hello subscribers and others it's David
Hoffman filmmaker here with another
story that I hope you'll enjoy I thank
you for watching my gym key and bill key
horse story and enjoying it so much
here's another one
this one involves a film I made about a
woman who tells the story that's really
hard to believe but it's true I'm gonna
prove it's true after you watch this
clip
her name is Nettie Mitchell the time is
the 1970s she's nearly 90 and she's a
reporter in the small little town of
Maine Fayette Maine and she tells kind
of gossip and stuff like that
and I'm doing a series for television of
people who I call independent Americans
people who do things their own way who
don't listen to the government
particularly and don't listen to their
neighbors particularly and tell stories
and Nettie Mitchell is one of the people
I've chosen and I go to Maine and I'm
filming the story which is a story of
Nettie reporting on local events a baby
contest and she's just great
great old woman beautiful personality
comes the last day in the last moment
and we take a photograph of the crew
that with Nettie and I'm gonna leave and
then he says David I have a story to
tell you and she kisses me on the lips
and I was shocked
pay attention David I have a story so I
left my cameraman set up a beautiful
scene she was sitting in her kitchen and
I said Neddy you tell the story to
Francis and she tells the story you are
about to see it's one of the most
shocking stories I have ever heard hard
to believe it's true but it is before I
run the clip let me just tell you just a
bit about New England at that time I
think it's important
this is Puritan New England there's
cruelty and this kindness
there's properness and there's things
you're not supposed to do like dance
like have fun I remember somebody
telling me that in Maine in the parents
and times you took a moment off from
your work from the chores you had to do
when you were sick and dying that's the
only time you took
there wasn't a lot of joy I think it was
1816 and 1821 it froze every single day
nothing grew I mean people were starving
these were extremely poor farmers in
extremely rough condition in an
extremely cold time and around about
1840 there were these mills down in
Massachusetts the Lowell Massachusetts
woolen mills thread mills and they were
extraordinary because they were hiring
girls and young women to come off the
farms come down stay in these
dormitories which were safe they said
and worked for a couple of years the
women would keep a portion of the money
and the portion of the money would go
back to the farm
he was the first time women had an
opportunity like this to make money like
this and Emmaline the story that you're
going to hear she went down to one of
these mills as a girl of about 14 I'll
let Nettie tell the rest of the story
and then I'll tell you after what
happened as a result of this recording I
am Nellie Mitchell I am 89 years of age
I live in the town of Fayette where I
was born and flipped practically all my
lifetime and I would like to tell you
one of the saddest and most
heartbreaking tales that has come to my
notice is a true story something that
happened right here in this town in the
long ago I knew that so lady when I was
a tiny child and she was very sweet and
lovely she was one of a large family of
children in a very impoverished home in
the early eighteen hundreds at the age
of thirteen businesses from lynn
massachusetts arrived at the home and
seeing the poverty and deprivation there
said why don't you let us take my line
back with us to win and she can work in
the cotton mills she's old enough to
work there and she can go work in the
cotton
and send you money to help with a
expenses back home they thought it over
and decided let her go and she went she
was an efficient hard-working little
girl but if she was entirely among
strangers in a stranger man very very
different than anything she had ever
known before among those who were a
friendly tour
most of them were not because she was
entirely different was a young boss he
and man and he became very friendly and
she yielded to him to his persuasion and
by the time she was 14 she was a mother
of his child she did not dare to other
people back home know what is bickered
the people while she was saying made
arrangements to sell her baby to a
childless couple nearby them who would
pay her expenses then pay for
transportation back home she would go as
soon as she was able she returned to her
home and she worked very hard in the
fields and all but she didn't join very
freely in the social life of the
community as she grew older her parents
and others began to wonder why it was
that she shunned all the young gentlemen
wrong she was a very pretty girl and
they couldn't understand it when she was
21 they began to worry because that you
she's past the first mark and she's
going to be an old maid and they wanted
very much were to marry and have a home
Barone a time went on and in spite of
all the urging of those about it she
kept
reticent and when she was about 30 they
began to wonder why it was that she
didn't respond to anyone and she was
really an old maid in her early thirties
while she was working at home the young
man came to town to build highways and
he was a very personable young chap and
they came to board at their home
although she was so many years older
than he he fell desperately in love with
her and she with him and they decided to
marry and have a home of their own they
did build a little cottage down by the
shore of Mosher pond they moved in there
and had been married something less than
a year when his people from
Massachusetts decided to come to visit
them they came down into their horror
they discovered that he had married his
old mother of course when this was
revealed their marriages and now
declared broken up and Hebert luck
totally better goodbye and went back
with his foster parents to Massachusetts
or Maine for the rest of his life the
indignation of her parents and of the
community at the fact that she had had
an illegitimate child she had to conceal
that fact from the marled these years it
was considered a horrible sin for love
Heather child and she had married a
legitimately and therefore she was
entirely ostracized although her home
was almost in sight almost across the
highway from that of her mother and her
brothers and sisters who still live
there she was forbidden to enter that
home to go near it at all
none of them ever went to our spoke to
her
and nobody spoke to her no one when Tara
except once in a while a kindly friend a
kindly person who would bring her a bit
of tea or some little thing the years
went by she ate our living by our own
efforts made out gardens and spaded the
mother Spader itself and made the Marais
sir
food as much as possible
and knit and did very various things and
very small stipend but it was became
necessary for to become a papa which was
another disgrace and she had a call on
the town for things for existence
they came a very severe widow and it was
a long time of course in those days
there was no means of letting anyone
know what you needed to really think
there was no telephone there were no
Arif T's there was no way of
communication and as she was ostracized
and left by herself no communication was
possible for her early in the springtime
the mud was very very deep one of the
silic men who lived in another section
of the town it was obliged to go to
Chesterville on this way up he called
the house thought he would see how a
Moorhen was doing hadn't heard from him
all window here yeah knocked on the door
no response
the door was fastened he thought he
heard a moaning sound inside and
desperately he managed to burst the
durian and as he came inside he saw this
form lying on the floor with faint moans
throughout all these years she had
suffered so terribly seeing the mother's
casket carried to the cemetery and
without being able to even keep it
inside it and all these terrible things
have been happening and now here she lay
at death's door he picked her up
carefully and laid her on her bed and
when out turned his horse about and
started full of more Falls to get a
doctor on the way he stopped at one
house accepted Edwards house and asked
mrs. Edwards to go over and she said I
can't possibly for will it's gone to the
horse and I have no way to get there he
went on up to the deck home and made the
same request and there they meant more
away with the horses my mother was there
and she said I will go home and harness
Orson go over and she did and she found
her in this terrible condition with
nothing to be found in the house signal
was of any possible value for diet or
anything else there were a few drops of
molasses clinging to the bottom of a jug
and a few grains of corn meal in the
corners of a box and nothing else was
there the poor old lady had stuff to
death she as she perished before the
doctor right the sadness of the whole
thing I had been down there was a child
sent many times with a bit of tea and
some little things and I love that he
rolled so when my mother came home and
told us what had happened I began to cry
a few days later her funeral was held at
Musel church she was placed in a wooden
box and for a casket and a simple
ceremony was held
and some several who would not have
spoken to her during their lifetime and
Esther says that completely were there
the last at the close of the ceremony
her sister went to the casket and
placing her hand upon it and are they
hand high in the air she said at last
she has paid for him that was there was
the tragedy of the whole Lake climax of
the tragedy and my mother came home so
upset and so angry and really my mother
although she was a very mild person said
I think her sister said more than she
she said this terrible neglect of her
through all these years do you think the
sweet sweet little old lady it would
would be so it's so grateful with even a
childhood come and speak to her ladies
just the silence of all those years as a
child a child of 13 away from home in a
strange city
it was surrounding she had never seen
and only one person being really
friendly to her and she probably had no
conception of what the consequences of
that association would become I cannot
see that it was truly a seeing first of
all I want to thank Nettie Mitchell for
telling that story and for being so kind
to this woman at a time when people were
terrible it's a terrible story this
issue of shunning is really important
typing to the story I lived in Maine for
25 years small-town and I saw people
shun people and I was shunned shunning
look at you they don't talk to you they
make it like you don't exist it's less
violence certainly than violence but
it's pretty powerful when the whole
town shunned Emeline I made a
documentary for television called sins
of our mothers there was also a book
written called Emmeline by Judith
Rossiter whom I made a deal with so she
could write the book an interview Nettie
and give Nettie some money that he
survived the rest of her life got
heating for her house and stuff like
that on the book rights and what
happened to that book there was an opera
written called Emmaline pretty
interesting opera and I have presented
clips from this film on my youtube
channel before but I wanted to tell you
how I knew it was true first of all my
colleagues and I did a huge amount of
research in the libraries and the
archives in Fayette and we found there
was indeed an Emmaline who lived on
Moser pond you could see her name in
these Diaries and so the person did
exist but we had to find somebody who
knew somebody who knew online and sure
enough we find this 97 year old lady in
an old-age home who says yes I knew
Emeline some people have asked did I
ever find
Emeline sons family I didn't I don't
know that name I couldn't find that name
so we never did find out what happened
to the boy young man when he was yanked
out of Emmaline's home I yanked out of
the marriage yanked out of Maine and
never heard from again I love stories
like this that have power and emotion
and tragedy and comedy and beauty and
kindness and cruelty I want to thank
those of you who have been sharing your
stories with me as comments and as
emails I don't answer phone calls and I
wish I could record every one of the
good ones because they're spectacular
but I know ordinary people are
extraordinary and have extraordinary
stories to tell
although Emmaline holy moly what a story
in any case thank you for watching David
Hoffman filmmaker bye-bye