The Greenwich Library’s
Oral History Project Celebrates its 45th Anniversary
The Greenwich Library Oral History
Project, with its collection of more than 950 interviews and 138 books, staffed
and run by volunteers, has been in existence since 1973. Before interviewing
likely narrators, the volunteers sought and received training on the many
skills required to run a successful oral history project. Over the years, the
project has added to the town’s historical record by interviewing residents who
have either made Greenwich what it is today or who have been witnesses to its
history. Some of their recollections take us back to as early as the 1890s.
As a way of paying tribute to our
earliest narrators, we have dug into our archives, and over the next few
months, we will dust off their stories and retell them here. We have the
recollections of founders, movers and shakers, and selfless volunteers. Our
narrators tell stories of disaster, natural and manmade; of times when estate
owners hosted annual, eagerly-awaited picnics on their grounds; when
superintendents of estates were powerful keepers of gardens, livestock, and
their employers’ vast real estate holdings. We have recollections of the town’s
topography before there were paved roads, when horses and carriages were the
taxis and limos of the day.
The project’s earliest recorded interview
is with Mary Dodge Ficker, who describes growing up in Old Greenwich in the
1890s and then into the 1900s.
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| The Castle, Old Greenwich |
We will start there . . .
Mary Dodge Ficker (born in Stamford,
Connecticut, 1885; died in Old Greenwich, 1984) was interviewed at her home by interviewer Marian Phillips in 1975. Ms. Ficker describes moving to Old Greenwich as a
child when there was no central town to speak of, when shopping required making
a trip to Stamford. “You couldn’t buy a spool of thread” anywhere else, she
recalls. She describes a sleepy town of modest homes, of summer people who
rented houses while the owners took up residence in shacks out back. The summer
people provided some interest, but church was the center of the town’s social
life.
Ms. Ficker has a wonderful passage about
a rift in the Congregational Church on Forest Avenue, which led ultimately to a
split in 1894. The minister at the time left with a number of parishioners to
form what would eventually become the Presbyterian Church. Fortunately, The
Dodges were very fond of the new minister and neighbor, DeWitt Eggleston, and
his family. They remained friends for the sixteen years of the minister’s
tenure at the church.
 |
| Minister Eggleston |
Ms. Ficker goes on to describe the
continuing growth of Old Greenwich from a small community, to a popular summer
destination, to a thriving small town with its share of wealthy year-round
residents. Along the way, she reminisces about large backyard gardens that kept
the residents in seasonal produce, some of which was stored away in root
cellars for winter. It was not unusual for families to keep cows for milk on
the property, she shares, until this practice gave way to milk delivery wagons
and ice boxes.
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| Dutchman's breeches |
Another interesting story she tells is of
“Father Bigelow,” (Edward F. Bigelow, the first curator of the Bruce Museum’s
natural history collection) who, according to Ms. Ficker, brought the study of
nature to Old Greenwich. Ms. Ficker first knew of Bigelow from her school days
in Stamford, where teachers released their students to go on walks with him to
study various plants and flowers. Ms. Ficker attributes her own awareness of
certain flowers to him. One in particular, Dutchman’s breeches, she grew in her
own garden. He and his daughter ran a summer camp in Old Greenwich, which
apparently became quite popular among the New York social set, and at some
point, Wallis Simpson (of Prince of Wales fame) brought her children there.
Ms. Ficker recollects other times, as
well. She remembers a town before many services were available. There were no
police officers, but there were sheriffs who “always were Palmers,” she notes.
She remembers that swimming on the Tod property was by invitation. Without
that, a swampy Binney Park stream would do. She remembers the hardships brought
by World War I when coal was scarce.
She
comments that her family always had its ups and downs. Her quote about those
days is a fitting salute to her, the narrator of our first interview:
“When we were up, we were high as a kite, and when we were down,
well, we just stood, but we always kept our dignity . . .”
Mary Dodge Ficker’s interview, “Old Greenwich
in the 1890s and 1900s,” is available in the library’s first floor reference
area and through the Oral History Project office, located on the lower level of
the library.
