Preface Spoken in their own words, People is a collection of the life stories of 27 people who were born, who grew up, or who spent their adult lives in the Belfast area of Prince Edward Island . This is the story of a community through the eyes and voices of those who peopled it. The book was a long time in the making. It began in 1977 as a Belfast Historical Society project to establish a community oral history archives. Three University of Prince Edward Island students were hired through a Summer Works project. They collected taped accounts from more than 20 elderly residents. Some of these accounts are included in this book. All of the tapes gathered by the students, or copies of them, are housed at the PEI Provincial Archives. At the conclusion of the project, the Belfast Historical Society decided that the tapes were compelling enough to form the basis of a book. Application was made to the federal New Horizons program by a group of area senior citizens to fund additional taping, transcribing, and editing. Through this early period, there were a number of people instrumental to the continuation of the project - Keith MacPherson supervised the students' taping; Allan MacKenzie , Jeannie MacLeod , and Karen MacPherson were the three UPEI students; Mary Ross , Harry Baglole , Annie MacMillan , and Angus McGowan were driving forces on the Belfast Historical Society for the book at this stage; and Wayne MacKinnon, Karen Kearney , and Deborah Stewart did editing and photographic work following completion of the 1977 summer project. In the fall of 1980,1 was invited to transcribe and edit the tapes and do some additional taping. Mary Ross continued in her role as organizer and primary interviewer. Together, we went around the community, visited the participants, and gathered further information. Through all 27 chapters, we have tried to combine the spirit and character of each person interviewed with an overview of life in a rural community during the early 1900s. Many of the tapes were long and much fine material had to be set aside. I have not noted in the text the places where whole sections of tape were excluded. Similarly, some of the false starts and verbal tics of normal conversation were eliminated without notation. But otherwise, ellipses (...) indicate all omissions. XI