Elizabeth+Hopkins

Elizabeth Hopkins Interview

 * Tell us about your life in England or the Netherlands.**

=
** My name is Elizabeth (Fisher) Hopkins. I never went to the Netherlands. I lived in London with my father before I got married. I worked as a servant in many different households, it was a very hard to run from house to house every morning. When I got married to Stephen Hopkins I lived with him and his three children and instead of working at several different households I stayed and worked at Stephan’s and my house so I could keep it clean like I did for the other houses. I was very happy in England because I married the man of my dreams. When I went on the Mayflower I was a stranger. The people who went on the ship for religious freedom are the Saints and my husband and I went to help them out. ** ===== http://www.mpsd.org/life/images/girl.gif

** I first heard about the Mayflower from my husband, Stephan and we decided that we should go to the New World so our baby would grow up to have a free and good religion. Stephan wanted to go because he had experience before when he had gone to James town. We also thought it would be a great way to meet new people that had come on the Mayflower for the reasons that we did. We also went to discover new things. Stephan told me that before we get on the Mayflower we had to bring supplies to help keep us alive in the new wo rld and on the boat.**
 * Why did you decide to go to the New World on the Mayflower? What was that voyage like?** 
 * || www.guajara.com/.../media/a/a6/mayflower_ii.JPG ||

 My first year in Plymouth didn’t go as I had planned. The weather was horrible on the ship and on the shore of the New World. I don’t even know why we sailed out in the fall because when we got here it was winter. The food was the worst. The biscuits were so stale that I could bang it on the table and nothing would come out there wouldn’t even be a dent in it. After a while I was starting to worry about little Oceanus because I didn’t know if there was enough healthy stuff in the food I was feeding my baby. He is defenseless to the world he can’t protect himself so I must do so. The food was much different than the food in London some of the food there I had never seen before like the things you call “pumpkins”. Poor Stephan had to go out every day and work on our house because we were tired of living in the same house as everyone else. The supplies to build a house were very easy to find because every where you look there is a tree there and there and there too. I was so afraid that Stephan was going to get that dreadful illness going around so he wouldn’t be able to see his little boy grow up to be just like his father. All of us were so scared that the Indians would see that we didn’t have enough people so they would just come and kill the rest of us. (KLS)
 * How did the land and climate of Plymoth compare to what you were used to in England or the Netherlands?**
 * What was the first year like? What was hardest about adjusting to life in a new place?**