04/25/08
Some memories mean too much to fade away with the life of the person who lived them.
That's the reasoning behind StoryCorps, a non-profit company with a mission to collect an oral history of America. Last June, people from the Baldwin City area, including two Baker University professors and two students, recorded some of their memories for StoryCorps.
"It makes history live," University Archivist Brenda Day said. "It conveys so much more than the written word."
Day was responsible for selecting the people who recorded 40-minute interviews in Collins Library. She has a background in oral history, and through her own acquaintances, advertisements and fliers, she had more than enough participants for the two days StoryCorps was in Baldwin City.
"I had a huge pool. Everybody and their uncle wanted to do it, but my problem was with them chickening out," Day said. "The toughest thing is that they would open up with me and tell wonderful stories but get behind the glass and get scared."
All StoryCorps interviews are archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and some are aired on National Public Radio. The ones done in Baldwin City are also housed in Collins Library and are aired on Kansas Public Radio 91.5 FM at 6:35 a.m. and 8:35 a.m.
An interview with Assistant Professor of History Leonard Ortiz aired March 20.
Ortiz remembered the challenges he faced in getting an education growing up as a Hispanic for the StoryCorps session. His family and those around him didn't focus on education, even though he dreamed of being a high school history teacher.
"My parents didn't finish high school," Ortiz said. "Growing up in a predominately Anglo world, I had no (Hispanic) role models. It had an impact on my self-esteem."
While watching others with his same skin color be subservient instead of be in roles of power, Ortiz also had his high school counselor shake him off when he wanted to look for college. Instead of taking the next step in becoming a teacher, Ortiz went to work in a factory. Finally, he decided to begin pursuing his dream again.
"I realized it was a dead-end job," Ortiz said. "It was hot, dirty. A lot of hard work."
He worked full time while taking courses at a community college. When he ran out of classes to take there, he applied to four-year universities, and his wife encouraged him to apply to Santa Clara University in California. Not only was he accepted, but he also received full tuition.
"I felt like I won the lottery," he said. "I began to believe in myself."
Ortiz fulfilled his dream of becoming a high school teacher, teaching for a year before realizing he didn't like teaching the topics, like economics, that went along with high school social studies. He wanted to focus on history, so he continued his education at Stanford University to be able to instruct at the college level.
Now he loves his job.
The StoryCorps program is not Ortiz' first experience with oral history. This year he has implemented it into the history senior seminar class by creating a project where students interview Baker alumni. For even longer, he has added an oral history element to U.S. History Since 1877.
In that course, students interview a relative or an acquaintance.
Freshman Elizabeth Bartlow talked with her grandparents who lived through the Great Depression and World War II.
"I learned a lot that I didn't even know about my own grandparents," she said.
Bartlow's grandfather was a tail gunner while her grandmother struggled through life as a civilian.
"It was interesting to find out what he had done, some of his missions and how close he had come to getting killed," she said.
Bartlow had to weave the two-hour interview into a four-page paper that she wrote as a narrative, chronicling her grandparents' lives growing up, meeting each other and during the war.
"It's definitely important to record history," Bartlow said. "It made me appreciate what I have because they had to go through so many sacrifices going through the Depression."
The importance of sharing stories and experiences prompted Associate Professor of Psychology Marc Carter to accept the invitation to do a StoryCorps interview.
"The more that we can leave to the people that come after us, it will be richer for them," he said.
Carter's record is of his former desire to be a priest and his quest to become a good man. Along the way, an event he doesn't even remember now helped him realize that he didn't need to become a priest to do that.
"The most important thing we can do as humans is treat others as humans and not objects," he said.
The 40-minute interviews are cut down for the radio program to make it seem as if the subject is telling a story. Despite his support of the concept, Carter said he was hesitant to do it.
"I was kind of afraid because I don't think I'm that interesting of a person," Carter said.
The stories of Carter and Ortiz are strikingly different, but Day said that is what she is looking for.
The participants are varied: best friends in their later years, a grandmother and granddaughter, college students, a longtime married couple. One interview set consisted of two best friends still in high school.
"There's a lot of giggling," Day said. "Some say there's not a lot of contribution, but it's two lifelong friends on the edge of the rest of their lives."
Last week's episode featured a local stonemason, Ray Wilber.
"I was looking for a variety of experiences, and not necessarily unusual experiences," Day said. "I was looking for people who had lived lives as fully as possible."
