Residents have their stories immortalized

Project seeks to document details of people's lives

For almost two weeks in December, local residents were asked to help nonprofit organization StoryCorps fulfill its mission of creating a national archive of oral histories by contributing their own stories.

The group brought a mobile StoryBooth and two facilitators to help first-time interviewers and storytellers create recordings of their stories, which could include any aspect or memory of their lives.

Sarah Kramer, a StoryCorps facilitator, said the organization is based out of New York. The group has partnered with National Public Radio and the Library of Congress to conduct a national oral history project.

Kramer said the group has four StoryBooths where recordings are made. Two of the booths are in New York City, one at Grand Central Terminal and the other at the World Trade Center Port Authority Trans-Hundson station. The other two booths are mobile, one traveling in the eastern United States, the other in the western half of the country.

During each StoryCorps recording session, two friends or family members use a StoryBooth to create a broadcast-quality interview. A facilitator at each booth helps guide participants through the process, which lasts about 40 minutes.

Story subjects have included grandchildren asking their grandparents how they met; children asking their parents about themselves as babies, or friends talking about migrating to the United States or taking trips abroad.

At the end of each session, participants receive a CD of their interview and can have their recording added to the StoryCorps archive at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. Select excerpts will be broadcast on NPR.

"We stop in each city or town for about two or three weeks and capture stories of everyday, ordinary people," she said. "People come in pairs, usually family or friends, and one person is the interviewer and one is the storyteller."

Kramer said each recording session costs StoryCorps at least $150, but the group asks for a donation of $10 or more. "We're hoping to inspire Americans to record their own histories, to talk to each other and listen to each other," she said.

Kramer has been traveling with one of the mobile StoryBooths through the western United States for about four months. She said the project has been popular so far, and has booked all available interview spots in each town. Interview spots are generally open for reservation a few weeks before StoryCorps comes to a city.

The Las Vegas Valley was StoryCorps' last stop for this year and in 2006 the group will start touring Los Angeles.

Las Vegan Paula Petruso, 62, heard about the StoryCorps project on NPR and brought her mother, Florence Bunch, 84, for an interview. She said she thought it was important to record her mother's memories of being a wife and mother during World War II, and the Korean and Vietnam wars.

"She spent at least six years alone while he was overseas, and they were married for 53 years," Petruso said. "I remember him being gone during Christmas and receiving gifts from Korea and other places abroad, but I think it's important to hear about her experiences during those times."

Bunch said though sometimes it was hard to have her husband gone for long amounts of time, in the end it worked out. "There was a lot of time apart, but it paid off in a long marriage," she said.

Petruso said she is interested in history and thinks her mother has many interesting stories and memories to share.

"I like the philosophy of the StoryCorps project," she said. "History is not necessarily written by presidents and those in power. I think the true history of certain times is in the stories of common people."

Though StoryCorps' mobile StoryBooth has already left the Las Vegas area, interested parties can learn more about the project at www.storycorps.net. The organization has audio clips of StoryCorps interviews available on the Web site, as well as kits for recording your own interview.