INFO:

My team and I made this PBS television special, Sins Of Our Mothers based on an interview that I had done way back in the mid-1970s with 89 year old reporter Nettie Mitchell . The documentary tells the story of Emmeline - and the story is amazing. Without her knowledge, Emmeline sinned and paid a heavy price for it. The director of this documentary Rocky Collins was young but very very talented when he made this. It has a unique slow and strange Puritan New England tempo and mood that absolutely fits the story and how Nettie told it. When this was recorded in 1976, Nettiehad an excellent memory and was a very serious reporter who cared about telling the truth exactly as she saw it. She had spent a lifetime doing it. Every rural area in the country and certainly in Maine has its folktales. Some commentators on this video say that this is a folktale and that it couldn't have happened. Nettie personally met and dealt with Emmeline and it or something very much like it did happen. It is possible that some details are incorrect although we spent more than six months researching it when we did made documentary and some of those who met Emmeline were still alive. Sex in Puritan culture was a sin under most circumstances. Women were certainly seen as of less value and importance than men. Remember The Scarlet Letter. Some commentators have pointed out that the Puritan sect of Christianity had long disappeared in Manie but in my experience as a person who lived in Maine in a small town for more than 20 years, some of the values are held by a segment of the people who live in these towns today. The concept of sin. The concept of sinful sex. The concept of women as less than. And more. Many commentators have pointed out the connection between this story and Oedipus. Unquestionably true.