We have a show that hopefully gets out every woman’s opinion. Well, we can’t do every woman’s opinion, but as many types of views on the topic that we would like to display.
With this, Berry-Jean Murray, Production Assistant and Interviewer, summarized the thinking behind the name of the 1990s public-access television show Obviously Women. As a March 1991 article by Mary Ann T. Rossoni in the Providence, RI based The Third Wave newspaper reported, Berry-Jean and her collaborators Toni Salisbury, Carol Dunbar Skoglund, and Nancy Harrison saw as their charge “to show women in a positive light everywhere doing everything,” as well as “being a forum to bring out issues of the day, not just issues that normally people would think would be a headliner.” Obviously!
The show had its beginnings in another format: Berry-Jean, along with Nancy and Carol, had been hosting a radio show, Airwave Women, on the University of Rhode Island’s WRIU station. The show primarily featured women’s music and news, and continues today with different hosts as Voices of Women. Rhode Island has always had the base of a women’s community, in which Lesbians have always played a critical part, and for Berry-Jean, feminism and Lesbianism always went together. Lesbians have always been a part of the “gay community,” as well, though differences existed between gay men and Lesbian women, especially around women’s issues. So Lesbian participation in Pride parades, for example, was tenuous, and Lesbians were present but not always prominent.
Thirty minutes long and commercial-free, the Obviously Women public access television show emerged because Berry-Jean and friends decided the community needed something more. They were so prideful of themselves as women and wanted to share that pride with anyone who would watch. As Berry-Jean remembers the feeling: “We exist. We’re here. Watch us!”
The Airwave Women group took production classes at the PEG - Public Access TV, and created a show for women with a feminist slant. Berry-Jean, a Black Lesbian, was the host of the show – making a statement that women of color were involved in the community. In news, entertainment, interview, and special feature segments, Obviously Women featured everyday women doing interesting things (for example, fixing a lamp) or in “non-typical women roles…women soldiers, women carpenters, women welders.” Stories centered on resources for local women, including the Women's Resource Center talking about violence against women; therapists talking about adult children of alcoholics; and speakers addressing the community issues of homelessness, religion and oppression. The women behind Obviously Women strove to create a public service to let community members know about the resources available to them.
This collective effort lasted approximately two-to-three years in the early 1990s. While the show may no longer be on the air, the bonds that created it remain. In a recent interview, Berry-Jean giggled as she looked at the 1991 article: “I’ll show this to Carol and Nancy and Beth. They’re still around and we all laugh when we’re together.”
]]>Deborah Manchester gave Wheeler Ball Field to the town for “the children of Adamsville” in honor of her nephew, Philip Manchester Wheeler, and great-nephew, Stafford Manchester Wheeler who was killed in World War II. Miss Debbie worked for many years in Manchester’s Store. She had no children of her own, but for six months of every year she and her sister Lizzie and her brother Abraham raised their orphaned niece and nephew. The field has been a gathering spot for local kids for decades, first for informal pick-up games and today for the local Little League. In the 1940s and 1950s, local organizations often held bake sales on its stone walls.
]]>Little Compton was once full of Odd Fellows. That’s no insult. The Independent Order of Odd Fellows is a fraternal and philanthropic organization established in seventeenth-century England. It arrived on American shores in 1819, and in 1875, Seaconnet Lodge #39 of the Odd Fellows was formed in Little Compton.
According to one possible explanation for the origin of the name “Odd Fellows,” groups formed for charitable purposes in seventeenth-century England were unusual, and their members might have been considered "odd fellows." Initially, the organization restricted membership to Protestant men, but in 1851 the Odd Fellows formed a women’s auxiliary group, whose members were called Magnolia Rebekahs.
In Little Compton, Odd Fellows membership quickly exceeded the capacity of Seaconnet Lodge. On March 1, 1877, some members departed to found Electra Lodge #41 in nearby Adamsville. Despite the physical separation of the two lodges, Odd Fellows member Walter Elwell remembered, “The Seaconnet and Electra were back and forth visiting. Not every meeting but I would say fifty percent of the meetings.”
The two lodges also produced a young girl’s group, called the Theta Roses, and another branch of the Odd Fellows called the Encampment. During the peak of involvement in Little Compton, Odd Fellows meetings drew up to sixty people every week.
However, the group declined quickly. In 1967, the Electra Lodge closed due to inactivity and its remaining members rejoined the Seaconnet Lodge. According to Walter Elwell, “Like every fraternal organization, they’re in trouble.” The former Electra Lodge hall first became a pottery shop called Stone Bridge Dishes, and later became a private residence.
Despite these setbacks, memories of the Odd Fellows remain strong within Little Compton and Adamsville. Boy Scouts troops met at the Electra Lodge, people were married there, and the space was great for dancing. James Brady credits his existence to a USO dance held at the Electra Lodge: “Every time I drive by the Odd Fellows Hall, I say, 'My God, that’s the place where my mom and dad met. And if they hadn’t met, well, for the last sixty-six years, I wouldn’t be here.'"
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]]>There was a time when, if a bride wanted to walk up the aisle at the Old Stone Baptist Church, she had to hoist herself, gown and all, through one of the church’s back windows.
Most churches place the pulpit and the main entrance at opposite ends of their building, allowing for formal processions up a center aisle. When it was built in 1752, however, the two entrances to the Old Stone Church stood behind the pulpit, making for an awkward and subdued entrance for the bride. The solution? A ladder, a window, and a congregation willing to keep their eyes averted while the bride fixed her dress.
In the late 1950s, the church added an entrance hall opposite the pulpit. Brides at the Old Stone Church no longer climb through a window in order to make a grand entrance, but for many congregants, it’s a fond memory of one of the church’s more interesting customs.
The Old Stone Church was also known for its annual Rhode Island clambake. The church held the first clambake in 1864, and by 1875, an astonishing 4,000 people attended the event. The clambake served as a fundraiser for the church, drawing people from neighboring communities regardless of religious affiliation.
In the morning, cooks placed heaping mounds of Rhode Island clams and quahogs, along with locally-grown potatoes, onions, and corn, into a pit lined with a bed of hot rocks. The cooks alternated layers of food with moist rockweed, slowly steaming the feast for hours. The Manchester family of Little Compton were for many years a critical part of the clambake: Abe managed the event, Debbie collected tickets, and Lizzie cooked the chowder.
Crowds gathered southeast of the church behind the Pleasant View Cemetery and sat at long tables. The Old Stone Church clambake was always the social event of the season. People dressed in their finest clothes and munched on iced watermelon to cool off in the summer heat. Many local stores closed and gave employees the day off. The popular event halted during World War II due to rationing, but in recent years, the church has begun to revive the delicious tradition.
During the years that the clambakes weren't held, the church grounds became the site of an annual bazaar. Farmers bought and sold livestock, demonstrated crafts and skills, and held an antique auction on the church lawn. Reverend Bob Hollis remembers a toy table that Millie Waite arranged where a nickel would buy children the bag of their choice, with a surprise toy inside. The atmosphere was festive and exciting, with people spending days putting up booths and preparing for the festival.
Even though the church isn’t technically in Adamsville—it’s just over the line in Tiverton—for Adamsville residents, it has played a long and important role in the religious and social life of the village. After all, if your congregation is willing to put up with climbing through a window to get married, it’s clearly something special.
]]>Sam Patch swung his hat and leapt off the cliff, cutting through the mist towards the seething whirlpool below. A roar rose up from the massive crowd of over 8,000 people. The outcome of this feat – at High Falls in upstate New York – would send reverberations across the nation.
Sam Patch's jumping career began several decades earlier at Slater Mill in Pawtucket. From the age of seven, Patch worked in the mill, scuttling between looms, clearing bobbins of cotton, and replacing them with empty ones. Eventually, he was promoted to a coveted weaving position. He toiled for fourteen hours a day, six days a week, starting at five in the morning. In the summer the mill was hot and humid, and during lunch breaks Patch would join other boys in jumping off the mill dam or nearby bridges into the cool tidal pool at the foot of the Pawtucket Falls. Soon this leisurely activity turned into a competition, with each boy jumping from higher and higher-still factory windows.
In 1824, mill owners demanded that workers accept steep wage cuts and a shortened lunch break. Patch, along with his fellow workers, protested against these unfair practices. Continuing conflict with mill management may have been one factor that precipitated Patch's subsequent move to Paterson, New Jersey, where he found work at another mill. Upon hearing that a bridge was to be built over the Passaic Falls, Patch declared that – once built – he would jump from it. On September 30, 1827, he jumped as promised from Clinton Bridge, drawing a large, incredulous crowd. The press went wild, dubbing him the “New Jersey Jumper” and launching his career as a daredevil stuntman.
Patch's career hit a high point in October of 1829, when, as part of his east coast “Jumping Tour” he became the first person to survive a trip over Niagara Falls. Waving to crowds assembled on both the American and Canadian sides of the Niagara River, he kissed the American flag before hurling himself one hundred and thirty feet down into the churning river.
One month later, Patch found himself poised above High Falls in upstate New York. However, this leap went terribly wrong.
Patch's body dropped like an arrow, when suddenly his legs separated and set his body spinning. As he struck the water, a terrible thwack echoed through the air. Audience members held their breath – one minute – two minutes – three minutes – but there was no sign of the daredevil. Rumors rippled through the crowd: could he be hiding in a cave at the base of the falls, poised for a triumphant reappearance? It took four months to find his corpse, frozen in a block of ice six miles downstream.
Sam Patch lived on in the American imagination as hero to a budding proletariat culture: democratic, hard-drinking, sports-obsessed, and loving of melodrama. Amidst a rapidly changing social structure, Patch's trademark phrase – "Some things can be done as well as others” – hinted at what we now call the American dream: a belief that human ingenuity can generate endless, perhaps even extravagant, possibilities.
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