LYDIA STORIES
LYDIA STORIES
THE CARROLL FAMILY HISTORY
FROM BORRISOLEIGH TO SOUTHWEST HARBOR, 1761-1917
by Lydia Carroll
About Lydia Carroll
LYDIA CARROLL is a cloth doll stitched together in 1911 by Rebecca Carroll, widow of Captain Jacob Carroll, as a gift for her newborn granddaughter Evelyn Kittredge. Lydia and Evelyn become soul-mates for life. Rebecca stuffs Lydia with the remnants of well-loved clothes that Carroll ancestors had worn. When Lydia begins to tell Evelyn her family history, the stories and the people who lived in those garments come alive.
About Lydia Stories
Lydia Stories is published to honor the 200th anniversary of the Carroll family in Southwest Harbor, ME, and their 1825 Homestead, now owned by Acadia National Park, that still stands as originally constructed. Drawing from letters, diaries, documents and recorded memories compiled by Nell Carroll Thornton in 1933, Lydia Stories invites us to hear the Carroll family history as told in a creative narrative by a unique storytelling cloth doll named Lydia Carroll. Lydia tells us of the Carroll family roots in Ireland, the plight of young John Carroll charged with treason, his escape to the New World, his settling on Mt. Desert Island, and of his inheritance of courage, wisdom, and courtesy given to each Carroll descendant.
For 20 years Lydia has been telling her remnant stories at the Carroll Homestead. Lydia Stories brings her stories alive in print for the first time.
“What I am going to tell you about our family heritage, Evelyn, is true. I know because I was there with all our ancestors who came before us.”