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Documentary, American Experience - S01 E16 - Sins of Our Mothers (January 17, 1989)
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00:00a gothic tale of unspeakable sin in 19th century maine there was a triple header there was the
00:09baby there was a lie the cover-up and there was the marriage and nobody spoke to her no one went
00:16near her and therefore she was entirely ostracized tonight on the American experience sins of our
00:25mothers
01:26Major funding for this series is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
01:30and by this station and other public television stations nationwide.
01:37Corporate funding for the American Experience is provided by Aetna,
01:41Insurance and Financial Services,
01:44for more than 130 years, a part of the American Experience.
01:52Hello, I'm David McCullough.
01:54Our film, Sins of Our Mothers, is a strange, haunting story
01:58that's been told for more than a century in Fayette, Maine,
02:02a town so small it doesn't figure on most present-day maps.
02:06For much the better part of our country's history,
02:09the American Experience has been life in a rural backwater,
02:13on remote farms and in small towns,
02:15in places like Roswell, Georgia, Liberty, Missouri, Red Cloud, Nebraska,
02:20each of which has its own story, as I know from experience,
02:24working with old records there and talking with people.
02:28And for all that seems to have vanished with time in such communities,
02:31it's amazing how many telling details of lives long lost can still be recovered.
02:37For a long time, this story was told only in whispers in Fayette.
02:42Then a writer for a local paper decided to speak up.
02:46Later, a novelist based a best-selling book on the story of Emmeline, as it is known.
02:52Later still, our filmmakers set out to determine how much was only hearsay and legend.
02:56What they've recorded is an old-fashioned detective story
03:00about the strengths and failures of community.
03:26Mrs. Murphy, when were you born?
03:43I was about 103 years ago. You'll figure it out.
03:48Do you remember Emmeline Gurney?
03:51I remember hearing about her.
03:53What did you hear?
03:55Well, she was a mystery.
04:00She was a mystery.
04:03Nobody understood her.
04:06Well, I was only just like you.
04:09I was a witness.
04:14Heard what people said.
04:17And she was not good company.
04:24I mean, they didn't talk good about her.
04:29I can only tell you what I've heard from my grandmother, because, of course, this was way before my time.
04:50She had had a very bad tragedy in her life, so that people didn't want to go and talk to her.
04:59And then Aunt Nettie has said, it was pitiful the way she died.
05:06People were cruel.
05:12That's the way I would look at it.
05:14I should call them cruel, treat anybody that way.
05:17Because I've heard she used to go out and pick berries and stuff like that to keep herself alive.
05:22Nobody paid no attention to her, and back when I was growing up, that was, that was a curse to you.
05:33Every small town in Maine has its legends, some of them true.
05:45Some are of heroes and heroines and can be told with pride, while others, like the tale of Emmeline, are stories of people deemed unworthy of official history,
05:57but who are remembered years later by people in the town because of sins and sufferings so dreadful that they become warnings for future generations.
06:07But time changes everything, even a town's notions of who is a sinner and who is sinned against.
06:16They used to tell it as a bad example, don't be Emmeline, don't ever do what she did.
06:22Mind your own business, stay at home, the whole bit about woman not doing anything but what Papa tells her to.
06:31Then, of course, now with the change in attitude towards her problems, they seem to feel sorry for her more than anything else.
06:42The story of Emmeline is shocking, but a shocking story can give insight into the taboos and punishments of the past
06:51and into the daily lives of some of those people whose existence would never make it into the annals of history
06:57were it not for scandals such as this one.
07:01Which is why we owe a debt to one small town storyteller and reporter.
07:06It hurt her to reveal dark secrets about the town she loved.
07:11But for her, the story of Emmeline was a means of correcting old wrongs.
07:16I am Nettie Mitchell.
07:19I am 89 years of age.
07:22I live in the town of Fayette, where I was born and have lived practically all my lifetime.
07:30And I would like to tell you one of the saddest and most heartbreaking tales that has come to my notice.
07:39It's a true story, something that happened right here in this town, in the long ago.
07:47I knew this old lady when I was a tiny child, and she was very sweet and lovely.
07:55She was one of a large family of children in a very impoverished home in the early 1800s.
08:03At the age of 13, visitors from Lynn, Massachusetts, arrived at their home,
08:13and seeing the poverty and deprivation there, said,
08:18Why don't you let us take Emmeline back with us to Lynn, and she can work in the cotton mills.
08:23She's old enough to work there.
08:25And she can go work in the cotton mills and send you money to help with the expenses back home.
08:35They thought it over and decided to let her go, and she went.
08:40She was an efficient, hard-working little girl.
08:44But she was entirely among strangers in a strange land,
08:50very, very different than anything she had ever known before.
08:55Among those who were friendly to her,
09:00as most of them were not because she was entirely different,
09:05was her young boss, a young man.
09:10And he became very friendly, and she yielded to him, to his persuasion.
09:17And by the time she was 14, she was the mother of his child.
09:22She did not dare to let her people back home know what had occurred.
09:28The people where she was staying made arrangements to sell her baby
09:34to a childless couple nearby them,
09:38who would pay her expenses and pay for her transportation back home
09:45if she would go as soon as she was able.
09:49She returned to her home.
09:51And she worked very hard in the fields and all,
09:57but she didn't join very freely in the social life of the community.
10:05As she grew older, her parents and others began to wonder
10:09why it was that she shunned all the young gentlemen around.
10:14She was a very pretty girl, and they couldn't understand it.
10:18In her early 30s, while she was working at home,
10:24a young man came to town to build highways.
10:28And he was a very personable young chap,
10:31and he came to board at their home.
10:34Although she was so many years older than he,
10:37he fell desperately in love with her, and she with him.
10:40And they decided to marry and have a home of their own.
10:44They did, and built a little cottage
10:46down by the shore of Moshe Pond.
10:49They moved in there and had been married
10:52something less than a year
10:54when his people from Massachusetts
10:59decided to come to visit them.
11:02They came down, and to their horror,
11:04they discovered that he had married his own mother.
11:10Of course, when this was revealed,
11:18the marriage was annulled, declared broken up,
11:24and he reluctantly begged her goodbye.
11:27It was considered a horrible sin for it to have had the child,
11:31and she had married illegitimately,
11:34and therefore she was entirely ostracized.
11:37To be shunned by family and friends
11:41in the 19th century New England village
11:43was almost the equivalent of life imprisonment without trial.
11:48No one went to comfort her.
11:50No one helped to support her.
11:53The silence of all those years.
11:55Nettie Mitchell helped to break that silence
12:09because she felt that the injustice
12:11that Emmeline experienced
12:13was something that people today should know about.
12:16She first told the story to outsiders
12:19when this footage was shot in 1975.
12:22Generations of Fayette townspeople at that time
12:26had grown up hearing strange things about Emmeline.
12:30Nevertheless, such moral transgressions as hers
12:33were not the type of thing one discussed freely
12:36with children or strangers.
12:39People's attitudes began to change
12:41only after a best-selling author from New York
12:44heard of the story and came to Fayette
12:46to find out more from Nettie Mitchell.
12:48I'm getting along.
12:49Yeah, well, we all.
12:50Amazing, I knew so.
12:52That author was named Judith Rossner.
12:57And other than Nettie herself,
12:59she found few people who were willing
13:00to talk about a shameful incident
13:02in their ancestors' lives.
13:05Because of the difficulties she encountered
13:07researching the story,
13:08Rossner did what any novelist would have tried to do.
13:11She turned the legend
13:13into a popular piece of fiction.
13:15Judith, we've been able to find out
13:18quite a bit of information about Emmeline
13:19and about life in this town during her day
13:21that people apparently, even a few years ago,
13:24weren't willing to talk about.
13:25What's changed since you were working on your novel?
13:30Well, when I went around originally,
13:32I could find nobody who knew Emmeline
13:37or had anything to say about her.
13:39I gather that that has changed
13:44and that there are many people
13:45who are quite convinced
13:46that they remember one part of the story or another
13:49or knew Emmeline
13:50or knew someone who knew her or whatever.
13:53And aside from the normal human urge
13:56to participate in an event,
13:58perhaps another reason
13:59is that the existence of the book
14:04and then, of course,
14:05of a great deal of television stuff,
14:07conversation and so on
14:09about incest
14:11that had never been talked about very much before then
14:17has made it all somewhat less forbidden.
14:21It's okay now to know something about it.
14:23Ostracized by the town
14:28during her own lifetime,
14:31Emmeline has now become
14:32Fayette's most famous citizen.
14:34Emmeline was a real person.
14:57We've located town records
14:59that reveal that much
15:00and a great deal more.
15:02Her parents were Aaron and Sophia Batchel,
15:04and Emmeline was the fourth
15:07of their five children
15:08living on what is now known
15:09as the Chesterfield Ridge Road.
15:15But to really understand Emmeline's story,
15:18why she was sent away,
15:20why she was punished so severely,
15:23one has to first understand
15:24the world she lived in.
15:26This wilderness was first settled
15:29when soldiers in the Revolutionary War
15:31received pieces of it
15:32as payment for their efforts
15:33and brought families north
15:35from Massachusetts and New Hampshire
15:37to homestead among the rocks
15:39and mosquitoes
15:40and frosts of the province of Maine.
15:45It was beautiful countryside,
15:47but to make a home here
15:48was more difficult
15:49than many had imagined.
15:51not one drawing or image
15:58of any sort exists
15:59that can show us
16:01what Emmeline and her family
16:02actually looked like.
16:04The lives of struggling rural families
16:06were rarely documented,
16:08except in a few
16:09melodramatic illustrations.
16:11The only way to glimpse
16:13their world at all
16:14is to piece together
16:16threads of written
16:17and oral history,
16:18her hometown's collective memory
16:20and our imagination.
16:34People were carving out
16:35futures for themselves.
16:37With every tree they filled,
16:39with every pasture they cleared,
16:41there was the expectancy
16:42that life would get better.
16:49But when they cleared
16:50the last tree,
16:52when they cleared
16:52the last pasture
16:53and moved the last rock,
16:56they felt inclined to move.
16:58Things were about as rugged
16:59as they were
17:00when they started.
17:02But they lost
17:03some of the expectancy,
17:04some of the anticipation.
17:05By the time
17:09Emmeline Batchelder
17:10was born
17:11on January 30th
17:12in the year 1816,
17:14many families in Maine
17:15felt that even God
17:16had turned against them.
17:181816 and froze to death
17:20was one of the very worst years
17:22for Maine,
17:23agriculturally speaking
17:25and economically.
17:26There was a frost
17:28every month that year,
17:30even in the summer.
17:32the seed that was
17:35put in the ground
17:36froze
17:37and no crop resulted.
17:44It was just dreadful.
17:46They felt that
17:47it was the end
17:48of everything.
17:50If Emmeline's family
17:52were on the edge
17:53of poverty,
17:54the year 1816
17:55would plunge them
17:56really deep
17:58into poverty.
17:58I don't believe
18:02that
18:03Emmeline
18:05had anything
18:08when she was
18:10growing up.
18:11I think that she
18:12might have had
18:14cast off
18:15clothes
18:16from other people
18:17and
18:18her parents
18:19may have had
18:21just enough
18:21to feed her
18:22meagally.
18:23Emmeline's
18:30life
18:31as the child
18:32of very poor
18:33people
18:33must have been
18:34a hard life.
18:38I don't believe
18:39anybody
18:40knows
18:41how bad
18:41it probably
18:42was.
18:44I believe
18:45that Emmeline's
18:46family
18:46were hungry
18:47at times.
18:48I know
19:01what it was
19:01to grow up
19:02without having
19:03too much.
19:05But I don't
19:06say that I
19:06went to bed
19:07hungry anytime.
19:08We always had
19:09enough that we
19:10growed.
19:11It might not
19:12be out of a store
19:13but we had
19:13potatoes and
19:14vegetables and
19:15stuff like that
19:15that got through
19:17the summer
19:17so we had
19:18enough to eat.
19:19Might have
19:19been the same
19:19thing but we
19:20had enough
19:20to eat.
19:23People were
19:24pretty good
19:25about helping
19:25each other
19:26with the hard
19:27work, the
19:27difficult work.
19:30If you were
19:31excluded from
19:33this cooperative
19:34effort, much
19:36more threatening
19:37the world would
19:37be for you.
19:39If a family
19:40was poor and
19:40they couldn't
19:41get along and
19:42there was work
19:42somewhere, why
19:44a child might
19:44only be eight
19:46to nine years
19:47old and have
19:48to go to
19:49work and
19:50around here
19:51they were
19:51farmed out.
19:54The farming
19:55out of child
19:56labor was not
19:57uncommon in
19:58New England.
19:59Childhood was
20:00a luxury most
20:01pioneers could
20:02hardly afford.
20:04Emmeline's
20:04parents probably
20:05tried to avoid
20:06a trap all too
20:07common among
20:07the poorest
20:08families, the
20:09trap in which
20:10children, like
20:11livestock, could
20:13become a tradable
20:14commodity among
20:15desperate neighbors.
20:19This was
20:19something that
20:20was done and
20:21I know as a
20:24man that I
20:25knew that his
20:27mother was
20:33sold for a
20:34horse or
20:35something, but
20:35they just, they
20:37didn't have any
20:39money and they
20:40had to have a
20:41horse or a
20:43mule or
20:43something and
20:44they just
20:44traded him
20:45up.
20:47And the
20:48children were
20:50lonesome growing
20:52up.
20:53They did an
20:54awful lot of
20:55taking care of
20:56themselves and
20:57going without
20:58and, but they
21:01had the religious
21:02background to face
21:03it all.
21:03It was the
21:07Baptist church that
21:08gave them that
21:09background.
21:10If Emmeline was
21:11like most people,
21:12the commandments
21:13and beliefs of
21:14the church would
21:15have become her
21:15rules, her
21:16beliefs.
21:18Fayette settlers
21:18had made this
21:19the first major
21:20building in town
21:21and from it
21:22emanated all
21:23values, all
21:24structure, all
21:25knowledge with
21:26which they
21:27understood the
21:28trials and
21:28tribulations of
21:29life.
21:30when a new
21:31young member was
21:32baptized in this
21:33local pond, that
21:35act represented
21:35their lifelong
21:36commitment to a
21:37path of
21:37righteousness.
21:39One would make
21:39a covenant with
21:41brothers and
21:41sisters to walk
21:43the Christian
21:44life.
21:45On the other
21:45hand, the
21:46members of that
21:47church community
21:48would likewise
21:48enter into a
21:49covenant to help
21:51keep them from
21:51all evil.
21:52I remember
21:58reading the
21:58journals of the
21:59Reverend Dr.
22:00Paul Coffin, an
22:02early missionary
22:03preacher.
22:06And the most
22:07outstanding notation
22:09is, there is
22:10witchcraft aplenty
22:12in Fayette.
22:13milk that
22:21would curdle,
22:21things that
22:22would fly
22:22through the
22:23air, strange
22:24things that
22:24would happen in
22:26the community and
22:27were reported to
22:27the church
22:28officials.
22:29And authority
22:31was sought over
22:32those spiritual
22:33powers as
22:34instructed by
22:35Jesus.
22:38Church records
22:39indicate that
22:40there were women
22:41in Fayette during
22:42Emmeline's childhood
22:43who were suspected
22:44of witchcraft by
22:45the deacons of
22:46the church.
22:47Everyone, even
22:48Emmeline, would
22:49have known what
22:50punishment those
22:51women faced.
22:52If a person did
22:55something which the
22:56congregation felt
22:57was wrong, they
22:57were censored by
22:58the congregation.
23:00And they had to
23:01appear in the
23:02church and they
23:02had to confess the
23:03sin or the mistake
23:04they had made to
23:05the congregation in
23:06order to be either
23:08forgiven or accepted
23:10or ostracized from
23:11the church.
23:12and the community.
23:14One lady in the
23:15old times here found
23:16it more convenient to
23:18seek a soothsayer on
23:19Sunday than go to
23:20church.
23:21She would go 10 miles
23:22for a soothsayer but
23:23wouldn't go a mile
23:24to church.
23:26For such a thing,
23:28they would be removed
23:29from the fellowship.
23:30If she were a bad
23:31woman, you wouldn't
23:32want your children to
23:34go anywhere near her.
23:35You wouldn't want to
23:36have anything to do
23:37with her.
23:37You know, she might
23:38contaminate the whole
23:39of society.
23:43Ostracizing any bad
23:44elements in town was
23:45an isolated community's
23:47most effective means of
23:48policing itself.
23:52Emmeline would have been
23:53taught early that to run
23:54afoul of the congregation
23:56meant losing the benefits
23:57of the only society there
23:59was in Fayette.
24:00This public school and
24:05others like it were built
24:06to reinforce the authority
24:08of the church.
24:10Children were taught how
24:12to read in order that
24:13someday they could live by
24:15the teachings of the
24:16Bible.
24:20Some children must have
24:22wondered how to reconcile
24:23the realities of their own
24:25lives with what they read
24:26in their school books.
24:27If I were as poor as
24:29those little children
24:30who came here begging
24:32yesterday, I should not
24:33take the least comfort
24:34in the world.
24:35My little daughter is
24:37mistaken, said her mother.
24:39Poor children are just
24:41as happy as rich ones,
24:43except when they are
24:44suffering from cold or
24:46hunger, and that very
24:48seldom happens in America.
24:51Our Father who lives in
24:53heaven takes care of them
24:54as well as of you.
24:56It often surprised me that
24:58more help was not
25:01forthcoming from the
25:02church for a family such
25:04as Emmeline's that was
25:06so very poor.
25:08There was no advocate for
25:10the poor.
25:11Nobody cared.
25:14It was the custom in the
25:16towns to gather up the
25:18poor people who could not
25:19support themselves, every
25:21day, and hold an auction.
25:23Throughout the northeastern
25:26United States, small towns
25:28had a primitive system of
25:30caring for their poor.
25:32Indigent men, women, and
25:34children, and whole
25:35families were displayed in
25:37local meeting houses and
25:38taverns so that people who
25:40were looking for cheap help
25:41or a bid of extra income
25:43could make a bid on a
25:45pauper.
25:46The lowest bidder took that
25:47pauper home as a worker and
25:49was paid by the town to lodge
25:51the person for one year.
25:53The prices were quite
25:54interesting.
25:55If a pauper were old, maybe
25:58bedridden, unable to do any
26:00work at all, and have to even
26:03have her meals carried to her,
26:05you know, or if the person
26:07was mentally ill and were sold
26:11complete with their cage, the
26:14town would have to pay more
26:16for their care and keeping.
26:19Auctioning them off, it sounds
26:21like a terribly humiliating
26:24experience to be set up and
26:27sold is actually what it
26:29amounted to.
26:31And people, they just feared
26:34poverty terribly.
26:36If there are other stories about
26:39single men, widowers, men who
26:41were never married, who bid off
26:43a pauper for, shall we say,
26:45purposes other than cooking
26:47their meals, that could have
26:49happened to her, too.
26:53She may not have been any better
26:54off if she had stayed in Fayette
26:56as a pauper than she was going to
26:59Lowell to the mills.
27:00To send Emmeline away to work
27:05was the right thing to do.
27:07There's absolutely no question
27:09about it, because if she saved
27:12the family from being sold at
27:14pauper auction, much worse could
27:16have happened to Emmeline that
27:17happened to her at Lowell.
27:20And they were simply choosing the
27:22lesser of two evils.
27:30Although Nettie Mitchell said
27:35that Emmeline went to Lynn, it
27:37was almost certainly Lowell,
27:38Massachusetts, where she would
27:40have been sent.
27:41The city of Lowell had been
27:42built to produce cloth.
27:44Unlike other mill towns, the men
27:46who owned the corporations there
27:48had planned from the beginning to
27:50employ almost exclusively young
27:52women.
27:53For years, wagons, known as
27:55slavers, traveled New Hampshire,
27:57Vermont, and Maine to seek out the
27:59girls who would do their work.
28:00God-fearing New England parents
28:04must have thought long and hard
28:05before sending their daughters.
28:07But the attractions of Lowell
28:09outweighed the negatives for
28:10many, many families.
28:12Girls like Emmeline were sent on
28:14what amounted to an heroic
28:16three-day journey, so that there
28:18would be one less mouth to feed
28:20at home, and so they could send
28:22money back to the family from a
28:23world away.
28:302,500 women between the ages of 13
28:45and 35 were assembled along the banks
28:47of the Pawtucket Falls and put to work
28:5012 hours a day, six days a week.
28:59The masterminds of Lowell had utopian
29:02visions for their new city.
29:05They imagined a boarding school
29:07environment in which girls would
29:09better themselves not only financially,
29:11but culturally.
29:12Preachers, authors, and politicians
29:16were brought in to enlighten the young
29:17women and fill up their few
29:19non-working moments with uplifting
29:21activities.
29:26The mill owners also understood that
29:28New Englanders of Puritan stock would
29:31never have sent their daughters
29:32anywhere, no matter how attractive the
29:34wage is being offered, if even a
29:36question of ethical impropriety existed.
29:40Thus Lowell was designed as a temporary
29:43extension of the New England villages
29:45from whence the girls came.
29:47Rules and regulations were enforced of
29:50which a strict father would approve.
29:53Regulations against failing to go to
29:55church, missing curfews, drinking,
29:58seeing men.
30:06But the female factory operatives, as
30:10they were called, were not as docile as
30:12the planners of the great experiment had
30:14hoped.
30:18The dormitory environment provided the
30:20girls a perfect form for late-night
30:22discussions on politics, society,
30:25economics, women's rights.
30:28Young women from the frontier were
30:30exposed to urban ideas and industrial
30:33time clocks for the first time, and
30:35during Emmeline's day, rose up in some of
30:37the first labor strikes in America.
30:43And despite all of the efforts to
30:46control the minds and desires of their
30:48employees, close and constant supervision
30:51of the female operatives by male
30:53overseers undoubtedly led to predictable
30:56problems.
30:58It seems inevitable that there would be
31:00girls like Emmeline, who fell through the
31:02cracks of the elaborate system.
31:05What happened to her was exactly what every
31:08well-meaning parent feared most.
31:22I think it was more his fault, because he was
31:24old enough to know about her.
31:27And she certainly wasn't.
31:29I think it just happened.
31:32I wouldn't blame her.
31:33I wouldn't blame you.
31:35A young girl does not grow up on a farm in the
31:37early 1800s without being aware of sex.
31:42Yes, they were brought up being taught, thou
31:46shalt not.
31:48But sometimes we tend to forget what we were
31:52taught when something more important presents itself.
31:56Most young people who live in Maine and in rural countries, both now and much more then, were too trusting.
32:07They were very innocent in a great many ways.
32:13And I think that Emily was just too trusting.
32:16And perhaps she did have this child, but I think it was, had she been a child of the city or a busy environment, she probably wouldn't have fallen into such a situation.
32:37Unfortunately, there is no way to prove for certain whether Emmeline actually had a child in Massachusetts.
32:48Once again, her experiences simply may not have been considered worth noting officially.
32:54Employment records for most of the mill girls were thrown out long ago.
32:58Single women without property were not usually listed in town directories.
33:02And it would have been in no one's interest to make a written record of an illegitimate birth.
33:08Despite the lack of evidence, the details of Emmeline's personal tragedy remain vivid in the minds of Fayette citizens.
33:16She was desperate because she knew the attitude of her people back home.
33:22And the lady where she was staying said, write and tell your folks that you are sick and you're coming home as soon as you're able.
33:32A fairly wealthy person who lived near was childless and they bought the baby and they paid her board bill and her transportation home for the price.
33:47To think that an innocent child like her could have suffered for all those years because of that one mistake.
34:04By all accounts, Emmeline Batchelder told no one in her hometown what happened.
34:12And it was the holding of that secret, her failure to confess and repent, that the town seems to have resented more than anything else she did later.
34:21Nettie talked to me some about the difficulty of communicating sexual fears, difficulties, problems in an era when even permissible sex was not discussed.
34:40I suppose that what's true is that everyone's guilty feelings were in some way reinforced by the secretiveness.
34:59And what she essentially said to me was that in the old days, if one had such a secret, it was perfectly understandable.
35:10That she would not go to someone.
35:16If a woman was going to have a child out of wedlock, she wouldn't be considered too much back them days.
35:24But perhaps had she told it when she first came home, they might have ostracized her for a while and then gradually gotten over it.
35:32Where, as it was, she was treated well until she was old enough, so she needed the friendship and the help, and this is when she didn't get it.
35:42The years after Emmeline's return to Fayette, from the mid-1830s on, saw the beginnings of great change.
35:54More roads, more mills, more machinery to do some of the tasks that used to be done by hand.
36:00Rural Maine was being slowly but totally transformed.
36:04With the advance of civilization came the advance of domesticity.
36:23More and more, a woman's place of toil was inside the home rather than outdoors next to her husband.
36:29As a single girl, just home from the mills, Emmeline should have gone immediately into some man's home.
36:37Because it was considered every woman's ultimate destiny and responsibility to be of service to her own husband in matrimony.
36:45A man, at that time, owned his wife.
36:50His wife was his chattel.
36:55You didn't know that?
36:57I thought you must have heard that many times.
36:59Yes, the wife was their chattel.
37:03What does that mean, exactly?
37:05What can a man do with his chattel?
37:07Just about anything they wanted to.
37:10If they wanted to take him out and chain him up and beat him up, nobody interfered, as a rule, unless the woman's parents heard about it, maybe, and got mad about it, or father.
37:23Other than that, nobody would pay any attention.
37:26That was his wife.
37:26He had a right to do with what he wanted to.
37:28If anyone had known that Emmeline gave birth in Lowell, she almost certainly would have been considered unfit for marriage.
37:39Perhaps, as people say, Emmeline blamed herself or feared that marriage might reveal her dark secret.
37:46So she waited until she was almost 28 before she got married.
37:50Old enough to have been considered a spinster, as the many unmarried former mill girls were known.
37:58But this marriage to a neighbor named George Chamberlain was actually Emmeline's first of two marriages.
38:05Although Nettie and others were unaware of this first one until we discovered it in some records that were thought to have been lost.
38:13Emmeline and George Chamberlain lived together for almost 20 years, sharing Emmeline's parents' home.
38:22It's impossible to find photographs of women like Emmeline.
38:26Photographers were only hired to make portraits of rich people.
38:31And artists of her day seemed to have been more interested in romantic subjects than sad ones.
38:38It's harder still to know what their thoughts consisted of, except perhaps by interpreting the private notes that a few of them left behind.
38:45There was one woman who wrote in her diary, perhaps this will give you an idea of how they felt.
38:52She said, it was in April, 1863, she said,
38:57A lovely morning, but dreadful.
39:02Old Pete has died.
39:05Rufus found him in his stall this morning.
39:08The next line says, the president died too.
39:12Kind of gives you an idea of which was most important in her life.
39:15She did go on to say that Mr. Seward had been wounded, and they were aware of the news.
39:21And then she said, sometimes I wonder why I've been put here.
39:30Am I just to bear children?
39:33If so, I've been successful six times and failed twice.
39:40Emmeline had two children, one illegitimate in Lowell, the other named Gustavius Chamberlain in 1844.
39:48Her husband, George, stops appearing in records after 1850, apparently leaving Emmeline alone with their son.
39:58Women didn't have any way to support themselves in those days if their husband died or simply dropped out.
40:05And let me tell you, dropping out was a common thing in those days.
40:09People, when life got too much for them or when they wanted to leave and go west or go somewhere else, they just dropped out, disappeared from sight.
40:18And nobody had any fingerprints in those days, and nobody was looking forward to getting Social Security, so there was nothing to keep them from dropping out.
40:27Emmeline and Gustavius begin to show up now in the town pauper records.
40:37The overseers of the poor in Fayette gave Gustavius a pair of shoes.
40:41Emmeline got sick and needed attention, for which a neighbor requested payment from the town.
40:47Gustavius eventually moved out, got married, and like his father, disappeared.
40:53If it weren't for what happened in 1878, when Emmeline was all ready,
41:2262 years old, no one would remember her today.
41:31Their chance meeting was one in a million, as if lightning had struck twice in the same place.
41:38But it is possible that a man might be attracted to a woman old enough to be the mother he never knew.
41:45Or perhaps for her, he was a reminder of something she'd lost so many years earlier.
41:52Whatever their reasons or their relationship, Emmeline Batchelder Chamberlain married Leonard Gurney on April 16th,
42:01the day that ultimately made her a legend in the eyes of her hometown.
42:07Records show only that he came originally from Massachusetts and left town a few years after the marriage.
42:14His people from Massachusetts decided to come to visit them.
42:20They came down and to their horror, they discovered that he had married his own mother.
42:26Of course, when this was revealed, the marriage was annulled, declared broken up.
42:36And he reluctantly begged her goodbye and went back with his foster parents to Massachusetts to remain for the rest of his life.
42:46It just wasn't right.
42:50Good lot of animals today, you don't mix them up that way.
42:53Get males and females from some other source, you just don't mix them up that way.
42:58That just never was considered right.
43:01Just imagine having a bombshell like that dropped and there was, I mean, it was a triple header.
43:08There was the baby, there was the lie, the cover up, and there was the marriage.
43:13People in town are still debating what Emmeline's sin really was.
43:19She didn't knowingly do anything wrong, did she?
43:23She didn't know it was her son when she married him.
43:26If she had, that would have been terrible, but she didn't know it.
43:30The way I understand it, she didn't know who he was.
43:34I think, Lucy, her parents would be to blame for having sent a young girl away into the world entirely unprepared
43:40to earn money to help support them.
43:42Yeah, but if a girl of that age had had a child, the girl would have been blamed because she brought disgrace on her family.
43:53Premarital sex, lying, incest, there was no doubt Emmeline had strayed from the Christian path.
44:00To protect their own reputation, her people disassociated themselves from her disgrace.
44:05Although her home was almost in sight, almost across the highway, from that of her mother and her brothers and sisters,
44:15none of them ever went to her or spoke to her.
44:18And nobody spoke to her.
44:20No one went near her.
44:21I think it's a horrible punishment to be cast out of the community for the reason that no one goes it alone in this world.
44:39It's so difficult to be alone, to be lonely, to be without friends.
44:46I think as human beings, we're not made to go it alone in life.
44:51We need the support, the companionship, the love of other people.
44:56And today we would say that this needs to be found within the community of the church,
45:03which unfortunately perhaps it was not found back in the 1840s, 1850s, 1860s.
45:09This part of the legend that Nettie told, the treatment of Emmeline by family, neighbors, and the church,
45:17is the most troublesome for current residents to deal with.
45:20If you love God and understand his forgiveness, you wouldn't ostracize anyone.
45:33You'd be forgiving.
45:34That's a hundred percent turnaround from the way it was before,
45:40because it sounds like the religious people who were shunning her before.
45:48I don't think that the religious people were shunning her.
45:52I think it was people that didn't have any of that background,
45:57that would be the gossiping kind of people.
46:04I know my grandmother would never have ostracized her.
46:08She would have forgiven her for everything.
46:11And yet everyone agrees that people did ostracize Emmeline.
46:16The final lonely years of her life are the most vivid in Fayette's collective memory.
46:23Many people in town have relatives who are alive when she was.
46:26Old attitudes and jokes about that strange lady who lived all alone on Mosher Pond
46:32were passed on from parent to child.
46:35Do you think that people were mean to Emmeline because she was poor?
46:41Probably.
46:44Probably poor.
46:45Probably stupid.
46:46Stupid.
46:54Emmeline's house was located on a little part of cleared land jutting out into a bog.
47:06The building, when I saw it, was in pretty bad repair.
47:10Probably no more than 12-foot square and not very well made.
47:17Walls were boarded instead of plastered on the inside.
47:22I believe my father said she had chickens that she had there
47:26and probably a little, when she was able, she probably had a little garden
47:32because there was room enough for a, you know, a kitchen garden.
47:39Even with people who grew up hearing about Emmeline to help us reconstruct,
47:43we can still only try and imagine what her life was like.
47:51And each night, when it come dark,
47:54she would hustle her chickens into the house with her and close the door.
47:57No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
48:02And we used to think that was kind of funny to take the chickens to bed with her
48:13and when my brother teased my sisters about Emily,
48:17they're just like Emily talking to the chickens
48:20and I suppose that other people did the same way.
48:25She was different than the rest.
48:32Now that I am older and I realize the vicinity she lived,
48:46that swamp in the back of where she lived is full of muskrats and weasels and everything else
48:51and if she hadn't taken the chickens in the house,
48:54they probably wouldn't have been there in the morning when she got up.
48:56So that wasn't really so strange as it seemed when I was a child.
49:04Grandfather wouldn't let mother go down there
49:06because she was afraid Emmeline would contaminate her.
49:09No decent woman would go but a child was safe.
49:14So he sent her with food and to make sure Emmeline was all right.
49:19My father was of a kinder nature and he knew the story and he pitied the poor soul
49:30and he used to send me down with a piece of salt pork.
49:36She was a frail little old lady when I knew her.
49:41Snowy white hair, bent and tottering somewhat,
49:46but always glad to see someone.
49:51And she would tell about the birds and how they made their nests
49:55and all kinds of things that interested a child.
50:02I think she was one of the most kindly people I ever knew.
50:05Even as a tiny child, I sensed the tragedy in her sadly smiling manner.
50:23They evidently didn't go for a few days.
50:25When they did, they found her dead.
50:28Probably was not eating the right foods and everything.
50:31She eventually got sick and died.
50:39Nothing to be found in the house
50:41that was of any possible value for diet or anything else.
50:48There were a few drops of molasses clinging to the bottom of a jug
50:52and a few grains of cornmeal in the corners of a box
50:58and nothing else was there.
51:01The poor old lady had staffed to death.
51:04She perished before the doctor arrived.
51:08The sadness of the whole thing.
51:10I had been down there as a child,
51:16sent many times with a bit of tea and some little things,
51:21and I loved it here also.
51:23When my mother came home and told us what had happened,
51:26I began to cry.
51:28A few days later, her funeral was held at Moose Hill Church.
51:34She was placed in a wooden box for a casket
51:40and a simple ceremony was held
51:43and several who would not have spoken to her during a lifetime
51:48had ostracized her completely, were there at the last.
51:53At the close of the ceremony,
51:56her sister went to the casket
51:58and placing her hand upon it
52:00and her other hand high in the air.
52:04She said, at last, she has paid for her sin.
52:08There's a grim horse first
52:11And the horse has no springs
52:15And hearth to the dirge
52:18The sad driver sings
52:21Rattle her bones
52:24Her bones
52:27For the stones
52:30The stones
52:33She is only a pauper
52:38And nobody owns
52:43And no one really knows for sure where she was buried.
52:49The story has always been that she was buried
52:52outside of her own home there in one of the fields
52:54in an unmarked grave.
52:59There was a story that
53:01there was a bad person
53:04got buried across the street from the Moose Hill Church
53:07and they wanted her walled off from the sacred ground.
53:11So they built the wall between her grave
53:13and if this is true
53:14her grave is probably just about under
53:17where the road is now.
53:19But no one knows for sure.
53:21Like sands through the hourglass
53:36and so are the days of our lives.
53:41I still say them shows are taken right from life.
53:45I can almost read what's going to happen on it
53:47by things that's happened right in my life.
53:49This is my fountain, Cary
53:51and these are the days of our lives.
53:58All my life there's been one thing
54:00that has stood out in my mind.
54:03It is a true story.
54:05That's the pity of it.
54:07It's a true story.
54:08It's true that Emmeline Gurney
54:16was shunned by the town for something
54:18but whether she actually married her own son
54:21as Nettie said
54:22or whether people in town
54:24only believed she did
54:25or whether Emmeline was shunned
54:27simply because she was poor or stupid
54:30we may never know.
54:31Someone has put flowers out of my grave
54:34though I'm not there.
54:36But this, this is the spot.
54:41Two days before her 95th birthday
54:44Nettie Mitchell passed away.
54:48The story she told of Emmeline Gurney
54:50lives on
54:51and because of it
54:53Emmeline today
54:54is more a part of her hometown
54:57than when she was alive.
55:03This marks the end of the first season
55:05of the American Experience.
55:0716 broadcasts
55:08ranging across events
55:09as different as the San Francisco earthquake
55:12and the advent of rhythm and blues.
55:14Of people as different
55:15in outlook and circumstance
55:17as Geronimo and John Kennedy.
55:20Some stories like
55:21Eric Severide's
55:22Not So Wild a Dream
55:23are history of the kind
55:25our century will be remembered for.
55:27Other stories
55:28like Tonight's of Emmeline
55:30speak more of the human condition
55:32in all times.
55:34A wise man once said
55:36that stories only happen
55:37to people who know how to tell them
55:39and we are a storytelling people
55:41if ever there was.
55:43Until next fall
55:45I'm David McCullough
55:46for the American Experience.
55:57I'm David McCullough
55:58and I'll be on there
56:10as well as a community
56:10tikmer
56:14ORGAN PLAYS
56:44ORGAN PLAYS
57:14Major funding for this series is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
57:23and by this station and other public television stations nationwide.
57:29Corporate funding for the American Experience is provided by Aetna,
57:33Insurance and Financial Services,
57:35for more than 130 years a part of the American Experience.
57:44Educational organizations may inquire about videocassettes of the American Experience
57:49by calling 1-800-424-7963.
57:53ORGAN PLAYS
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