Oral history interview with Peggy Dunphy and Paula Eaton

Oral history interview with Peggy Dunphy and Paula Eaton

Peggy Dunphy and her sister, Paula J. Eaton, discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their family and work. Dunphy describes both their father's death from COVID after traveling to Arizona and the closure and reopening of her hair salon in Lyndonville, Vermont. She was also a dorm parent at Lyndon Institute and talks about needing to send the Institute's international students home before travel bans. She explains changes the pandemic caused at a local residential facility where she ran an internal hair salon for the senior residents. Eaton worked at the same senior living facility and interjects throughout the interview with clarifications and additional points. The sisters also speak about mask mandates, feelings surrounding vaccination, and visiting each other during the pandemic.

At the time of this interview, Peggy Dunphy was a hairdresser in Lyndonville, Vermont. She owned and operated her own salon in town as well as running a hair salon as an enrichment activity for the residents of a local residential facility where her sister, Paula J. Eaton, was also employed. At the start of the pandemic, Dunphy also worked as a dorm parent at Lyndon Institute.

Sponsored by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-​251676-​OMS-​22.

2024-04-20

Collecting COVID-19: A Vermont Story Project

AudioFileCOVID-022

MP3

WAV

Audio file

Permission to publish material from the Collecting COVID-19: A Vermont Story Project may be obtained from the Vermont Historical Society.

Wingerson, Amber

Dunphy, Peggy

Eaton, Paula J.

48 min., 30 sec.

Vermont Historical Society Library, 60 Washington Street, Barre, VT 05641-4250