Date: Fri 16-Oct-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: JAN

Quick Words:

oral-history-Cruson-Zimmermann

Full Text:

New Donations Give Oral History Project A Boost

BY JAN HOWARD

The oral history project co-sponsored by the Newtown Historical Society and

the Cyrenius Booth Library has received two generous donations to augment the

$5,485 received in August from the Meserve Memorial Fund.

The Friends of the Library voted unanimously October 6 to approve a

contribution of $5,500 to the project from proceeds of the library's book

sale.

Newtown Historical Society President Elin Hayes confirmed this week that the

society has donated $5,000 to the project.

The two donations will help fund the project that is recording life in Newtown

as seen through the eyes of some of its older residents.

"We're thrilled about that!" Andrea Zimmermann said this week.

The oral history project was proposed by Town Historian Daniel Cruson and Ms

Zimmerman, a journalist, who are taking turns conducting the interviews to

record stories about people and events that characterize the town.

With the additional funding, Mr Cruson said they hope to expand the number of

interviews to 20. About eight interviews have been done to date and are

ongoing, he said.

The funds will also be used to purchase additional tapes.

"Each interview generates several tapes," Mr Cruson said.

They also plan to have more bound volumes of the oral histories available to

the public.

The total budget for the project is $25,484. The donations from the Friends of

the Library and the Historical Society bring the project closer to its goal.

In addition to the Meserve grant, some funding was previously received from

the library, and in-kind donations through use of equipment and resources have

been made by The Newtown Bee.

Mr Cruson said in August that he sees the project continuing over time. As

additional donations are received, he and Ms Zimmermann will do more

interviews, he said.

Ms Zimmermann and Mr Cruson do background research prior to each interview and

decide upon the questions they will ask each individual. The senior residents

are encouraged to reminisce about eye witness accounts, memories and

descriptions of local events.

It is hoped there will be sufficient funding to put the oral histories,

including photographs, on CD rom.

Resident Mary Maki, a member of the Friends of the Library, is transcribing

the histories from the tapes and doing all the revisions on the project.

Once revisions are completed, bound volumes of the taped interviews will be

completed with photographs of the subjects included. Footnotes and indexes

will be added to the documents.

Copies will be available at the Cyrenius Booth Library, Newtown Historical

Society and the The Newtown Bee's Antiques Reference Library on Main Street.

If it is put on CD rom, that also will be available to the public.

"The more involved I get, the better I know it is," Mrs Maki said of the

project. "They have asked me to come to some of the interviews. It's been a

lot of fun.

"Hopefully someone will come forward to keep the program ongoing in the

future," she said. "It's a growing community and changing. It's neat to hear

how it was in the '20s, '30s and '40s. It's very, very exciting."

Mrs Maki said the Friends discussed making a donation to the oral history

project earlier in the spring. An official proposal was put before it at the

October 6 meeting.

"This will make it possible to have several copies of the history," she said.

Mrs Maki said more ideas for fund-raising are being discussed to bring the

plan of incorporating the histories into CD roms to fruition.

Donations earmarked for the oral history project can be sent to the Newtown

Historical Society, or for information, call Mr Cruson at 426-6021.