I was given a lead to interview Becky Fifield by Linda Barnard. I thought the interview went well, but I didn’t let it go as long as some of my other interviews. I do think it was useful to interview Becky, but so far it might be my least rich interview in terms of Starksboro material. She actually lives in Middlebury at Border Acres Farm, but she grew up in Starksboro. She actually gave me some great print material such as her memories of the Jerusalem Schoolhouse and a history of the Orvis family back to when they first arrived in Starksboro. Actually, looking back though, Starksboro seems to mean more to her than some of the others that I’ve interviewed that actually still live there. And I’m not going to lie, I was quite excited to see the farm which is probably the closest one to the college. 

Becky Fifield timestamp:

1:00 first memories of Starksboro with a pet deer

3:00: father buys a farm in Starksboro 

 6:00: history of Orvis family in Starksboro

11:00: memories of Jerusalem Schoolhouse

 17:00: memories of living with Agnes Orvis during high school 

24:00: reflects on receiving a lot of letters from her future husband while he was in Germany after the Korean War

31:00: how Starksboro has changed (told through the influx of houses on Little Ireland Road)

34:30: every year Becky has to go see the leaves in South Starksboro

35:40: reflection on how Starksboro’s farms used to employ so many extra hands

38:45: “it’s a bedroom community for Chittenden County”

41:00: trying to keep Starksboro a community