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| In 1969, shortly after America landed men
on the moon, I took a small tape recorder to an elderly neighbor's home
and recorded her reactions to some of the major changes she had
witnessed during her 80 plus years of living. It was a wonderful
experience and my only regret is that I didn't keep that tape recorder
running for the next 35 years.
One part of this year's remembrance of our WWII veterans has been a program to record their stories before it is too late. This is a wonderful means to assemble a first hand account of one of the most important events in mankind's history. On a smaller scale, the same thing ought to be done on a community level. In 1999, members of the Greenfield Historical Society published an excellent history of Greenfield prior to our Bicentennial. To me, however, what was missing were all the personal experiences and stories of those who lived in Greenfield for its first 200 years. It's as if the tape recorder was never turned on. I recently suggested to the society's Board of Directors that an addendum to the 1999 book be published in 2009 and that the society should begin a project to record the stories of our citizens before, as in the past, too many are lost. With this web page, I am attempting to turn that tape recorder that I turned off in 1969, back on. The rest is up to you, but if you're unsure of what to do, let me give you a couple of examples. I recently heard an older black lady tell a story about her great grandfather's attempt to get a Civil War pension and another lady in Greenfield whose father was an employee of E.L. McClain and managed one of his factories in Indiana. My mother-in-law tells a old story about a relative who was an itinerant minister who made his church rounds in a horse drawn buggy. The horse had become so familiar with the route that after the minister lost his eyesight, the horse was able to make the trek from memory. The two had developed such a strong bond that, in later years, the horse died within hours of the minister's death. Also, please don't worry about the quality of the writing, the spelling, the grammar, etc., I'll have it proof read by a pro before your story is made public. |
