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FORM A
Circumstances of Interview
STATE NEli YORK
NAME OF WORKER Saul Levitt
ADDRESS 27 Hamilton Terrace, New York
DATE October 10, 11, 1938
SUBJECT STORIES OUT OF LOCAL LIFE: Mr. Nelson
1. Date and time of interview
October 10, 11, 1938
2. Place of interview
Eastchester Bay
3. Name and address of informant
Mr. Nelson,
Eastchester Bay, (Baychester).
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in
touch with informant.
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
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Section D. (Isolated aroups)
1/
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
8. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
Eastchester Bay setting described in Schaefer story; Informant's hone
or part-time home is a shack on stilts in the water, consisting of a
workroom which contains a carpenter's bench; a living room with several
panel pictures of boats on which informant sailed. The approach to this
combination home -boathouse is along a narrow pier about three feet wide,
running about thirty feet from the shore to the boathouse. Round about
are small boats, cabin cruisers, rowboats, "kickers".
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms, each
bearing the proper heading ,and the number to which the material refers.)
GROUPS, GATHERINGS ACTIVITIES
Section D. (Isolated Groups)
FOLKLORE
FORM 3
•••••••••=0.
Personal History of Informant NEW YORK
STATE NEV YORK
NAME OF WORKER Saul Levitt
ADDRESS 27 Hamilton Terrace, New York
DATE October 10, 11, 1938
SUBJECT STORIES OUT OF LOCAL LIFE: Mr. Nelson
1. Ancestry
Finnish
2. Place and date of birth
Finland, 1875
3. Family
Two sons; (a third son died in an Army hospital after the World Aar)
4. Places lived in, with dates
Finland, (for about ten years); following -which informant served on
ships for thirty years; and he has for some fifteen years operated
boathouse on Eastchester Bay.
5. Education, with dates
Hone, but is self-taught sufficiently to read and write simple English.
6. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates
Sailor, boatbuilder.
7. Special skills and interests
8. Community and religious activities
9. Description of informant
Informant is a stockily built old man with wrinkles around eyes which give
effect of amiability a purely physical effect and no reflection of character.
10. Other Points gained in interview His face is red and nose very red and blue
veined; it is a round, full face. His walk
was an old mannish shuffling and his gestures sometimes fumbling. He could
not hear well, and wore a hearing apparatus.
GROUPS, GATNERINGS ACTIVITIES
Section D. (Isolated Groups)
FOLKLORE
FORM C
NEW YORK
Text of Interview (Unedited)
STATE NEW YORK
NAME OF WORKER Saul Levitt
ADDRESS 27 Hamilton Terrace, New York
DATE October 10, 11, 1938
SUBJECT STORIES OUT OF LOCAL LIFE: Mr. Nelson
(Informant came out of interior to a platform adjoining the pier) I'm yust old
man 63 years I don't remember so coot excuse me battery don't work so soot, (referring
to hearing apparatus and fumbling at disc). I sailed out England, New Zealand,
New York. I vas peeling potatoes for cook when I vass eight years old. I sail
only sailing ships no steam. I tell you plenty stories songs nobody print such
stories they not so clean. If I set drunk I tell you plenty stories but T better
not get drunk. I'm a Finn I can't talk Finnish language no more but I'm born
there. I only found one country better than Wqw York, that's New Zealand The
laws in that country are soot. Nobody gets rich a man gets 200,000 pounds he can't
,stay in business. They don't say a man is a millionaire there they say he got
200,000 pourds. (Pointing to pictures of boats): That's Tilly Baker three mast
bark from New York and this I can't get name it's too long ago it's English
vessel no, I can't remember name I work very hard. I have to get out when
I vas eight years old. I were two years old when fadder died so madder got a
pension but not enough. I get nervous when I think how I slaved in my young days
I vas next youngest child my fadder vass skipper excuse me I better not talk no more.
STATE
NAME OF WORKER
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
FORK
Extra Comment
NEW YORK
SAUL LEVITT
27 Hamilton Terrace, New York City
October 10, 11, 1938
STORIES OUT OF LOCAL LIFE Mr. Nelson
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
Conversations with informants previously and with
present informant suggest that squatter and other
residents along creekshores and rivershores of
New York are disposed toward liberal and progressive
viewpoints; this is a tentative estimate of an under-
lying general idea of this group of Americans and one which may
be displaced by further and more complete investigation which,
first, is that this form of living away from the conventional
pattern of big city living develc:Ts independent points of
view; secondly, that such independent points of view follow
progressive lines because the living conditions are bad;
and thirdly, that the very fact of people choosing this form
of existence indicates a predisposition to escape from or
rebel against the ordered scheme of urban life.