On Sunday, June 1st. Brooklyn’s Sephardic Community Center invited StoryCorps to interview participants during their “Afternoons Out…Together” celebration. The community center hosts this event as an interactive Sunday for family caregivers and their loved ones. They not only allow guests the option of doing a StoryCorps interview but they also provide a catered feast, activities such as partner yoga, pilates, workshops and sing-a-long entertainment. On this day Michael Roth played piano during the days festivities as staff, especially our host and the Social Services Director, Linda Eber, made sure that all guests had a very special day.

Enjoy the slideshow of the event. Click on an image for more information:

“Come on up love, we’ve got a nice cup of tea for you.” Those were the first words heard by Maureen after finding herself buried beneath the debris of her family’s fire-bombed home. Air raids occurred nightly, but on this day the family couldn’t make it to the bomb shelter in the living room so they found safety atop a mound of coal under the stairs. This was London in the time of WWII. Maureen’s father was fighting in the British navy while she, her mother, and baby brother were left to defend themselves and hopefully, live to tell. Maureen was little more than a toddler but old enough to know the warning sounds of an incoming bomb. These are her earliest memories – the taste and smell of air raids and coal dust. Naivety oftentimes escapes little girls unlucky enough to get caught in war, but not all realities reveal themselves so terribly. Most of the bombs aimed for her neighborhood missed and in their wake grew wild flowers. Back then Maureen wondered why the Germans dropped flower seeds with their bombs. Not knowing until later that there was a chemical in the explosion that also acted as a fertilizer, growing pretty little things amidst the chaos.

On Monday, May 19, StoryCorps visited with and collected stories from residents of Menorah Home and Hospital. Menorah is a rehab and care facility that sits on 10 oceanfront acres in Brooklyn’s Manhattan Beach. Nancy Sondag, director of therapeutic recreation for Menorah, coordinated our visit and participated in interviewing residents. During the day residents enjoy gazing out onto the gardens and ocean views, participating in creative projects such as ceramic, sculpting and painting, visiting with family and friends and, taking in some of the special events and performances that happen throughout the day. While we were there, magician Rene Gonzalez performed for residents in the grand auditorium.

Enjoy the slide show. Click on a photo for more information.

On Wednesday, May 14 StoryCorps staff and alumni bid farewell to our flagship StoryBooth in the Biltmore Ballroom in Grand Central Terminal. Founder Dave Isay spoke briefly about the history of the booth and what it has meant to the thousands of people who have shared their stories within its soundproof panels. He then handed the microphone over to VIP alumni Annie Perasa and Louisa Scioscia Stevens. In 2004, Annie recorded a love story so passionate that we dedicated the booth in honor of her and her late husband, Danny Perasa. Louisa Scioscia Stevens believed so strongly in the power of oral history and StoryCorps’ mission that she’s participated in 100 interviews at the Grand Central StoryBooth alone. Guests wrote farewell notes and recorded testimonials in the booth reminding us just how valuable the booth has been to their lives and families. Throughout we were moved to tears as we said, “Goodbye, you’ve served us well old friend.”

Enjoy the slide show. Click on a photo to get more information.

Clove Lakes Social Service Secretary, Meaghan McKeon hosted us for the day as residents added their stories to the archive of New York oral history. Many of the participants that we listened to were raised in the Staten Island area during the depression. They talked about the solidarity of their communities, the families they raised and, their work from eighty years of crochet beading in the garment district to being a gunner in the Battle of the Bulge during World War II. Clove Lakes honors their residents’ stories and preserves some of the community they all share. On the day we visited, Staten Island’s and Clove Lakes’ oldest resident, Winifred Flynn, celebrated her 104th birthday with a large reception in the grand entrance.

Enjoy the slideshow. Click an image for more information.

…an interdisciplinary college preparatory boarding school located on 1,200 acres of Wisconsin woodland boasting 22 miles of trails and eight lakes. Founded by James R. Lowenstine, The Conserve School in Land O’ Lakes, Wisconsin offers its students an integrated educational program that explores the wonders of nature using the sciences, literature and the arts.

Jeff Rennicke with student, Audrey Swannenberg

While in class last semester, Environmental Communications professor and award winning travel writer Jeff Rennicke played StoryCorps conversations to his students. The students were so excited that they accepted Mr. Rennicke’s challenge to organize the recording of their own StoryCorps interviews. The students immediately set about writing proposals, presenting them to the school, sorting out travel arrangements, and, eventually, coordinating our entire visit. Facilitators Rose Gorman and Brianna Hyneman spent 2 days at Conserve School this week participating in their Earth Day celebrations, recording stories, enjoying nature, and eating some surprisingly delicious lunchroom food. We were awed by the surroundings and incredibly moved by how much everyone involved loved and appreciated the school. People from the surrounding areas come regularly for lectures, workshops and shows. Local retirees chose to work at the school or volunteer their services. Like a small country town, everyone smiles, waves and says hello. Support staff, from security to chefs, take the time to talk and ask knowingly, “So how do you like our school?” Conserve School seems like more of a microcosm of an evolved global community than a boarding school. The student body represents over fourteen countries and those we spoke to praised the school for the sense of respect and responsibility to environment and community that it instills. Even some who admitted to being indifferent to school in general felt it necessary to succeed at Conserve School. They’re doing something really right up there in Land O’ Lakes and definitely it’s not just butter.

Enjoy the slideshow of the Conserve School students and campus. Click on an image for more information.

Also on hand for Earth Day celebrations was Jean Feraca, a Wisconsin Public Radio host and excutive Producer of Here on Earth: Radio Without Borders. Ms. Feraca broadcasted live from the school.

On Saturday, March 22, Monroe Mayer visited the Lower Manhattan StoryBooth with his son Livian Mayer and Livian’s girlfriend, Petrina Palazzo, to discuss his coming of age in New York during WWII. Monroe is one of those real native New Yorkers who can recall not only watching the Twin Towers go down but also watching the George Washington Bridge go up. By 13, he was an air raid messenger who would scurry messages from police officials to the air raid wardens positioned around the city. He remembers the imposed blackouts and the miles of ships in the Hudson River. Monroe is a great storyteller too. Petrina keeps prompting him on with, “ooh, and tell that one.” He could go on and on, from being drafted in 1946, to getting the German measels, to even having to guard the German physicist Wernher Von Braun once he, along with 500 of his top rocket scientists, surrendered to the Americans. At 80, Monroe Mayer is still a practicing attorney and the national commander of the Jewish War Veterans of the USA. Monroe is a charming and humble man. Sharing these stories remind us that his story unfolds our shared history.

StoryCorps supporters and Alumni Catharine Wall and Mark Smith recently visited the Lower Manhattan StoryBooth to talk about her large New York family, to remember her own childhood growing up in and around New York City and, to honor those who have passed on.

Catharine previously interviewed her aunt Mary Catharine at the Grand Central Terminal StoryBooth, then her uncle Jim at the West MobileBooth in Santa Monica, California. She first listened to her CD as she drove to the airport headed to Mary Catharine’s funeral. Her uncle Jim eulogized her own mother and talked about growing up with his sister in the city. She wanted to bring her uncle Tommy with the strong Queens accent, but did not get the opportunity. This time she came with her husband, Mark. They shared memories of first impressions of the city, her colorful family, and stories from their own twenty-four years of marriage. He asked her what it is about her experience in our booths that compels her, and she simply said, “There’s something nostalgic about it for me…A nostalgia that pre-dates my own experience. It harkens back to some earlier, easier time.”

Facilitator John White (far left) has got the blues, knowing he and fellow facilitator Michelle Swinehart (second from right) will transition off the tour in just a few days. The Mississippi leg of our journey was almost over. Before that however, we spent a little time jukin’ at Clubland 2000, Ground Zero Blues Club and generally taking in all of the sights, sounds and stories of Clarksdale, Mississippi.

A Vicksburg native and co-director of the city’s only African American history and culture museum, The Jacqueline House, community partner liaison Yolande Robbins single-handedly planned five full days of interviews for the Griot D2D team’s visit.

THANK YOU MS. YOLANDE!!!