Event: Telling Tales Out of School #1
Oral History Project Interviews
Location: Old Lyme Town Senior Center
Date: November 15, 2009
Interviewee: Barbara Traskos
Interviewer: Michaelle Pearson
Is there something that you wanted specifically to talk about today?
No, just ask questions.
When did your family first come to Old Lyme?
My father started the Speirs Plumbing back in 1910. And they lived in town quite
awhile. His parents came over from Scotland and lived in New Britain for a while, that’s
where he was born, and then they moved down here because they were caretakers for the
Griswolds and Elys that are well known here along the shore. So I was born not in the
house, but in the hospital, but I’ve been in the same house for 83 years. There’s one
other lady out there that’s younger than I am, but we’re the only ones that I know in town
that have stayed in town in the same house.
And where is your house?
Right next to Town Hall on Lyme Street (46 Lyme Street). And the family business is
right behind the house. The new shop, the so-called new shop, was built in 1930. Before
that they had a shop next to the house on the street. And I have an older brother and
sister – Winifred Speirs Elliot. She’s 94, still very active. She lived in Tolland for several
years and moved to Greensboro, NC about 7 or 8 years ago to be near her son, in a
retirement home but does not need any help. My brother has been in Old Lyme all the
time and he’s not well. He has been interviewed. If they asked him to come he probably
said no. I know they have in the past. So that’s about it. I have 2 children. Boy is 62
years old and lives in Westbury and works in Clinton and my daughter is 60 and lives in
Orlando, FL. She’s been out of the state since 1970.
So you went to school in Old Lyme, you grew up here?
Oh yes. I went to Center School. It was not like it is now. It was really the main first
building that you see without all the L’s on it. I don’t think we got into Center School
until about the 3rd or 4th grade. From there on we went all through until we graduated. I
can’t remember too much. We did go to the UCONN. I thought I was maybe going to
leave Old Lyme but I was married and so I did a part time job at the Town Hall and a part
time job at the Post Office and stayed right in the center to town and finally in— I better
ask Helen what year. Anyway, I worked 34 years as Office Manager/Secretary.
Everybody would ask me what I was doing and I’d say well, I’m a stock clerk right this
minute. I was the only one in the office in other words. And then Helen Scott took over
and like I said after 34 years, which was 1991, I left the shop, retired. Doesn’t seem like
it was that long ago. So like I said, I haven’t moved around like a lot of people.
What are some of the things that you think are really special about Old Lyme,
special places?
Well, I’m on the Old Lyme Historic Commission and we are definitely trying to keep the
street as it was. As you can see, the building that’s going on in the church corner— we’re
having a hard time. I like it when there [were] open spaces between the houses. I’m
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quite upset when people come in, one family in particular, knew there was only one
bedroom, maybe a closet they called another bedroom, they had one child and they told
us they were planning to have others. We asked them why they moved there— because
they liked the house. Now they’ve doubled it. It’s hard to keep the street the way it was.
I guess we’ve done better than a lot of other towns. We still have our own wells and
sewer systems. You probably interview people from Point O' Woods that are going
through that nightmare of having . . . well, probably some of them, course, probably came
when they were children but they might not relate it. They came down in summer here so
that’s probably why you haven’t heard anything from them.
We’re starting with most of the people that we know in town, some of the more
prominent people at the beaches who’ve been here their whole lives.
I know when I listen to other people, like somebody like you whose come in and then I
was in a group a couple weeks ago and these two girls came from New York City and
they’ve been everywhere, done everything, I said we used to go skiing a lot, but as far as
living in another place, we just didn’t do it. Born in God’s country.
Its funny, I had a knee operation in June and I was sitting around therapy room one day
and everybody looked kind of down hearted so I said “Look, I’ll give you a travel log of
one of the places that’s God’s Country in this state.” They all picked up on it and finally
somebody said, “Well, where is Old Lyme?” You really can’t find it on the map hardly.
I said “Just go to exit 70 and turn left from New London.”
So what did you tell them?
I just told them. They said “Well, what is there?” And I said “Well, Main Street has got
the business section of course and the schools and the churches, but the shopping area,
thanks to Dr. Griswold, Jennifer’s father, was moved to Hall’s Road.” She’s probably
already told everybody, back in 1959 I think, and that was the best thing that ever
happened. So its as you know, very residential. Not that many big businesses and that’s
why our taxes are, well we think high, gonna be higher.
What did you do for fun?
Well, of course we didn’t all have cars like you people do now and the young people do
now so we’d just get together at friends houses and play games. I had two cousins that
lived over behind me and their mother taught us all how to play bridge. When we got
together we’d play table games. In the winter we went skating and sledding and we
walked. I keep telling the kids now-a-days, we walked to the Country Club to go
sledding and there was a pond down Library Lane and then there’s another pond beyond
that and you had to go through the school yard and there was no real road there. So that’s
what we’d do in the wintertime. We just made our own entertainment. We didn’t need
all this outside stimulation. Its kind of too bad, I think.
There weren’t so many cars, so you could walk.
Well, that’s right. And I mean a lot of people come to the Main Street to walk because of
the sidewalks. We haven’t had sidewalks that long, really. We had sidewalks but they
weren’t paved. Anyway.
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So, that sledding hill at the Country Club has been used for a very, very long time.
Oh yes, oh yes. I guess there’s been more toboggans and sleds broken on that hill. You
haven’t been here long enough to find anybody that would take you down there. Have
you.
Oh yeah, I have 4-year-old twins, so I’ve been sledding, but I just knew about it
from passing by. I had no idea that it was such a long standing tradition. When you
were a child, did you go?
Oh yea, probably We didn’t walk at that age. If we were real young we’d just slide on
the hill right next to the house. The hill that goes down to the shop, which is behind the
house now. We just made our own fun. Pretty uninteresting really, compared to the
people who have traveled all around.
I think its more interesting that you’ve stayed here because it is such a special place
that you have such a cohesive view. You’ve seen it really change over the years.
Certainly have, all the developments and everything.
Can you tell me anything about particular stories of your family that might be of
interest to people.
Well, I think it’s unusual that we still have so many cousins and relatives in this area that
we still get together for Thanksgiving and Christmas and usually end up with between 30
and 35 people. If the ones that have moved out of town, then we might get a few more.
But its been pretty much that size and I think that is unusual to have so many cousins that
have stayed put in the town that they were brought up in.
So when you all get together, what do you talk about?
Mostly one child is acting up all the time and we’re trying to say we should have started
with him a long time ago. Oh, I don’t know. Current events sometimes. But usually it’s
pretty light. My family has always been a boating family. My father had boats when he
was young and we were brought up on a boat big enough to sleep, well it had 4 bunks,
but we always managed to get 6 or 7 people in there. We kept it on Lieutenant River,
right almost behind the house, below the bridges. Between the Railroad Bridge and the
car bridge on the Lieutenant River. Then my son, he’s got the boating fever, so he’s got a
boat, even growing up, he started off with a rowboat and then he got the outboard and
now he’s got a pretty good size power boat. There’s my neighbor Muffy coming in. She
moved away, she’s quite a bit younger than I am. Married somebody from out of town,
so she’s been out in the world a little bit. Anyway, like I said, my sister does try to come
home at least once in a year. Sometimes it’s holiday get-togethers or in the summer. But
most of her friends are not here anymore, she’s outlived them.
So you have any memories of helping your family? Growing vegetables or anything?
Yeah, we always had a little garden and one time my grandmother who lived behind us
had pigs over there, two pigs. And my brother had rabbits when he was young. He
always had a dog or a cat, don’t have any of them now. Those were the days when you
could just let them go outdoors. I feel sorry for cats that have to stay inside.
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So your house had phone and electricity when you were born probably, right?
Oh yeah, my sister was two years old so it was built in 1917 and being a plumber, my
father, I think, was the only plumber probably between New London and New Haven, so
when he started the business it was the right time to do it. Eventually hired 10 or 12 other
people to work for him. I was too young to remember the war, but I know he said in the
depression he hated to lay the men off so he just laid half off one week and then the other
half the next week so they would at least be able to keep the family together. One of
them did go to work for EB in New London, but most of them just hung in there until the
economy improved. I don’t know if it will improve now like it did back then, but we’re
hoping.
That is so interesting, the family business, a unique thing.
The only one that we knew about. I mean somebody may have gone in by themselves,
but I don’t think they developed it so that they were able to hire other people. So, started
in 1910, I don’t know, cousins are in there now, I don’t know if their going to do
anything about the hundredth anniversary or not. I just happened to think the other day,
2010 isn’t too far away.
Did your family have any traditions that they still hold to today?
Mostly just Christmas and that’s why, this year they did get together, I think there were
four cousins from outside CT, and Helen Scott had a party for them and that was kind of
fun but usually in the summer because everybody was boating, or most of them were.
They didn’t care about staying home for a weekend for family get-togethers. Sometimes
they would go over to Long Island and raft, you know 3 or 4 boats would raft. Its only 10
miles to Plum Island. In fact, the young people now have told me, one of my cousins, my
niece’s sons used to take what I thought was too small a boat to go over to Orient Point
for dinner. But we didn’t do anything like that. Kids are a lot more adventurous today. I
wouldn’t go with one outboard that far away at night. Because we keep running into
each other every, like I run into Helen in the store and we keep in touch by telephone of
course, because my brother is not too well and his wife had MS. She’s had it for years so
she’s been not able to do much for herself. They have run the clock here. So that’s
where we’re lucky, we’re all over 80. He’s 89 and I said my sister is 94 so we’re doing
pretty well.
I’ve noticed that there’s a lot of people in town who are of a very advanced age and
are very clear like no place else I’ve ever seen. That’s very, very interesting.
One of them is Gertrude Kwasniewski.
She was one of my interviews. She had a lot of great stories. She told me a lot about
the Catholic Church. Did your family go to any of the churches?
We went to the Congregational Church. My father was active there and I had an aunt that
was the organist for I don’t know how many years. Her name was Maude Ashley. She
was born in Old Lyme, but when she married, she moved to New Haven. Then she came
back for her last 20 years she was up here. Fairly good health til the last couple of years.
Both my mother and father were active in the Eastern Star and Masons. And father was
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treasurer of Old Lyme but that was I think when that was very young. I don’t remember
anything about that. Too bad my sister isn’t here because she has a great memory, she’d
tell all kinds of stories.
Is there any particular place or a special thing that you can think of that you would
want people to know about that people might not know about today?
No, except that we have kept it as rural as we can. That’s the biggest feather in our cap I
think. As I say, I am on the Historic District, but its hard to keep progress from changing
our town a little bit. And the Senior Center, I didn’t have anything to do with this
building, but I’m very active and interested in keeping this here. I think it’s a wonderful
building. I know I’ve heard people that work if they come from New York or especially
if they come from Hartford, as soon as they get over almost like Middletown, they say
they can start feeling that relaxation. We try to keep it low key.
I should personally thank you for your good work. Tell me about the founding of
the Historic District and all your work that you’ve done there.
Well I wasn’t there when it started in the early 70s and it was good and so far it just is
from the [Congregational] Church up to Rose Lane as the road veers off. It just tried to
keep people from filling in all the empty spaces, that’s the main thing. I think they’re
doing a pretty good job without creating too many enemies. The town government, the
zoning, has kept it that way.
I have a crazy question to ask you. Have you ever heard any prohibition stories
since your family was a voting family? I’ve heard all kinds of crazy stories, like
people going down to the shore to watch the rum runners and things like that.
No, that was probably more the late 20s and I was too young. Family stories are just that
they used to come in to Castle Inn in Saybrook. That was the only thing that I remember.
They came in there because it was— have you been over there? They certainly ruined
that over there. They split it all up and they have houses on the lawn. Its too bad
somebody didn’t step in to stop in. And then the people that own houses around there
tried to, but as far as anything else, probably people came into Hamburg Cove. I don’t
know if you’ve knew anybody that would know.
So obvious, that would be a place. I know they used to have parties along the beach,
sit with binoculars and watch for people, so I just always ask people if they know it.
It’s not on the list of questions. Are there any buildings that you think “I’m so glad
that” or “I remember when” in that building?
Well certainly Town Hall has been enlarged many times. Growing up we did go there for
movies. And dances. It was one great big hall then. No second floor that I remember.
There may have been one with a balcony in the front where the balcony is now with the
stairs, but it certainly didn’t go all the way to the back.
So when did they have movies in the town hall, what year?
Oh, probably 1930 up to, oh, I don’t think til I was in High School.
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How was that arranged?
They just had a projector in the back with a big screen. Somebody would rent the movie.
I don’t remember who that somebody was now. And I don’t even remember whether it
was free or you paid for it. My memory is not as good as some people.
Well you’re the first person who mentioned that and that’s why these interviews are
so great because now I can ask about that.
My neighbor Dick Bugbee, he’s a few years younger than I am, but he can remember all
kinds of things.
I actually just interviewed him, before you. And I forgot to ask him about
prohibition. I want him to come back, he has a lot to share.
Yes he does, and he loves to tell it.
Sometimes the people who have moved in seem to know more than the people who live
here.
We do our research. But you’ve lived it, so you know. Do you have a hurricane of
‘38 story?
Again we had just walked home from school and we just thought it was a bad storm
because, as you know, we didn’t have any warning. We walked. You could do that
without worrying about somebody snatching you off the street. As I say, my cousins
lived behind my house. Shops in between, there on the Lieutenant River and mine’s on
the street and I thought that wind was blowing pretty hard and I looked out the back
window and I could see— we had an apple orchard —and I could see the trees just going
down. My mother and I were the only ones home. My father was working. Then one of
the trees fell on the corner of the house. It was a big old elm and we thought, “Golly,
that’s pushed the house right over!” My house is 3 stories counting the attic and it goes
down a hill so we just thought it was going to. Then we decided we would go over to the
shop because that was made of steel beams and concrete floors, so we thought it would
have to be a big storm to blow that one over. At that time, the Lieutenant River was
about knee deep and it had backed up, come up into the marshes and come in the back
yard. And we just stayed there for awhile, course we’d lost all electricity , but when the
wind subsided we went home and probably started a fire in the fireplace and got our hot
dog sticks out and just did what you had to do. It was the first major storm.
Ok, I think we’re actually about settled. Was there something I didn’t ask you that
you’d like to tell me about, like a happiest memory?
They are all happy memories. We just enjoyed having a big family that stayed here.
That is the major thing, I think, that we share because so many families just disperse and
I was just talking to one lady, she’s got brothers and sisters but their children are
everywhere.
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