Oral History Participants Honored

Participants in the Newtown Oral History Project were honored during a reception June 15 at the C.H. Booth Library.

The project, which was brought to fruition through the efforts of Town History Dan Cruson, Andrea Zimmermann, and Mary Maki, was two and a half years in the making. The project was made possible through a grant from the Meserve Memorial Fund and donations from the Newtown Historical Society and Friends of the Cyrenius H. Booth Library.

Bound volumes of the oral histories of 18 current or former residents of Newtown were unveiled, and interviewees or members of their families were presented with individual copies of personal histories.

Newtown Remembered: An oral history of the 20th century, presents the personal memories and glimpses of Newtown as it once was through the eyes of those interviewed. Those interviewed for the project were George Clark, Gene Cox, Judy Dick, Larry Downs, Dr Thomas Draper, Ellie and Adolf “Junior” Dreher, Thomas and Lilly Goosman, William Honan, Vern Knapp, Eleanor Mayer, Jerome Mayer, Margaret McCarthy, R. Scudder Smith, and the late Edward Dick, Sarah Mannix, George Mayer, Al Nichols, Alice Rathgeber, and Dr Russ Strasburger. Also included are previous interviews with the late George Mayer and Waldo Desmond.

During the reception, Mr Cruson noted the importance of preserving the memories of longtime residents. He said the interviews often provided him with details he had not known before.

“Some of the memories were simply priceless,” Mr Cruson said. The Oral History Project, he told the interviewees, is “a monument to you.”