Chance to tell tales

StoryCorps visit and upcoming book offers opportunity to preserve pieces of regional life

Friday, June 5, 2009

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by REID SILVERMAN Eunice Knott of Ridge, left, sits next to Carolina Correa, a StoryCorps facilitator, at the Southern Maryland Regional Library Association office in Charlotte Hall on Wednesday before the taping of her oral history. Knott's longtime friend, Nancy Dick, not pictured, assisted in the taping. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

Eunice (Metivier) Knott of Ridge talked about growing up in the Point Lookout Lighthouse. "It's a lonesome life, especially in the wintertime," she said.

Vivian Edelen, 91, of Bryantown described her long life in Southern Maryland and how things have changed.

They and others — teachers, physicians, workers in law enforcement, veterans, representatives from old county families, people who work at Patuxent River Naval Air Station, an Amish farmer — took turns telling stories about their everyday lives this week. They told stories about different aspects of Southern Maryland.

One by one, 30 residents of the region – 10 each from St. Mary's, Charles and Calvert – had a chance to sit in front of a microphone at the conference room of the Southern Maryland Regional Library Association in Charlotte Hall this week and contribute their own little piece of Southern Maryland history for an oral history project.

"This is our gift to the community," said Vicki Falcon, public relations and marketing coordinator for the regional library association, of the project.

This year the Southern Maryland Regional Library Association is marking its 50th anniversary. The association is celebrating by creating a collection of oral histories that will be published as a book by the end of the year, with copies to be given to all the Southern Maryland libraries and to schools in the region, as well as to participants in the project.

"It's not for sale. It's not a fundraiser. This is our gift to the community," Falcon said about the book Wednesday from her office, near the taping of these stories. The theme of the book is "Changing Landscapes in Southern Maryland."

The stories, or oral histories, were collected by representatives of StoryCorps. StoryCorps, based in Brooklyn, N.Y., is a national nonprofit project in partnership with National Public Radio and the American Folklife Center at the Library of Conference to document everyday history and stories of Americans. Those stories become part of an archive at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. And excerpts from a small percentage of the hundreds of stories collected each week, about 1 percent, are aired on NPR's "Morning Edition" program.

In the case of the StoryCorps tapings this week, they will also be included in the regional library association's book.

"Basically, what StoryCorps does is film conversations," Falcon said.

And conversations taped by StoryCorps are known for being more than oral histories, where an interviewer asks a person questions to get a story. StoryCorps stories are known for being more personal, more emotional.

StoryCorps asks participants to bring a family member or close friend to their taping. And with the help of a list of suggested questions, the two people talk about something significant to the focus person – how they dealt with a serious illness, what was a turning point in their life, how a war changed them, traditions in their family.

"It's very moving," Falcon said of StoryCorps stories she has heard or read. "When [the person] is talking to someone they care about, it brings out the emotion."

Halfway through the week's taping, Carolina Correa, one of two StoryCorps facilitators who collected the Southern Maryland stories, said she was pleased with how the taping had gone. "From my point of view, it has gone great," Correa said.

Six interviews were scheduled each afternoon this week, 30 in all. The regional library association selected the subjects of the interviews after they were nominated by one of the many local organizations approached by the association about the project. Each of these subjects arrived for their 40-minute taping with a friend, a spouse or adult child to provide the other side of the conversation.

Aided by a list of more than a 100 questions, the two people just talked, while a facilitator occasionally stepped in to ask for something to be clarified.

No one outside of the two people talking and a facilitator are allowed in the room during the taping. "I'm dying to be a fly on the wall," Falcon said. "A couple of times we've heard some raucous laughter coming from there."

When the taping was over, each participant was given a CD of the conversation.

Knott brought her friend of 27 years, Nancy Dick of St. Michael's Manor, to her taping on Wednesday afternoon. Knott was not overawed by the whole archived-in-the-Library-of-Congress aspect of the event.'

"Ehh," she said, shrugging. "I already do this once a month at Point Lookout."

Point Lookout holds an open house the first Saturday of every month and Knott sits with her pictures and notebooks and answers questions about what it was like to grow up in the lighthouse.

But when the taping was complete and Knott was leaving the office with a CD of the conversation, she said with a smile that it went "very good."

It was "exhausting," Dick said.

Edelen brought her daughter, Anne Boone of Bryantown, as her counterpart in her taping. As she waited her turn and filled out paperwork for the StoryCorps representative, Edelen started telling her stories before the taping. She described how exciting it was to hear on a crystal radio about Charles Lindbergh flying to Paris. "We passed around the earphones so we each got a little piece of it," she said. Growing up in Salisbury, she said when an airplane flew overhead, "everyone in the family, we all flew outside to see an airplane … I mean, they were new things!"

She was 21 when she came to Southern Maryland and has lived here since 1938. She was married the day before Pearl Harbor was attacked and heard about the bombing on her honeymoon.

The memories come easily, Edelen said. "I can't remember why I go up 17 steps, but I remember what happened in the past."

Boone said she was enthusiastic about the StoryCorps taping because it would be precious to her children and grandchildren and the rest of the family.

Edelen, who along with Boone, is a charter member of the Port Tobacco Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution and who has been active in collecting Southern Maryland histories herself, also approved of the project. "I think it's an excellent thing. I really do," she said.

In addition to excerpts from the 30 tapings collected by StoryCorps this week, the regional library association's book will also include some oral histories collected from other Southern Maryland projects, including selections from histories collected from Flattop residents in Lexington Park, at Pax River and at Sotterley Plantation in Hollywood.

It has not yet been decided how many histories altogether will be included in the project. "Oh, it's growing," Falcon said. "I don't have a cap on it yet."

The regional library association is also conducting an art contest, with the winning design to serve as the cover of the book.

Charlotte Hall Veterans Home and SMECO are partnering with the Southern Maryland Regional Library Association in this project.

"Hopefully, this will generate further interest in oral histories," Falcon said.

scraton@somdnews.com