Another crucial aspect and mission of this website is to collect your stories, in your own words so we can preserve history as close to the source as humanly possible. I hope this archive that we build together is used by future generations to learn about their history without the filtration that inevitably occurs through the retelling of those stories across time. Have you ever played the grapevine game? Have you noticed how the message gets diluted and changed by the time it gets to the end? That is the biggest reason why this aspect of this website is crucial. I call it The Living History Project.
This idea had been floating around in my head for 18 years. It started with an audio recording of my dad giving the flower talk when he was a part of DeMolay. He had passed away 11 years prior so it had been over a decade since I heard his voice. It was a truly transcendent experience, and gave me the opportunity to listen to my dad one last time. A few short years later I acquired some audiotapes of my Great-Grandmother telling her life story. Again, it was like hearing one of my loved ones talking to me from beyond the veil. I knew my Great-Grandmother while she was alive and she was a character. These tapes illustrated her amazing character, poise, and elegance. It is for these reasons that it is imperative to preserve history from the sources as much as possible. Most of the Great Generation has passed on, therefore the stories these amazing people had to tell has disappeared forever. The only access available is what historians, with long-form interviews and the written word, have already preserved. The baby boomers are ageing and their stories are crucial to for future generations! I need your help to do this. Sit down in front of a camera and tell your story. Submit it to us and with your permission we will post this to our website. If you need help or do not know where to start, download our questionnaire and let that serve as a starting point.