Audrey Mae SpencerSpencer Historical CemeteryHenry Straight / William Spencer Family Cemetery
Vaughn Historical CemeterySpencers of East Greenwich, RI
17 April 2004

Heather: Did Grandpa (Wm J.B. Spencer) and Grandma play cards?

Audrey: Yes, they would play at my house. Every Sunday night for a long while, Milton and Grandpa (W.J.B. Spencer) and Grandma (Mary Jane Vaughn Spencer) and I would play High-Low-Jack. We would play partners.


17 April 2004

Heather: Have you seen Theo lately?

Audrey: I meet her in the hall. She is talkative and I’m not, so we get along fine.


17 April 2004

Heather: I remember you as being talkative.

Audrey: Oh!?


17 April 2004

Heather: Tell me something about your childhood or teen years.

 

Beatrice Shippee

Audrey: Beatrice Shippee and I were best friends from the third grade to high school. Beatrice went in the commercial and I went into the college bound. Beatrice worked after high school. She worked near the Thornton Theatre in Arctic. Beatrice moved and I never got to see her again. She died when she was younger, around 60 years old.

17 April 2004

Heather: What poems have you been reading lately? Did you notice how I addressed your last letter? I wrote Audrey MacDonald, Poet in Residence. (Laughter)

Audrey: I’d recite poems. Kids came over to my house.

17 April 2004

Heather: Remember the doll house (a converted chicken coop) in our back yard where you would take us when it rained and read to us.

Audrey: You were afraid of thunder and lightening, so I would read to the children during the storms.

17 April 2004

Heather: Remember the pony shed with Spencer’s horse, Playboy? Remember the pig pen? Did Dad (Milton) raise those pigs so we would eat them?

Audrey: Yes.

17 April 2004

Heather: Who killed the pigs?

Audrey: There was an old man who lived in the country. His livelihood was killing pigs.*

*Crystal, Audrey’s second daughter, emailed me to say the following: “the man who killed the pigs was old man Irons.  His daughter Isabelle Irons went to Shepherd of the Valley Church.  She was about 85 years old in 1970.  She never married. I remember when he came to the house and shot the pig, Pinky.  Pinky was a big fat pink pig. So cute. Vaughn was a baby in the crib in the back room.  We were supposed to stay in the room, so we wouldn’t see what was going on. But you know me, I had to peek.  I looked out the window and saw the pig fall down.  I remember crying.  You and Deardra were there too (but you two didn’t peek!),  I never knew that we ate the pig.  Thank God!  I can remember it like it was yesterday.
17 April 2004

Heather: What was the story that Dad told about how the road in R.I. came to be?

Audrey: Yes, getting around Arctic was like a jig saw puzzle. The Indians path (became) the cow path (and then) were widened to form the street. The Indians and then the cows went the simple and flat way. They didn’t go over rocks and hills.

17 April 2004

Heather: Have you had visitors lately?

Audrey: Amber, she bops in every other thing. She loves to put books and everything in order. Oh Lord, I think I’ve got a hand. I’m not sure.