National Day of Listening
“The mission of StoryCorps is to honor and celebrate one another’s lives through listening.”
Last week at my mother’s birthday lunch, I listened to my Grandpa Grubbs tell us about making sorghum molasses when he was in high school. It was a fascinating story I had never heard before. Then this weekend, the Nickerson family gathered to celebrate Grandma Mary’s 90th birthday. I didn’t hear her tell any stories, but I saw a picture of the cabin where she was born in the foothills of northern California. I wanted to ask her about that cabin and what it was like living there.
Opportunities like this don’t come around often, but the holiday season is a great time to take advantage of them when they do! In that spirit, the StoryCorps campaign from NPR has dubbed Friday, November 27, 2009, as the National Day of Listening.
StoryCorps is an oral history project that records the interviews of loved ones and keeps a copy for posterity. You choose someone you would like to interview (a parent, grandparent, neighbor, etc.), and StoryCorps helps you make it happen. StoryCorps trailers travel the country, as well as having several permanent locations, and you can book time in their recording studios all over the U.S. The compilation book from the founder of StoryCorps is titled Listening is an Act of Love. Over 10,000 conversations have already been recorded. And besides this formal arrangement, StoryCorps is also inspiring Americans to try the same project for their own enjoyment and memory keeping. That’s the National Day of Listening!
The StoryCorps website has all kinds of tools and resources to help you complete an unofficial oral history with someone you love. Look it up! There are all kinds of ways to participate. Some of you would totally love the idea of gathering some recording equipment and preparing a list of questions (they even have a master list of Great Questions for you to consider). Others of you might just use this as an excuse to ask a loved one what their greatest joy in life has been and write it down on a piece of paper.
How about it, think you could do a little of that over the course of this holiday week? I’m going to be teaching about this, so I’d love your feedback. Who would you interview on the National Day of Listening? And what would you ask?
I hope you’ll take advantage of the National Day of Listening, even if you do it informally. Because, too often, our holiday gatherings don’t include as much listening as they should. Sometimes they look a lot more like this instead:
I love, love, love this and am only sad to say that it comes a little too late for me. My Grandma passed away last year and almost no one had stories like her. Plus, her accent is the kind of thing you never hear anymore. My husband had trouble understanding her it was so thick.
Perhaps I’ll get motivated and try to record some of the other old-timers at Thanksgiving this year.
I’m grateful to have an 8-hour DVD of my dad telling stories based around the deer seasons of his life. I have never even listened to all of it yet, because I get too emotional.
This is a great project,Felicity!
So, I would probably record Grandma Nickerson. We have lots of written records from her, but I’d like to keep her voice as May mentioned.
May – I know what you mean. I don’t even think we’ll have any “old timers” at our Thanksgiving this year. Strange.
Mom – we are so lucky that Grandpa made that video tape. I was thinking that so many people have video cameras now; that would be a great way to do it. The StoryCorps site suggests 40 minute sessions, so that is pretty do-able.
I have often wanted to interview Leonard’s mom and I think this has inspired me enough to get it done. She is from the Lakota Sioux tribe. Her grandfather was a child when the Sioux were first put on reservations. He was actually among the children who were taken away from their families and sent back east to become “civilized”. I can’t imagine not being able to pass along all the information she learned from her grandfather, as well as how life changed through her growing up years.
Oh, Tracy, you should definitely do that! What a treasure! (And heartbreaking, I’m sure.)
Several years ago my mothers family had a reunion, five of the seven children from my mothers family were there. We sat them in a semi-circle and had them tell stories they remembered of their growing up on a farm in south central KS during the depression. This was back when video cameras were a new deal; big heavy, etc. But my step-dad set up his tripod, and we recorded the whole thing. Only three of the original seven remain, and that tape becomes more valuable with each passing year. The stories, the sound of thier voices, thier LAUGHS!, it is all so wonderful. DOn’t just talk about it—-do it!
Years ago, we used a cassette tape recorder to tape my Grandma’s stories about Grandpa and her courting in the Badlands of South Dakota and their married life on a homestead there. It’s a precious tape that has grown more dear over time. Since my dad passed away seven years ago, I often wished we had recorded him telling his stories of his years in the service during WWII. After he died, my aunt gave me the letters he wrote to his family during his time in service, and due to how meaningful those letters were to me, I wrote about it on my blog. Having both my mom and dad gone now, makes me wish we had preserved a lot more of the stories they used to tell us. So, for those of you who have older relatives still living, this idea to preserve their stories is well worth the time it takes to do it.
When i was in Jr. High, i did a 4-h project called “walk in their shoes” i got to interview a 90 year old friend for it. it was priceless. i heard about being married with children during the depression, and her going to world’s fairs, and being scared of windshields because they thought if a bug hit it, it would break. at her passing we gave this project to her family so they would have the memories. i am looking to do this with an “adopted” grandma. can’t wait to start!
I love these ideas and stories! Thank you!