“Oh, when I was a kid growing up, I’d see Burpee riding around town with his big black Cadillac, and he was smoking a cigar, Burpee Wilson. I can’t think of his real name, I know know, it might have been Burton. We always called him Burpee Wilson. But because of his generosity, you know–matter of fact if you look at my house today, you look at all the shingles on there. That’s the same shingles that was on the B. H. Wilson’s Fisheries factory the day it burned. My grandfather was the head of the shipping room, and Burkey had leftover shingles from the factory. My house actually has white clapboards, but the house was in such bad shape, he just put his god awfully ugly colored shingles–that’s what my house is. You look at it there, those are the same shingles that B. H. Wilson’s Fisheries are. Every time I look at it I think of Burpee Wilson. So I’ve got a connection to the sardine factory. I got the same shingles. They’ve been there for like 60 years.”
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April 19, 2013
Eastport, ME
Interviewer: Keith Ludden
Recommended citation: Wilcox, Wayne, Oral History Interview, April 19,2013 by Keith Ludden, Page #, Oral History and Folklife Research. Online: https://www.oralhistoryandfolklife.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Wilcox-Transcript-.pdf
Permission to quote from this transcript must be obtained from Oral History and Folklife Research. Please contact OHFR for further information.
Wilcox worked at the sardine cannery in Eastport, ME.