Growing up close with my grandparents I was fascinated by the stories of their childhood and of their parents: two world wars, immigration, civil rights stories which were told like something from a movie that was never made. Childhood musings of how much “I like the movie Anastasia” would be met with the contemporary tales of how “she was a real princess, who died during the world war my father fought in.”
Even questions as simple as “who did you share a room with” would open a 20-minute book on sharing a bed with siblings in a dirt floor cabin the size of my bedroom today.
With only one treasured grandparent left in my life, I am not only grateful every day for the stories that were shared with me which shaped my understanding of history and the world, but I am also grateful that my grandparents, my oma, in particular, had someone who absolutely treasured and learned from each harrowing tale which they simply called life.
In this podcast we will be taking the time to learn about our recent past from our grandparents, retired residents, and the elderly neighbours in our community (and communities across the world) who have been interested in sharing the incredible accounts of what they saw or heard growing up these past many decades, or even stories from their own, 1800s born parents, simply because they have never been asked.
We want to hear from the generation of wisdom which is now watching today’s trends, inventions, politics and pandemics on the news, but who are likely without a Twitter account to share their incredibly valuable comments. Oral storytelling has been an essential historic tradition for millennia. Join us for the many first-hand stories happily told if only someone asks. These are our guests today.