Overview:
The Montague Oral History Project has recorded and preserved the stories of five elder residents of Montague Center, Massachusetts, in an effort to connect the younger generation of residents to the community's history. The project, which is funded by the Montague Public Libraries, has received a $5,000 grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council to continue recording and editing stories. The first round of interviews is now available online, and a listening event will be held on Nov. 18 to celebrate the completion of the project.
After one year of recording interviews, the histories of five elder residents of Montague Center has been recorded and preserved online. This collection is part of the larger Montague Oral History Project, which seeks to “enrich the lives of older adults by building connections through storytelling and engagement” with younger listeners. To celebrate the completion of this first round of interviews, a listening event will be held at the Montague Center First Congregational Church on Nov. 18.
A total of 30 volunteers of all ages assisted with the project in an effort to preserve the stories of residents who’ve lived in the community for decades, and create a connection between neighbors across generations.
At the event, which starts at 6 p.m., guests will hear stories from residents and listen to portions of the recordings. William Quale will also lead a history talk about local fires. A silent auction featuring donated goods and experiences will also be held to raise money for further audio editing as the project expands will also be held at the celebration.
This project, initially funded by the Montague Public Libraries, kicked off last November with a panel discussion from Montague Center residents who shared their stories before the winter was spent training volunteers on how to use the audio recording equipment. Then, Jesse Olsen Bay, director of Weathervane Community Arts, took the audio stories and edited them down for people to listen to, with five audio stories now available on the Montague Public Library’s website.
For this first round of interviews, Montague Center Library Branch Manager Kate Martineau said the prioritization of voices was of the seniors of Montague Center, so their stories would not be lost.
“The first priority was really the elders, who we were worried we were going to lose, so it’s really nice to have their voices saved and their stories, and that will be just for posterity,” she said.
To help continue this effort of documenting local history, the Massachusetts Cultural Council awarded the project a $5,000 Creative Experiences Grant for future audio recording training and efforts that focus on younger Montague Center residents, Martineau said. Funding from both the Greenfield Savings Bank and Greenfield Cooperative Bank has also been contributed to the project.
A tapestry of a community
The inspiration for the Montague Center Oral History Project came from a similar project in Colrain called “A People’s History of Colrain.” Bay helped create the project in Colrain by producing the podcast and expressed interest to Montague Center Library Branch Manager Kate Martineau in doing a similar project in Montague Center, where he lives.
“I’ve learned so much about the town where I live just from doing this project, which is why I was excited to do it in the first place,” Bay said about his involvement as the audio editor. “Because I was curious, and I wanted to know, what are some of the stories that, as a recent Montague resident, my neighbors are holding, that I haven’t been had a chance to hear?”
The recordings are available online and feature residents: Sheryl Sadler-Twyon interviewed by Jannie Dziadzio; Paul Mariani interviewed by Jon-Marc Seimon and Julie Kumble; Mary Melonis interviewed by Hannah Fuller-Boswell and Judith Lorei; Suzanne Fisk Smith interviewed by Ann Fisk; and Peg Bridges interviewed by Judith Lorei. Each of these interviews have been edited down, but an unedited version of the audio and transcript are also available.
Each of the recordings begin with a rendition of the traditional folk song “Let Union Be” by the Town Common Singers, then an introduction from Martineau, who explains the goal of the project.
Then, each interviewer and interviewee has a conversation that ranges in the types of questions asked and the length of the discussion itself. Bay said some of the 20 recordings he’s received thus far range from a half-hour to several hours, and he edits the content down to highlight the “golden nuggets.”
“I’m listening for a couple things,” Bay said. “This project is prioritizing, [and] really trying to preserve and document the stories of how Montague Center used to be and how it’s changed, with the idea that these stories that these elders are holding could be lost.”
When asked about the value of releasing unedited conversations, he said as the editor, it’s his perception of what is important in these conversations that may be different from another’s, and everyone should hear the stories that are documented and preserved in full.
Of these conversations Bay has listened to, he said one story stood out to him because of the type of work the kids performed and the connections they’d make. In the story, there were kids working in tobacco fields one summer alongside immigrant workers and washed off in the nearby river after work.
For the role of the Montague Public Library in this project, Martineau said that she thinks it makes sense for the library to house these stories, which she says have a throughline of how things have changed and what has remained, like community connection.
“[The library is] where all the stories are — the stories that we read by other authors to escape, but it should also be our stories, too,” she said. “I think it feels really special to have the library be the keeper of the village’s stories.”
As people listen to these stories either online or while attending the Nov. 18 celebration, Bay says he hopes it helps people strengthen their own relationships with where they come from.
“I think that by feeling connected with our history, we come to care about our present and want to make the world a better place in the present,” Bay said. “I think that knowing these stories and hearing them firsthand from people — so that we feel that kind of intimacy and personal connection — is such an important part of just being good humans on this planet and in this world right now.”
To listen to or read the first five conversations of the Montague Center Oral History Project, visit https://tinyurl.com/hthncdur.
