My Island Home Family Album


"No Place Like Home" sampler, Westport Island, ca. 1875

"No Place Like Home" sampler, Westport Island, ca. 1875
Item 104991   info
Westport Island History Committee

Verlie's father, Charles E. Colby (1861-1939) was a farmer, carpenter and portable saw mill owner who raised six children with his wife Annie May Perkins. Colby was skilled at wood crafting and needlework as well. His daughter Nettie wrote on the back of this crewel embroidery sampler: "Father made this when a boy. Mother gave it to me 1946."

In 1987, daughter Verlie Colby noted that her father,
"used to make things for us – cradles for our dolls and blocks. Each one of us had over a hundred different-sized blocks in all shapes and dimensions. He sanded them and painted them: 200 red ones, 200 white ones, 200 blue ones. We spent hours with them. We'd get down on the floor and we'd set them all up in all kinds of shapes, touch the first one and watch them all go down. That was one thing. And he made us game boards. He made us a Parcheesi board so we could play Parcheesi. Oh he used to make all kinds of things for us. We had fun."


Charles E. Colby family, Westport Island, ca. 1904

Charles E. Colby family, Westport Island, ca. 1904
Item 105121   info
Westport Island History Committee

Charles E. Colby and Annie Colby posed for a portrait with four of their six children. Pictured left to right are: daughter Verlie May Colby; Annie M. Colby; Charles E. Colby; oldest son Ernest E. Colby; Ernest's future wife Sybil Smith; future son-in-law Richard Fowle; and daughter Jeannette Colby. In front, left to right, Verlie’s Uncle Frank Cromwell and youngest son, Lawrence Colby. Frank Cromwell was married to Annie Colby's sister, Lois Perkins Brown Cromwell.

Winter sleigh at Charles Colby's house, Westport Island, ca. 1908

Winter sleigh at Charles Colby's house, Westport Island, ca. 1908
Item 105117   info
Westport Island History Committee

"I was born and brought up in that house over there where big Clarence lives now. My mother said I was born in a snowstorm, a good snowstorm, the 19th of February, 1891, and she said it really was a snowstorm.

They used to get the doctor. The women had their babies at home… [The doctor came from] Wiscasset, and then you had to row him across because we didn’t have any ferry. You had to meet him across the river.

There were no cars then, just oxen and horses. In winter, the snow was rolled down by what they called a "heater". It was a large sled with a log fastened across the front pulled by a yoke of oxen or horses. The man that went by our house had oxen.

[The house] was my father’s father's place. He was lost at sea. And it was a Cape Cod house… my father built it over…he fixed the house as it is today. He raised it up, put bay windows on it and put on an ell."

Verlie Greenleaf, 1987

Verlie and Nettie Colby, Westport Island, ca. 1909

Verlie and Nettie Colby, Westport Island, ca. 1909
Item 105181   info
Westport Island History Committee

"They had parlors in those days they didn't use all the time, you know. Well, [mama] had a red plush parlor set, a beautiful thing, and the chairs there. This is mama's parlor. See where we wore our dresses."
Verlie Greenleaf, 1987

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