StoryCorps: Priscilla Guitard and Gordon Adams

Priscilla: Did any of your family work at the mill?

Gordon: The only place I worked at the mill was the Heywood-Wakefield Sawmill, where they sawed lumber for Heywood-Wakefield furniture. When They closed that, I went into the service for about a year and a half. I went to jolly old England.

Priscilla: Well, that’s a good place to be, though.

Gordon: It was during the Korean War. And my brother and I were together.

Priscilla: And he’s gone? You’ve lost all your…?

Gordon: He died, yeah. He had cancer, too.

Priscilla: Yeah, there’s a lot of that in Berlin.

Gordon: He was doing alright, but something went wrong and that was it. It doesn’t take long to lose the memory of family.

Priscilla: It’s an awful thing cancer. My husband died of cancer. In 2003, I was diagnosed with cancer of the lung and the liver and the bone. Stage 4. They gave six months to live and I’m still here. They just gave me chemo. Everybody says I’m kind of a miracle to still be here. There must be a reason I’m still here. I do this knitting, bonnets and booties for babies, AIDS babies. So that must be why I’m still here, so I expect to make two-thousand more.

Gordon: My wife, like you, she plays cards at the Senior Center, so that keeps her busy.

Priscilla: Well, you gotta get out of the house. At least she’s got you there. I’ve got one son who’s very attentive. He calls up, right now he’s working evenings so hiw wife calls me, :how are you?” They show up on the weekend s to see me and everything. But once that door’s locked and it’s night, I’m alone with the cat. The cat’s not much company. Well, I had a good life anyway, I wouldn’t change anything.

Gordon: Too late.

Priscilla: Cant’ do much about what happened anything anyway. Things change but you have to go with the flow.

Gordon: The kids, they keep you going.