This might be my favorite topic of the semester! I am a huge fan of StoryCorps and Maria Popova’s writing. I find hearing other people’s stories so moving and also challenging to some of my staunchest beliefs about the world. This module had a lot of meaning for me because I think about our own stories and how they shape who we are. In high school I was assigned to interview someone in my family about their childhood story. This was in the mid 90’s, so I remember using a tape recorder (very high tech!) to interview my paternal grandmother. We sat in her house, and looked out at the garden at her house in San Francisco. The garden my sisters and I often helped her with, which had a true greenhouse my grandfather had built. This house had been in my grandfather’s family for generations and it was very special to her. I always knew the house was important to her, but it took sharing her story for me to truly understand who she was.
I asked her about her childhood in Butte, Montana. She candidly shared heartbreaking as well as humorous insights into her younger years. As the daughter of immigrants living in extreme poverty, she revealed a side of her that I never knew. It was not until after the interview that I began to understand my grandmother’s deep love for her home and garden. I began to understand her unending gratitude for having an operational refrigerator, a washing machine, and heat. Even now, in my late 40’s, I can clearly recall listening to her tell the story of her sister stealing coal from a train coming through town so they would have heat that night in their home. Or her widowed mother scrubbing floors at the church in town so she could afford food to feed her family that night. Sadly, I lost the tape on which I recorded her interview. I wish we had the technology then that is now ubiquitous. What I would give to have that recording of a teenager and her long-widowed grandmother traveling back in time to a desolate mining town and the subsequent years in Portland, then finally settling in San Francisco. Her story is part of my story.
The power of our stories cannot be measured. I think about the impact my grandmother’s story has on me, decades later. She has long since passed, but the power of her story will remain with me for the rest of my life. I often think about the differences between our childhoods. Witnessing her story made me appreciate my own and understand her in a new way. “Story-based experiences of all kinds can increase listeners’ understanding of diverse groups, demonstrate the value of everyone’s experience, and remind listeners of their shared humanity” (Stephens, 2019). I felt compelled to include this video. I thought of this after reading Storm Reyes’ story. Stories change lives as do libraries. By their mere existence and all of the ways they champion stories.
References:
PBS. (2011). Biblioburro. POV. https://www.pbs.org/pov/films/biblioburro/
Popova, M. (2016, October 6). How libraries save lives. The Marginalian. https://www.themarginalian.org/2016/10/06/libraries-storycorps-bookmobile/
Stephens, M. (2019, September 4). With a little twist. Library Journal. https://www.libraryjournal.com/story/With-a-Little-Twist-Office-Hours
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