that you did was this mother? MS. AUGER: Mrs. Gilman. Mother Gilman. MR. KING: Mother Gilman. MS. AUGER: And my son Moses. And I had four sons, and they were all in the Civil War. MR. KING: And were -- did you have a diary or something of -- like, of Moses Gilman or something to go by, or you just pieced together all these facts? MS. AUGER: He was in the 12th Unit. MR. KING: Okay. MS. AUGER: So if it says that they went to -- their hair froze in the thing. MR. KING: Yeah. MS. AUGER: That's where he was. That's what they were doing. MR. KING: Right. So you -- MS. AUGER: So your chances are that he was doing... I was very proud of that one, I have to say. After I had finished that night and I was going out to get something to drink, and a man, all excited, stopped me, and he said, "That was wonderful." But then he went on and said, "I am making a movie out west, and I'd like to use these in them. Would you be interested in selling them or something?" I said, "No. They're not real letters that he sent. These are showing the things that happened to who's in the 12th." MS. BARBOUR: The information you got from the 12th Regiment book -- MS. BOUDREAU: Yeah. MS. AUGER: Yes. Yes. MS. BARBOUR: -- and other research. You expanded your research into other sources. MS. AUGER: Yeah. MS. BARBOUR: And that's where you got all the information. MS. AUGER: Yeah. MR. KING: So the research part was actually much more difficult than if you had had a diary. MS. AUGER: Oh, yes. I'd love to get one. MR. KING: Yeah. MS. AUGER: But if I got one, I -- if I saw one, I'm sure I couldn't afford it. MR. KING: Right. So you pieced it together -- you pieced together a fictional, but -- but based on -- based on known facts, -- MS. AUGER: History, yes. Yes. MR. KING: -- narrative. MS. AUGER: That's what was happening. MR. KING: And from that, you just read the audience the letters or -- MS. AUGER: Yes. MR. KING: -- how did you -- MS. AUGER: The first time I did it, I just read for both -- I would read my own letters, and I would read my son's to -- in the program. MR. KING: Mm-hmm. MS. AUGER: A few years after that, my grandson went with me, and we -- and her brother was with us that time. MS. BOUDREAU: Mm-hmm. MS. AUGER: We'd put on the program again. By that time, I had a big collection of everything he'd been carrying. So I had a lot of stuff to look at besides, and -- but in the -- and in writing the letters, I'd read one that I had read, and then he would read one of his, where he had answered. MR. KING: Oh, okay. MS. AUGER: And so that... MR. KING: So it became sort of a family affair. MS. AUGER: Yeah. Yes. (Laughter.) MR. KING: And from there, you went on to other historic characters or... MS. AUGER: Yes. Yes. MR. KING: And what were some of the historic characters that you've done over the years? MS. AUGER: Hannah Duston. Yeah. The man who, when I finished, jumped up and said, "I'm a cousin of Hannah Duston." And I looked at him and I said, "Hi, Cousin, because I am too." (Laughter.) MR. KING: You are too. MS. AUGER: So, yeah, that was kind of funny. MS. BARBOUR: Mary Baker Eddy. MS. AUGER: Right now, my big one that I'm still going out and doing is Mary Baker Eddy. Not for the -- not for the religion part. MR. KING: Mm-hmm. MS. AUGER: She was a woman that -- she had a very hard life, and when she started doing her -- what she was doing, putting books together of her beliefs and stuff. And she was rich. She moved around well. She did things. She did things people didn't know, and she was a woman from New Hampshire. And I thought she earned being -- not just because she did such a beautiful job with her things that she did. Because I'm not part of her church or anything. I was looking at a woman who was doing things that were -- most people wouldn't think she would be doing these sorts of things. And she was very rich. She was very -- she was smart. And she had had a horrible life, up until then. MR. KING: Well, tell me about some of the things that Mary Baker Eddy experienced in her life. MS. AUGER: Three husbands, if you want to call that... She had a son, and she was very ill back then. She would have spells when she couldn't get around, she couldn't move, she couldn't do things. Someone had to take care of her. And so after she had her baby, someone else was taking care of him. And as he grew up, she was still living with her parents, because her first husband died of a disease. He never got to see his child. And some of the things that happened to him -- you'd have to hear the whole story, because piece by piece by piece, you can see how hard it was for her to get to where she wanted to be. * * * MS. AUGER: We did one on Victorian mourning, when people died and what the rules were, and we did that also in costume. I do everything in costume. If I become the person, that's the first thing I do is become the person. And for Mary Baker Eddy, and the first time I put it on, my test tube was always the Sanbornton one, because they'd come in and clap anyway. (Laughter.) MS. BOUDREAU: We will. MS. AUGER: Yeah. And so when -- I lost my -- just lost my... MS. BARBOUR: Mary Baker Eddy. MS. AUGER: Yeah. MS. BARBOUR: And... MS. AUGER: I -- when I go off on something else -- MR. KING: That's okay. MS. AUGER: -- I can't remember to get back. Anyway, in doing all this with her, I had my first ready to go, and so I did it in Sanbornton. And, yeah, it was good enough that I could do it somewhere else. And -- but it was funny. There were the -- this little corner, and there were four women, young women, mid -- young to me. And I looked and I said, "They must be from Franklin or something." Something I must have heard them say. And so many times later, I was doing it again in Concord. And a woman came up to me, and we were talking, and I said something about -- she hadn't told me, but I said, "I think they must have been in Concord to check and see what it was like." She said, no, that group that night was from the whole thing of Mary Baker Eddy -- MS. BARBOUR: Interesting. MS. AUGER: -- in Concord or wherever they had. MR. KING: Oh, okay. MS. AUGER: They were here, and if I had done anything wrong or said anything against it, they wouldn't be very pleased, and I... MR. KING: I see. So the church -- MS. AUGER: So the church -- MR. KING: The church actually -- MS. AUGER: The church doesn't mind. MR. KING: -- sent a group of people. MS. AUGER: They have -- they have read it. They have looked at it. They even helped me by -- I called the place in -- that they have in Massachusetts now. MR. KING: Mm-hmm. MS. AUGER: I even got information from them. They were very, very nice about sharing. I shared with them. They said something about they didn't have a picture at that time, I guess, but it had to do with something -- Mary Baker lived a lot with her sister, and her sister's husband was -- owned one of the big mills in Tilton, and the house was in Tilton. And it was torn out in the forties. And they didn't have some sort of a -- so I came home, and I have got tons of pictures of the area and the people. I beg people to give me -- I don't go down on my knees, but I do beg them for their -- their thing. (Laughter.) MS. AUGER: Anyway, I was going through some stuff one night, and there's a picture, and it's not my writing. It's what was written on the picture. It says So-and-so's house and -- was taken down the next day or burned down the next day, after the picture was taken. So I sent them down a copy. MR. KING: Wow. MS. BOUDREAU: Wow. MS. AUGER: So... MR. KING: So it was a home of -- in Tilton of Mary Baker Eddy? MS. AUGER: Of her sister. MR. KING: Her sister. MS. AUGER: Yeah. MS. BOUDREAU: Where she stayed. MS. AUGER: And her father built a house on one place. It was moved, but it's still up in -- down there. MR. KING: Well, there are Mary Baker Eddy -- MS. AUGER: All over. MR. KING: -- houses all over the place. MS. AUGER: Yes. Yes. MR. KING: And I'm supposedly related to her, but I've never been able to find anyone in the family who's actually done the genealogical research, so I don't -- I don't claim anything about that. MS. AUGER: Mm-hmm. MS. BARBOUR: Yeah. MR. KING: You know, then again, my mother always told me that I was related to a bunch of women who were hung as witches in Salem, so -- and I don't have any evidence of that either. But that's far more interesting. (Laughter.) MR. KING: So -- MS. AUGER: I'm related to some of them. MR. KING: Yeah? MS. AUGER: Not the ones who were hung, I don't think. MR. KING: Yeah. MS. BARBOUR: You do your mourning program. You just mentioned that a little bit, but that's interesting. MR. KING: Yeah, the mourning program. MS. AUGER: Oh, yeah, the mourning. MR. KING: With the props and... MS. AUGER: That's the one that lasted the longest. Do you know, we did that for way over 10 or 12 or 14 -- MS. BOUDREAU: Yeah. MS. AUGER: I don't know how many years. I'm going to have to go back and look to try and find how many years. We went as far north as to the Town of Madison. MR. KING: Wow. MS. AUGER: They called us, so we don't -- we never knew -- we didn't advertise to -- MS. BOUDREAU: It was all word of mouth. MS. AUGER: -- "why don't you do this." We'd advertise when we had something booked to go, or usually they would, because we were going to somebody's towns. Well, they'd do that part. But anyway, it lasted very, very long. And it's coming up again. There's no date on it now. But it is coming up again, because there's someone who wants it. I never liked that part of it. I wanted to do the costuming, and I would do the costuming. I would do the research. I'd put together what I was reading and what we're going to use. We did it a little different. Linda Salatiello and I did it. It's the first time I had had any that I was working with somebody and not just myself and family. And anyway, she and I, we split the time that we would have for the thing. She put together her half of what she wanted to do. I did the half that I wanted to do, and I did it on clothing. I did it on the jewelry that goes along with it, and the pictures and all that sort of thing. And it just flew. I mean, there was nothing out there like it. MR. KING: Right. MS. AUGER: And there still is much -- I don't know. I think I've seen somewhere, someone has something similar. But everybody told us, "Oh, it won't work. Nobody wants that. That's too" -- MS. BARBOUR: Morbid. MS. AUGER: -- "grim and..." MS. BARBOUR: Yeah. MR. KING: Yeah. And morbid, yeah. MS. AUGER: And it wasn't. We weren't doing it for that. It was trying to tell you, there was a lot of death back then. They didn't know a lot of things that now people don't die with. And it was an era where -- a lot of things. You could put one on the other end that's what you use for silverware to put on a table, because there are, I guess, 2- or 300 pieces, if you want a full set. And there's that -- MR. KING: Right. MS. AUGER: I mean, so I don't know why anyone thought that it wasn't something that was odd. It was different. There were a few things that we still do that they did then. MS. BARBOUR: You talked a lot about, like, the symbolism and the representation -- MS. AUGER: Oh, yeah. Yeah. MS. BARBOUR: -- with the hairpin and how you could flip jewelry and -- MS. AUGER: Yeah. MS. BARBOUR: -- one side was one, and the other side -- MS. AUGER: Yup. MR. KING: Oh, is that right? MS. AUGER: Yup. MS. BARBOUR: -- with rubies, a necklace. MS. AUGER: There was a lot of stuff. There's a saying on a lot of rings or pins. I didn't know what it was. It didn't bother me a lot. I'd think of it, but I never felt that it was important enough to put it in, or read it or put it in. Finally, one day I ran across something that told me what it said, and it had to do with -- I don't remember the wording, but it's that you and I will meet again somewhere type thing. And it's -- that's what it means. That wear the ring so that we can -- someday we'll see each other again in heaven type thing. MR. KING: Mm-hmm. MS. AUGER: And so I finally worked it in. MR. KING: Now, when you worked with Linda to do this, did she do the acting then? MS. AUGER: No, we both did. MR. KING: Oh, you both did the acting. MS. AUGER: We took turns. MR. KING: So you still dressed up and -- MS. AUGER: We'd split it -- MS. BOUDREAU: Widows. MS. AUGER: When we got it written, we'd split it into four pieces. She did one first little piece, and then I went in and I did the clothing. Then she did a little piece. Then I went in and did the jewelry. MR. KING: You know, I -- I don't know whether you're just making me think it, but I am pretty sure that I attended one with you and Linda, either in Bristol or Plymouth -- MS. AUGER: Yeah. MR. KING: -- years ago. MS. AUGER: We did. We did. MR. KING: On this very thing. MS. AUGER: Yes. MR. KING: I'll be darned. MS. AUGER: Yes. MS. BARBOUR: Was there a little baby casket, little small -- MR. KING: Yup. Yup. MS. AUGER: Oh, yeah. MS. BOUDREAU: And the jewelry and -- MS. AUGER: Yeah. One of my things was I'd say, "Do you know the difference between a coffin and," you know -- MS. BARBOUR: Casket. MS. AUGER: We had one. We had two. We had the smaller one and the big one sitting there. MR. KING: Huh. MS. AUGER: And we carried a big hair picture. It's about this big. And the woven hair. That you had hair from the whole family, but it was put together so that it was like embroidery almost -- MR. KING: Huh. MS. BARBOUR: It's just -- MS. AUGER: -- in the thing. There'd be blond hair and then white hair, black hair. MS. BARBOUR: Could be a wreath. MS. AUGER: The family. MS. BARBOUR: Usually it's done in a wreath behind glass. MS. AUGER: Yup. MS. BARBOUR: And you would collect -- MS. AUGER: Yup. MR. KING: Hair from... MS. BOUDREAU: I remember there was a thing on the black too, on the colors you wore. MS. BARBOUR: Yeah. MS. BOUDREAU: If you were -- lost your husband, you wore black a certain long -- there was a time period for each -- wear mourning black. I remember something about that, the clothing. MS. AUGER: Mm-hmm. MS. BOUDREAU: I remember you talking about that and... MS. AUGER: There were a lot -- there was a lot in that. We put a lot into things. MR. KING: How did you get started, to the point where you were -- where all of a sudden people were asking you to do these presentations for them? I mean, you clearly started with your local group. MS. AUGER: Yeah. MR. KING: But somehow word got out. How did word get out that you did these? MS. AUGER: Somebody from another town or something would be there and see one. Or somebody would talk about it, and they'd call and ask for it. I wouldn't handle the calling and that sort of stuff. I -- Linda, that was her part. I did the costuming. She loves collecting her era, and we did a lot of things with costuming that -- it was all costuming. I'd never do it again, and I don't know why I was stupid enough to do it the first time. We put on a huge thing, but we don't just put antique clothes on a dummy and stand it in the corner. We got some of those two, because we had a lot of decent clothing. Because she collects it. I collect it. And so anyway, we decided that we'd do little things with -- MS. BARBOUR: Do it as a fashion show -- MS. AUGER: Yeah, it was like a fashion show, each era, but we'd have them doing something. The first one is going out to find chickens, pick up the chicks in the morning. And we'd tell them to stop, start telling you about the clothing. Somebody would be doing the clothing, telling about it. The other person is dressed up in it. And the thing that -- one of the things that really was nice, Jean -- my husband Jean, his mother's wedding dress she made herself. And this was in Canada in the 18- -- oh, way back, what? She was married. I don't remember their dates or anything. But anyway, she has the dress now. But anyway, we had that wedding dress. And so I told Pepé, Jean's father, and his wife that they should come and see it. And so there was Pepé sitting on the edge of the middle row. And when his first wife who died started up the alley -- you know, on a relative, that we had her wear it because she was a good fit. And when she got up there, she stopped a minute, thinking he might want to look. He stood up, gave her a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. And that's one of the things and one of the programs. It was an awful lot of work. We did it again ten years later, not the same thing. Same program type thing, but not -- none of the same anything. MS. BARBOUR: She had -- she provided the clothing and the narration, she and Linda, and they got enough people in the town to model all of the dresses from, like, whatever, 17-, 1800s -- MS. AUGER: Right. MS. BARBOUR: -- all the way up to present day, and you -- like at one point, I was the mother-in-law -- no, mother of the bride. And my niece was the bride. And so you'd go out, and I had the ensemble of the mother of the bride. My niece was all dressed in bridal clothing. But all different occasions. MR. KING: Mm-hmm. MS. BARBOUR: And all these clothing. 1950s. Somebody -- it was very cool. Somebody models a dress that she had made that she wore, and it was -- it was just so much fun. Because this young girl, because she was very thin and -- not petite but "thin" thin, and came out with that outfit that she had worn when she was, you know, in her 20s. MS. AUGER: Yeah, and one of the older people in this town, -- MS. BARBOUR: Yeah. MS. AUGER: -- we had a wedding dress, bright red, and it was worn out under the arms. And they said, "Well, you can use -- you probably can't use it because of that." I sat down. By hand, I found some cloth that -- as much like what that was, and sat and did little kinds of things so it wouldn't show. Put the two -- fixed the two arms, and we did put it on, and she came in -- she could see them come in with it. I don't remember if -- I think she was dead by that time, but -- MS. BARBOUR: I don't know. MS. AUGER: Had died. MS. BARBOUR: But it was fun, because a lot of people in town participated. MS. AUGER: Oh, yeah. MS. BARBOUR: There was outfits from people of the town that donated and... MS. AUGER: But it was almost the death of me, I'll tell you. (Laughter.) MS. AUGER: It was so much -- I put in so much work. A couple of nights before, I'm still ironing pieces. Linda used to sell Avon, and she had the Avon boxes. I'd get the whole out -- because I'd get them the jewelry to go on it. I'd get them the shoes that would go on it. I'd get the dresses, the -- everything they needed, and put anything that we could fold in the box, and there was a thing on it, what year, and this is what... And each person -- like, Linda would dress up in one of them, and she was a -- when they were trying to get votes for women. And they'd stand there, wave the bag, "Votes for women," you know, really doing it. So we made them very actively. I loved -- that was my part. Getting the clothes together. I had too many parts in that one. MR. KING: So it was mostly word of mouth that -- MS. BARBOUR: Mm-hmm. MS. AUGER: Yeah. MR. KING: -- got you more and more opportunities. MS. AUGER: Yeah. MR. KING: Were there any state agencies involved, like the Historic Society, or I guess that's not -- MS. AUGER: No, the -- MR. KING: That's a poor -- it's a nonprofit organization, but it's not a state agency. MS. AUGER: Yeah. No, it's -- it was small towns. MR. KING: Spreading the word. MS. AUGER: Yeah. Yeah. MR. KING: I'll be darned. And you went up as far as Madison. How -- where did you go in the southern part of the state? Anywhere? MS. AUGER: Out to the Isle of Shoals. MR. KING: The Isle -- you did -- you did a presentation -- MS. AUGER: Yes. MR. KING -- at the Isle of Shoals. MS. AUGER: Yes. MR. KING: Now, who organized that? That's a -- I mean, that's a hefty boat ride to get out there. MS. AUGER: They paid for our boat going out. We stayed overnight the night before, to be ready and put everything together the next day. MR. KING: Wow. So it was like the organization that's -- that runs the Isle of Shoals? MS. AUGER: They put it on, yeah MR. KING: Got you to come out. MS. AUGER: They hire different things, I guess. You know, little things like that. MR. KING: Mm-hmm. And was that your -- the mourning -- the mourning attire, or was it something else? MS. AUGER: Mourning. MR. KING: Yeah. MS. AUGER: Yup. MR. KING: And did you do -- did you do any events in Concord or Manchester that you remember? MS. AUGER: No. No. MS. BARBOUR: Mary Baker Eddy you did where -- MS. AUGER: Mary Baker Eddy I've done and -- MS. BOUDREAU: At her home or something -- MS. AUGER: Yeah, where she lived, where Mary Baker used to live. MR. KING: In Concord? MS. AUGER: Yeah, is now that -- you know, the old home. MR. KING: Yeah. MS. AUGER: I have done, let's see, one, two, three, four -- four different programs for them. MR. KING: For them? MS. AUGER: Yup. MR. KING: For... MS. AUGER: But they called. MR. KING: Yeah. MS. AUGER: The first one I did, it was for Rev. War, because once I got reenacting, I was -- I -- Civil War got put away, and I was now Rev. War, and I did a program for them on that. And when they saw my name, that I was doing a different one -- I don't remember the next one I did with theirs. But when it came, both times -- the first time I went, I got ready to leave. And the woman who puts these things together for them, orders them for there, she works for them, and she said to me, "Don't you have anything on World War I?" I said, "No." I didn't say, "To me, that's not one of my favorite wars and I don't -- I don't have much interest." Different things in it I might have. And the second time she came, "I should think you would do one on the World War I. My father was in that." I came home that night, and I said, "I guess it wouldn't kill me to put something together." MR. KING: Oh, my gosh. MS. AUGER: The hardest thing was gonna be to get clothing. It's just... Anyway, I put something together. And when she called me the next time, I had it almost all done. And I did that thing on World War I. I put it away. That was not my thing. It was just -- now, this is my audience now when I say, one day I get a call. "Evelyn, the guy who had the program for tomorrow night, he can't make it. Can you help? You got something you could come and do and talk about?" World War I. (Laughter.) MS. AUGER: And I went in, and she'll tell you I did it, and they loved it. MR. KING: That's good. MS. BOUDREAU: The Red Baron. MR. KING: The Red Baron. MS. AUGER: Which I talked about The Red Baron. MR. KING: Oh, yeah. MS. AUGER: When he died, they stopped fighting for a period of time and did stuff... Yeah. I found enough things to put in. It's just -- MS. BOUDREAU: You had a day to produce it. I'll never forget that. MS. AUGER: Yeah. Everybody thought I put it together in a day. I didn't. I took -- MS. BOUDREAU: Yeah. MS. AUGER: I had to sort of call -- read through it once. MS. BOUDREAU: Yeah. MS. AUGER: So... MR. KING: Now, do you have some photographs of you in costume? MS. AUGER: Yeah. Would you like -- MR. KING: Something that -- MS. AUGER: Carol, in the basket, there's one of me, Mary Baker Eddy, standing right up. You can see it. MS. BARBOUR: Behind your chair? MS. AUGER: Yes, right beside my chair in the basket. MR. KING: Yeah, if I could borrow a photograph. MS. AUGER: Right on top you'll -- in fact, you could -- there's some -- more than one. MR. HOCKENSMITH: Who was the lady -- I'm not from here. I'm -- just recently. Who's the lady that the Indians... MS. BOUDREAU: Oh, that was Hannah Duston. MR. HOCKENSMITH: Oh, that's -- she had took me to see that one, and -- MS. AUGER: Hannah Duston. MR. HOCKENSMITH: -- that was something else to me, you know. MS. AUGER: Yeah. MR. KING: Yeah, my people were on the other side of that battle. MR. HOCKENSMITH: Oh, yeah? (Laughter.) MR. KING: Yeah. I'm Abenaki and Iroquois. MR. HOCKENSMITH: Mm-hmm. MR. KING: It was the Abenaki. May I keep this, or do you need to get it back? MS. AUGER: No, you can keep it. MR. KING: Okay. Wow. It looks like she was in mourning, or did she always wear black? MS. AUGER: No, she didn't always, but when you got up to that age, a lot of them did. MR. KING: Mm-hmm. MS. AUGER: But they weren't wearing it. It was for best and... MR. KING: Did you stay away from religion with Mary Baker Eddy because her religion was so controversial that it would, I guess, take away from all of the other interesting parts of her life? MS. AUGER: I -- I stayed away from the -- putting any -- a lot of stuff in there. There's stuff in there that -- a little that tells it, but not pushing it, just saying this is part of what she was doing. MR. KING: Okay. Yeah. MS. AUGER: For me, I didn't want people to stay away, thinking, "I'm not interested in that." That's not what I'm talking about with her. MR. KING: Right. MS. AUGER: And one of the things that I like in saying -- her son, there's a whole story to back this. I'm just going to tell you the fun part. When he was in the Civil War -- Linda, she has very little part of any of it. I wrote it all. She's come as -- from a newspaper, to write up a thing about me. And so I've got it written down, and I'm telling her the story of me. And at one point -- she only every now and then will ask a question. That's her job. So she said something about the Civil War and him in the Civil War. And I said I didn't know until after the war that he was in the -- he served in the war, and that -- I said, "But I was very pleased they told me that he carried the little Bible that I gave him all through the war." And then I kind of cutely tell them, "and he also had a picture of me in it." MR. KING: Mm-hmm. Huh. MS. AUGER: So... MR. KING: Now, how did you develop your interest in history? MS. AUGER: I read a lot. I was an only child. My parents divorced. I -- there was a while that we were living -- my mother and I were living in a -- just a one-bedroom place in the -- up above a cleaning thing down below in Laconia. MR. KING: Mm-hmm. MS. AUGER: And we had nothing. No kitchenette or anything, just a bedroom. And it was in the middle of the war, and we -- no places to stay and whatever. I would get up in the morning. I would get dressed. I'd go up to the Crystal Cafe. I would have breakfast there. I was just -- I was still in school. And they'd fix me up a brown-bag lunch thing. And I'd go to lunch. And at night, my mother and I would go together down there and have supper. And at the end of the week, she'd pay for our week's -- MR. KING: I'll be darned. MS. AUGER: -- thing. MR. KING: So -- MS. AUGER: And so I read a lot. MR. KING: Mm-hmm. MS. AUGER: I'd go down with my father to spend a week with him in Connecticut, and I'd stay with him a week, usually, in the summer. MR. KING: Mm-hmm. MS. AUGER: And he had to work just the same. He lived in one bedroom with -- these two old ladies rented a couple of their rooms in their house. But I got a kick out of it; that at that time there was a book that Boston started. The -- this book that had come out, they weren't -- it was -- I can't think of what they wanted to do, but, "No, it's an awful book. It's sexy. It's, oh, no, no, no." (Laughter.) MS. AUGER: You know. So anyway, I -- there was this book going on. My father took me over to -- took me up to show me where I was going to sleep in the old ladies' house. But I had to stay there all day. So I'm walking past their book thing, and I thought, "Oh, I won't even have to go to the library. She's got books from here to here," in a big thing of them. So the first morning, he went off to work. The old ladies gave me breakfast. I went up to get a book and sit down up in my room and read. And on their shelves, there was Forever Amber. MR. KING: Uh-huh. MS. AUGER: That was the book, the name of the book. MR. KING: Oh. MS. AUGER: Forever Amber. MR. KING: Hmm. MS. BARBOUR: Want a piece of bread? MR. KING: Sure. Huh. MS. AUGER: So I got to read it. And I felt real big deal because I was, what, maybe 12, 13, and I was reading it. MR. KING: You've written books. MS. AUGER: Mm-hmm. I just had one printed. It's for younger people. But you can get it. It's -- everything in it is true. It's like the letters I wrote. Everything in it is true. There really was a Hannah Lane. And it's what she's doing and... But the first chapter, she was taken up to see the hermit. So I write all about the hermit, in her eyes being there, having him speak to her and so forth. And then I have her go -- her sisters went away on the coach, the Concord Coach, and so I wrote -- MS. BARBOUR: I'll get one so he can see it. MS. BOUDREAU: Yeah, that would be awesome. MS. AUGER: Hmm? MS. BARBOUR: I'll get it so he can look at it. MS. AUGER: Okay. I had an awful time finding anybody to illustrate it for me. MR. KING: Oh. MS. AUGER: And I finally found a woman who lives in Sanbornton, so it's a Sanbornton book all around. MR. KING: Oh, I'll be darned. MS. AUGER: Yeah. MS. BOUDREAU: And the artist was somebody that taught art in Winnisquam. MS. AUGER: Mm-hmm. MS. BOUDREAU: Yeah. My cousin. MR. KING: Oh. MS. BOUDREAU: And she had taught art to everybody, and a lot of people saw the name when they've seen the book, and they go, "Oh, my gosh. That's Marie," you know. And I'm so glad she did it. That worked out nice. MS. AUGER: I am. I'm glad she did it too. MR. KING: So is it available? I mean, can you -- MS. AUGER: Yes, she's gone to get -- MS. BOUDREAU: Yeah. She's going to get you -- MS. AUGER: Yeah. MR. KING: No, but I mean, if people have an interest in it, can they find it and -- MS. AUGER: Well, they aren't out anywhere. They have to call me. MR. KING: I see. Okay. MS. AUGER: I thought about -- if I was feeling better and up and around and so forth, I would have gone to the papers and tried to have them put a thing in. But I don't -- I'm not up to it, so... MR. KING: Mm-hmm. So it says Hannah Lane was a real little girl who lived in Sanbornton. MS. AUGER: Mm-hmm, in the Tavern. MR. KING: And all the people in this book were real. MS. AUGER: Mm-hmm. MS. BOUDREAU: And so were the places. MR. KING: Uh-huh. MS. BOUDREAU: And, you know, Aaron got a kick out of it. She starts off and says something about she lived in the square, but she never knew why she -- they called it the square. And Aaron was reading it and he goes, "I never did either," he said. (Laughter.) MS. BOUDREAU: "I never could figure out why they called it the square." Because they still call it that. And he says -- and she said, "Because it really isn't square at all." MR. KING: So what's the story of the hermit about? Hannah meets the hermit. MS. AUGER: Oh, everybody knows a little bit about him. And I just -- I put a lot in, and I wanted to know, when he died, how much of anything -- what did he have. And I knew how to get it, out to see it, not -- but to see a list of it, not the actual things. Back at that time, if you died and you didn't have a will, they sent -- I think it's three men from the town, three honest men, had to go in and write down everything they owned, right down to the kettles that they cooked in, list them and give a price of what you think they were worth. MR. KING: Mm-hmm. MS. AUGER: The bedding off, the clothes, everything. And so that is registered over in his non-will that was put in, over in the -- MR. KING: At the county seat -- MS. AUGER: Hmm? MR. KING: -- you mean? MS. BOUDREAU: Probate court. MS. AUGER: Yeah. MS. BOUDREAU: Yeah. MR. KING: Okay. MS. AUGER: And -- MS. BARBOUR: But tell him who the hermit was. He was a hermit for Sanbornton. MS. AUGER: Oh, fine. I think probably every town, little town around, has one somewhere around them, but ours was in Sanbornton. Always. He was born in Sanbornton. And he was a very strange one. Because people from up at the -- at that time New Hampton, that was -- I don't remember which -- it was for some group, church. I don't remember what it was. But anyway, they -- the kids that went to school for that church used to love to go up and just visit and talk with him. And what I -- where I found it, they said he could talk as good as any of them. He knew as much as the guys up there did about the Bible. So -- and he had a thing in his porch -- not on his porch, on his front yard, that the girls would sit on for a penny, and he'd tell them what they weighed. Little funny things. Odd things. My favorite thing that he had was he had a box, and the box -- well, give me the book. It's better that I can go one thing from the other. MS. BOUDREAU: He lived up on Hermit Woods Road, yeah. MS. BARBOUR: Do you know where that is? MR. KING: Yes. Yeah. MS. BARBOUR: Because that's where it got its name, Hermit Woods Road. And his house got moved, and now you wouldn't recognize it, because the people who bought it added on, so it's not a hermit house anymore. MR. KING: I see. MS. BOUDREAU: It was just one of those novelties of Sanbornton, wasn't it? MS. BARBOUR: Yeah. Yeah. MS. BOUDREAU: I mean, I know that we always were interested in supposedly he had hidden treasures out there. MS. BARBOUR: Yeah. MS. BOUDREAU: Nobody ever found them, you know. MS. AUGER: Okay. (Reading): It was a small covered box that he took off his workbench. He held it before him and shook it. Then he turned it over and opened it. In the center of the cover, he had marked a spot. Resting in the cover as he opened it were two kernels of a different color corn. Pointing to the kernel nearest the spot, he said, "This color one says 'do it,' if it's closest to the closest spot. This here one," he said, pointing to the darker kernel of corn furthest from the spot, "means don't. Seeing as how the 'do' kernel is closest on the spot, it says, I will do it." He looked at Pa and smiled. MS. BOUDREAU: So how did -- was that something you learned about him, that he had that? MS. AUGER: It's -- huh? MS. BOUDREAU: Is that something you learned that he had? MS. AUGER: Oh, I found little chips of this stuff -- MS. BOUDREAU: Those things, yeah. MS. AUGER: -- all over the place. MR. KING: Uh-huh. So -- but you visited him -- MS. AUGER: No. MR. KING: -- yourself? MS. AUGER: I was a little girl. MR. KING: You just knew about this, yeah. MS. AUGER: It's way back when. MS. BARBOUR: It's in the 1800s. MR. KING: Oh, okay. So the hermit was in the 1800s. MS. BARBOUR: Right. MS. BOUDREAU: Right. He's -- it was something -- one of those town legend things. MR. KING: Right. Right. Yeah. MS. BARBOUR: But he did exist. MR. KING: Sure. Well, Hermit Woods Road, you can't -- MS. BARBOUR: Yeah. Yeah. And the table over there, the two boards on the top -- we were talking about it just the other day. That table is built from wood from his house? MS. AUGER: First house that burned -- MS. BARBOUR: His first house. MS. AUGER: -- flooded. MR. KING: So that table, we call it the hermit table. MR. KING: Oh, really? MS. BARBOUR: Because, yeah, it was made from boards from his house, so... MR. KING: Wow. How do you know that? MS. BARBOUR: The man who bought his house, actual house he was living in -- MR. KING: Mm-hmm. MS. AUGER: -- the last time he was living in it, he was a very rich man from New York, and he had a summer home up there, and he took the boards and had it -- built it himself into a thing. But he bought all the lumber that had been -- MR. KING: Yeah. MS. AUGER: -- in the... MR. KING: It's like the -- * * * MR. KING: Yeah. MS. AUGER: I've been writing for years. The title is Roads, Bridges, and Small Politics. MS. BARBOUR: Small Town Politics. MS. AUGER: Mm-hmm? MS. BARBOUR: Small Town Politics MS. AUGER: Yeah, Small Town Politics. It's not ready to print yet. MR. KING: This is a book you're working on? MS. AUGER: Yes. MR. KING: Roads, Bridges, and Small-Time Politics. MS. AUGER: Yes. MR. KING: Small Town Politics. MS. AUGER: Yes. I've been a selectman. I've been in just about all the things that they have had. The regular ones, I was at least a few years or so on each of those, most every one. And then every time a new one for, yes, whatever they were working on in a specific year, I'd always -- would get on those and.... MS. BARBOUR: Committees. MS. BOUDREAU: She was on the planning board forever. MS. BARBOUR: Committees. MR. KING: So you were on the planning board as well for the town? MS. AUGER: Only up to for -- I was on it only up -- for about almost 40 years. (Laughter.) MS. BOUDREAU: Only. MR. KING: Only. Only 40 years. MS. AUGER: I should have finished out the 40 years. MR. KING: Is that how -- I mean, did you -- was running for selectman, was that one of your ambitions, or did you just fall into it? MS. AUGER: I always wanted to be, but I couldn't, because Jean was the road agent. I -- I mean, no law says you can't be. MR. KING: Right. MS. AUGER: But it would hurt him in terms of getting people to vote. Some people would say, "Oh, his wife is on the board. She's going to do something." And so I stayed off. And one night we had just finished supper, and I got a phone call. Somebody at -- one of the selectmen had just quit, and he told them as he was quitting that they ought to call me. He thought that I'd like to be on. So I went on. And Jean was off because he -- I think that was after he had retired. MS. BARBOUR: No. MS. AUGER: No? MS. BARBOUR: No. MS. AUGER: He went back, you know. MS. BARBOUR: He went back. Yes, I know. MS. AUGER: Okay. Well, that part I don't remember. I do remember I went in. He was coming up to retire, if he hadn't, because I know he was off and had to -- we had to get him to come back on. MR. KING: Mm-hmm. MS. AUGER: And I didn't get him, because I didn't want him to do it. But I wasn't going to tell him. That was his job. And so I didn't tell him. And he did get back on. But anyway, that's another whole thing. But it was a battle with a woman named Anne Cioffi, and she and I just didn't get along, and she didn't mind lying. MR. KING: Oh. MS. AUGER: And I kind of think, when you're going to write something or tell people something, it should be the truth. So we had a battle on -- in the offices for meetings and at home on the newspaper. So I spent a few happy hours of making sure that I put out the stuff that was different. But we don't -- MR. KING: Well -- MS. AUGER: We don't talk about much like that as -- (Laughter.) MS. AUGER: -- she's gone. She died. MR. KING: Mm-hmm. MS. AUGER: And her husband thanked me every year. We were on the planning board for a while, together, and he always -- every year he thanked me at least two times or apologized. So... MR. KING: For beating her, you mean? "Thank you for beating her"? MS. AUGER: He was right along with her until after she died. MR. KING: Yeah. Yeah. MS. AUGER: Then he started throwing out all this -- and he wasn't really straight with her. MR. KING: So he was -- MS. BARBOUR: Anne didn't run for selectman. She got that wholeheartedly. Anne was, like, on Right-to-Know -- MS. BOUDREAU: Yeah. MS. BARBOUR: -- and "the selectmen are doing something crooked" and -- MR. KING: Oh. MS. BARBOUR: -- "what are they doing now?" MR. KING: Okay. Yeah, yeah. MS. BOUDREAU: Yeah. MS. BARBOUR: And, "They're raising taxes on our side of town, and they're doing it for retaliation," and it was -- it became a war -- MS. BOUDREAU: Very anti. MS. BARBOUR: -- between over there in Sanbornton and over here in Sanbornton. MS. BOUDREAU: Right. MR. KING: Uh-huh. MS. BARBOUR: And she was referring to the letters to the editor. MS. BOUDREAU: Yeah. MS. BARBOUR: She would have -- she would crank off letters to the editor -- MS. BOUDREAU: They both did, back and forth. MS. BARBOUR: -- all the time. All the time. All the time. MR. KING: Yeah. Yeah. MS. BARBOUR: And it just would escalate, and there was a lawsuit and... MS. AUGER: Well, we both knew. And I'd tell somebody, "It isn't going to end until one of us drops." MR. KING: Right. MS. BOUDREAU: It was Anne. MR. KING: Uh-huh. MS. AUGER: She had nothing to do up here. One of the letters I remember said, "She should get a hobby or a dog." MS. BOUDREAU: One of the books you wrote too was -- The 465 Days, that was actually a diary, wasn't it? MS. AUGER: Mm-hmm. MS. BOUDREAU: It was a real diary that you -- MS. AUGER: It was a real diary. MS. BARBOUR: 365 Todays. MS. BOUDREAU: 365 Todays. MS. BARBOUR: Todays, yeah. MS. AUGER: Yeah. MR. KING: And what was -- MS. BOUDREAU: And that was published. MR. KING: That was published? MS. BOUDREAU: That one's out in hard or -- MS. BARBOUR: Yup. MS. BOUDREAU: But I remember it was somebody's diary, wasn't it? MS. AUGER: Yup. Yup. MS. BOUDREAU: That you found, and you explained some of the terminology that they used back then. MS. AUGER: And I told them if -- he'd say, "John and Joe stopped by this morning." I'd tell you underneath who Joe -- if they're related, who they were. MR. KING: Mm-hmm. MS. AUGER: And I kept them numbered. So that from the back, I listed everybody that was in his diary, so that anybody could pick the book up and say, "That was my great-grandfather." MR. KING: Huh. MS. BOUDREAU: So you had to research who he was talking about all through that. MR. KING: Wow. MS. AUGER: I did it, the whole thing. MR. KING: Huh. MS. AUGER: Oh, I got it. Wait a minute. I know -- MS. BARBOUR: You had the Rev. War one. MS. BOUDREAU: Revolutionary War. MS. BARBOUR: You had the Revolutionary War that's around the library. MS. AUGER: Yeah. I've got eight or ten different things that -- no big things. I did Alphonse, my husband's father, and... MR. KING: You wrote about him, you mean? MS. BOUDREAU: Yes. MS. AUGER: I wrote his life, yeah. And he was still alive, telling me the stories. MR. KING: Wow. MS. AUGER: And I knew it was right because I'd type it at night, what he had told me the night before. The next night, we went back and forth again. MR. KING: Now, I assume that this is -- that a copy of this is in the local Historic Society and -- MS. AUGER: I don't know if it is or not. MR. KING: Well. MS. AUGER: It should be, probably. MR. KING: Yes, it should be. * * * MR. KING: Now, at this point Evelyn brought out the final book that she was going to talk with me about. She's written quite a few. It was about the flooding of the Town of Hill, for flood control purposes, and moving the town up onto the higher ground. * * * MS. AUGER: This is one of my favorites. This started as a program, and I had just the stuff written out, because it was not one you could dress up for. So I read the -- or tell it -- talk and tell them, following what I had. And when I got done, I'd had it stuck on the shelf for a long time. I was doing something else, and I picked up something and I said, "Oh, I did it when I was doing the planning." So I decided, put a cover on it, make it a book. And I got to tell you, one of my favorite things in the book -- and this is true, real life. This is true. This is talk about they're going to build the dam. MR. KING: Mm-hmm. MS. AUGER: And one of the types of earth needed was found on the Clarence, called Bumblebee, Rayno property. (Reading): The mound held sufficient clay to meet the entire need of the dam. The government's first offer was $200, but haggling did get them up to a thousand. MR. KING: Whoa. MS. AUGER: (Reading): Bumblebee held out for 2,000. The feds took the claim to federal court on condemnation proceedings. A three-man commission appointed by the judge awarded him 2,300. The unhappy flood control agents demanded a jury trial. The jury warned him -- awarded him $7,250. (Laughter.) MS. BOUDREAU: Should have quit at 2,000. MR. KING: Yeah. Oh, that's great. MS. AUGER: Yeah. MR. KING: So that's all -- this is all about -- MS. AUGER: The dam. MR. KING: -- the dam. MS. AUGER: Building the dam, the -- MR. KING: Building the dam. MS. AUGER: And the flooding first. MR. KING: Mm-hmm. MS. AUGER: That starts with the flooding. MR. KING: Yeah. MS. AUGER: And goes through the dam -- building the dam. MR. KING: Wow. Isn't that interesting. (Music.) MR. KING: Well, Evelyn, thank you for all that you've done, for New Hampshire really, for this community and for the State of New Hampshire, and thanks for taking the time to speak with me today. It's really -- MS. AUGER: Oh, I enjoyed it. MR. KING: It's really great. MS. AUGER: As you can tell, I enjoy it. Thank you for having me. * * * (Music continues.) MR. KING: So my grateful thanks to Evelyn Auger, who all these years has been keeping alive some of New Hampshire's most interesting historic figures, as well as fashions and mores. I also want to just say a quick thanks to her daughter, Carol Barbour, who was one of the voices that you hear in the background; and her neighbor, Janice Leighton Boudreau, and her husband, William Hockensmith, who was there as well, but -- and served to fill in some places where I wasn't asking the right questions or -- it was helpful. So thanks. Thanks to the three of them for their participation as well. I think that one of the wonderful things about local efforts like this is that it's a humble undertaking for any of us to write and explore history with our neighbors, and it's very special when other people recognize the value of that and then invite you elsewhere. Certainly, Evelyn's experience with the representatives from the Christian Science church, when they showed up at one of her presentations to make sure that she wasn't defaming the name of Mary Baker Eddy, was one of the more interesting aspects of that. The show notes for this podcast can be found at nhsecrets.blogspot.com, where you'll see a picture of Evelyn in her Mary Baker Eddy costume, as well as seated in her house more comfortably on the day that I went and visited with her. Thanks for joining us on New Hampshire Secrets, Legends, and Lore, and we'll see you on the next episode.

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