Kindred memories

Interviewing older generations preserves stories only they can tell

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Oral history photo illustration.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Oral history photo illustration.

Anna Lancaster was about 18 when she sat down with her grandmother, an audiocassette tape recorder between them, and asked all the questions she could think of.

The result was a series of hour-long interviews, an oral history recorded the summer before her grandmother died.

"That was a very precious thing for me and for the whole family to have," says Lancaster, audio/video archival assistant with the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies.

It takes time and effort to make an oral history record happen, but she says it's well worth it.

"You'll never hear those stories the same way you hear them from your grandparents or your older relatives, and you'll always want to remember exactly how that was told to you so you can pass it down," she says. "I'm a big fan of doing this, of just getting to know your relatives.

"And if you're wanting to do genealogy, this is a great big help, just to get this from the horse's mouth -- who came from where, and that basic information."

The process can be especially meaningful for children and young adults.

"A lot of times, until kids sit down with their relatives, they may not even know a lot of the stories," she says. "They may not know that their relative was involved in a significant historical event."

Of course, oral history interview subjects don't have to be kin, and the topics covered don't have to include family.

Linnie Lyle of Benton, who serves on the board of the Girl Scouts Diamonds of Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas, in 2012 spearheaded an oral history project in which Girl Scouts across the state interviewed former Scouts. Each interview featured a representative from each of the past 100 years, in honor of the organization's centennial.

"The girls were really fascinated with it," Lyle says. The young interviewers learned that, once upon a time, Scouts had learned to use looms and to quilt, "things I never would have thought of Scouts doing. I feel like it was just a good experience.

"The generations just don't know each other anymore, unfortunately. We are too much into the cellphone and into our own things. And we don't talk like we used to to one another or talk to the older generation.

"I think the more we find differences, the

more we find commonalities, you know? That's the reason I was doing this."

While planning the project, Lyle sought help from David Elmore, television production specialist at AETN. Elmore conducted 150 oral history interviews with World War II veterans for AETN's oral history project In Our Words, and he is working on a book about oral history. Lyle thought of him because he had interviewed her mother for Life Interrupted, a joint project of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Public History Program and the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles (ualr.edu/lifeinterrupted). Lyle's mother was a teacher at the World War II Japanese American internment camp near Jerome.

Girl Scout leaders from across the state brought girls who wanted to join the Scouting project to Elmore for training.

PREPARE TO SUCCEED

He told the girls to start by doing some research about what their subjects might have experienced. Then, he told them, come up with a list of questions -- more than they thought they would need -- so they'd be ready to keep the interview moving along.

If they didn't have good video equipment, they should consider buying, renting or borrowing some, Elmore suggested.

"Use the best equipment available to you, whatever that is," he advises anyone aiming to do an oral history. "And have plenty of tape or memory storage, whatever you're using. You might have a talker with some great stories, and you don't want to run out."

Ditto for power supply. Also, consider taking someone along to help monitor the equipment, Elmore recommends, so you can focus on the interview.

But don't let a lack of superior equipment derail the process.

"The one thing to remember is that audio is fine," Lancaster says. "Sometimes video ends up being more than you can deal with, and especially if people get really nervous in front of a video recorder."

QUIET SETTING

Whichever you choose, find a quiet place to talk.

If you do use video, try to create an uncomplicated backdrop, like a blank wall. And pay attention to lighting.

"You're not trying to make them into movie stars, but you want them to look nice on camera," he says.

Three-point lighting, two lights slightly off to the sides and one behind the subject, offer a nice contrast. Sitting near a window -- but not directly in front of one -- with curtains to soften bright sunlight makes for a nice look.

A photographer's bounce, or in a pinch, a T-shirt, can be strategically placed to illuminate your subject's face, if needed.

SAVE YOUR WORK

Where the interview ends, preservation work must begin.

"No matter what format you put it in, if you stick it somewhere and don't listen to it again, you're probably not going to be able to listen to it again," Lancaster cautions. Technology will progress. Histories recorded on audiocassettes 30 years ago have been lost when the tapes degraded; and there's no reason to assume that today's digital formats will be readable by tomorrow's machinery.

"So part of what's important about this is to occasionally look at them," she says. "If you've got a lot that was on audiocassette, get it into a format where it can be listened to.

"Personally, for audio, I like things digitized. I have digitized my personal stuff, and it's what I do at work."

She recommends redundant backups as well as a file-sharing site so family and friends can download the interviews and store their own copies.

PROFESSIONAL RESOURCES

The Butler Center has a wealth of resources for those who want to conduct oral histories, including an on-site recording room.

"If people want to use the recording room and allow us to keep a copy of the recording they can set up a time with me, and I can help them learn to use the equipment and help with the agreement form which allows future researchers to be able to use the interviews," she says. "I've also worked with people who are housebound and can't come to the recording room.

"And we have digital recorders that I check out to people, and then they can bring them in and I take care of the whole digital side of this." She downloads the file and creates a CD or DVD for the interviewer and the interviewee.

She helps with preservation, too.

"I would also especially reach out to people who have oral histories on cassette tape, because magnetic tape has a limited lifespan, and you're probably getting near the end of it," she says.

"We had somebody find a collection of oral histories they had done with World War I veterans and brought them to us. We were able to digitize them and they are currently up on our website for anyone to listen to.

"When you find things like that, we would be happy to make a digital copy for you so that you can listen to them again and then add them to our collection so that future researchers can use them."

GOOD QUESTIONS

The Butler Center houses a large collection of oral histories, including Lyle's.

Alli Porterfield, a senior at Arkansas Tech University at Russellville, was a senior in high school when she interviewed Lyle about Scouting.

"It was a lot of fun," Porterfield says. "When I would ask her a question, she would almost always have a story that went along with it that I could relate to. Most of them were around camping or the Jamboree, and I spent a lot of time at Jamboree camp, so I could relate to what she was saying."

Her advice to anyone else attempting an oral history collection is to ask open-ended questions.

"That's how you'll get the most out of it," she says. "Don't just go through your list of questions and take notes. Be an active listener so that as they're talking and another question comes up you can ask it, so that way it's more of a conversation instead of just an interview."

Porterfield hasn't done any other oral histories, but the experience has changed the way she talks to her grandmother. "When I go visit my grandma I'll talk to her about things that have happened and she'll tell me stories if she can remember them," she says.

ACT NOW

Lancaster urges families to capture memories before they fade.

"They don't have to be the oldest person you know, either," she says. "Interviewing your parents -- even though they may still have much of their lives left to live -- and finding out what they know and how they feel at this time can be meaningful.

"And then do another interview 10 years down the line and see if things have changed."

Also, she says, "I know of multiple incidences where people were lost young," before anyone thought to record their stories.

Don't put it off, Elmore says. "Grab a tape or a camcorder and go have a good conversation."

Family on 01/28/2015

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