 Mazie Mathews repeatedly told me, "I'm not gonna get old." And, as if to prove it, she pointed with pride to photographs and newspaper clippings showing herself riding her son's snowmobile the previous winter. She is an avid devotee of quilt making and rarely misses an opportunity to gather with her friends at the senior citizens' club where they fashion one quilt after another. She also makes aprons and pot holders which she prefers to give away rather than sell.
"I was born right here on this island, in a little white house up there on the side of the road," Mazie recalls. "My husband, Archie, and I have lived in this house since the kids were small. I s'pose we been here thirty years, I'll bet.
 "Now that I'm over eighty, they won't let me stay here in the winter since Archie died. Now, I gotta go with Carrie Pearl, my daughter. I went out and stayed with her last winter. She's got a nice trailer out past the cemetery.
Mazie Displays Recent Photos of Herself Snowmobiling with Her Son, Lester
"It was a lot different growing up when I was a girl than it is now. But we had fun just the same. We was taught different. All of our toys and everything was put away when it came Saturday night. And they weren't touched. No bicycles, no sleds, no nothing. But, boy, it's different now. Course, now, most of the parents are out working. And that makes a difference. You can't take care of your house and the children if you're away working.
"There wasn't no liquor those days, when I was younger, around here. There was no dope and the mess there is now. And it seems awful funny cause I never seen it or heard tell of it. The kids around home, they didn't have any liquor.
"Archie went to school up to the other end of the island. Ours was down here. We used to go skating and sliding and that's where I first met him.
"We'd slide down over the hills in the winter time. No cars to bother us. Oh, we had a picnic. And when we skated, we went to Mill Cove. There was a pond out there. Wasn't a very big one, but it was lovely. We enjoyed it all together. Had a barrel of fun.
"When night came we didn't stay out too long. We was warned not to stay out too long. The boys would go home with us. Just go to the door. That's as far as they could go.
"Oh, one night, I remember, there was Bertie Brown and I. We both had boyfriends. Bertie had Clarence Newman. We called him Dewey. 'He's going to take me home tonight,' she said. I said, 'Well, Tom Brown's going to take me home tonight.' So, after we got through skating, we started home. Tom came to his house first before he did mine. He said, 'Goodnight,' and I went the rest of the way alone. Oh, they had a barrel of fun over that. Tom never went home with Mazie again.
"They called us, 'Bobby Town,' and we called them, 'Sou' Wackers.' Just for fun I s'pose. They'd walk down here from the Pool and we'd walk up there. We didn't think it was very far. Where our senior citizens' hall is now, they'd have dances there, and they used to have box suppers and dramas. They used to do it for people that needed money. Of course, when they had dances the music was right from home.
"I think the [nicknames for people on the island] are dreadful. I don't like nicknames. I was talkin' about Dewey. His name was Clarence Newman. They always called him Dewey Newman. Too lazy to speak the right name, I think. Sometimes they'll say Flora-Dewey, like that, for his wife. Emma-Horace; they all said that, too. Oh, so many names like that. That's silly. They always said Sadie-Leslie. She's gone. Now Leslie lives up there alone. June and Buster. Now her name is June and his is Winston. That sounds silly too. I don't like those nicknames. Bessie and Jack Fitzgerald: Bessie-Jack. I don't know why they say that. I never wanted them to say Mazie-Archie and they never did.
"I've made quilts for I don't know how long. I've got a bedroom full up there that's gotta be quilted. And some, they're lovely. They're beautiful. And I make a lot of pot holders. I don't want to sell them. I give most of them away. A girl from St. Andrews called me; said she wanted three dozen. I only charged a quarter for each one. I hate to do that. I'd rather give them to anybody.
"There was so many who had quilts to make and lots of people don't have homes large enough to do them. So, we decided we'd take one room up to the church just for ourselves. That was a long time ago. People that's got quilts that wants them done, we put our names down. I think I've got thirty now on the list. There's one in now, but as a rule we have two there to work on. And that's the way they do it. They bring it there with the back, the lining, and the thread. All we have to do is put 'em in the frames. Then we take an afternoon or whenever we want. As a rule we quilt on Tuesday. Lots of times we stay there evenings, too. Take a little lunch; have coffee and tea.
"I never touched fish and never would. I didn't ever tell nobody why I didn't like fish. I don't want anyone else to get turned off to it. It's something that happened. That was in 1932 and I have never eaten a piece of fish since.
"I don't like fish and I'm scared of water. One thing I did do. Over on Casco Bay Island there was barrels and barrels of cranberries that grew there. They was the marsh cranberries. The big ones. So, one day, Archie said, 'Let's go over to Casco Bay Island and pick some cranberries. It was nice and calm. He took a pillowcase and they had this thing to rake the berries with and we got a pillowcase full. Of course, our grandchildren had a barrel of fun. Archie took us over in a rowboat. I didn't know what we was going in. Course the men thought a rowboat was all right cause they'd used lots of 'em.
"Wasn't I scared going over. I can see the grandchildren now. Doubling right up and laughin' at Nana cause she was scared. When I got on that island, I said, 'I'm not going back home, Archie.' He said, 'Woman, you've gotta go back home. You can't stay here all night. Whatcha talkin' about? If I went home without you I'd be killed.' I thought. I declared I wasn't gonna get in that rowboat again. But I had to get in it. It was only the tide, I guess, that was rough. Archie said it was the way the tide was going. They didn't think it was rough, but I thought it was awful. I've never been in a rowboat since. Nothin' doin' in a boat.
"I've never had any desire to live anywhere else. Just cause it's home I guess. I'd rather be here than anywhere else. Now, it's lovely to St. John. I was up there this winter and stayed two months. But the best part of my visit was coming home."
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