From the Beginning, LLC

Years ago, my mother told me a brief story of a crossroads in her life.

During her late teens in the 1940s, she was offered an opportunity to study art at a prestigious school in Chicago. She’d always shown promise as a visual artist. I recall from my own childhood being impressed by her ability to render a sketch of a person’s photo that came very close to perfect. Remember those ads in magazines asking prospective customers to reproduce a picture of a turtle or a pirate? She could nail them every time.

When the chance to study art came to her, she took a train to Chicago to check out the school. Her visit didn’t last long. She took one look at the samples on display, the work of her potential colleagues, and decided she could never measure up to them. She turned around and headed back home, into the rest of her life.

That was all she ever told of the incident. And it wasn’t until much later, after her death at seventy-five, that I realized how important this story was, and how I should have asked for further exploration. After all, her decision that day closed one door to a possible future and opened another. Shortly after returning home from Chicago, she took a job in a local flower shop. Not long after that, she met my dad there. He was buying flowers for another young woman, but he wound up asking my mom out instead. And years out from there, in 1960, my mom bought the flower business, becoming one of the city’s few female proprietors at the time.

I could have asked more questions during my life with her, gently pushed for a deeper look into this crucial turning point in her early years. But I never did. I have all sorts of excuses for why I didn’t, but I tend to settle on one: Oftentimes, our relationship was complicated, and it felt weird to consider doing it.

The truly sad part of this was that, during much of this time, I already amassed considerable experience conducting oral history interviews. I knew how to do it. I just couldn’t bring myself to conduct one with her.

I now know that I blew my chance, but that realization became my own personal crossroads. It’s what motivated me to start this business.

Are you in a similar situation? Do you or a loved one have stories to explore and record? Drop me a note at ftbinterview@gmail.com and we can discuss how I might help. I look forward to talking with you.

You or your intended interviewee might want to consider some preparatory points as the interview date approaches:

• Are there specific items you would like to cover? These can be life-informing events, family relationships, participation in sports or other activities, military service, raising of children, etc. Consider jotting notes ahead of time or informing me about these areas of interest before we begin.
• Every interviewer’s style is different. My personal approach is to treat each interview as a conversation, rather than employing a straight question-and-answer format. I find that this method allows for more expansive discussion, often eliciting candid talks that lead down some interesting and important paths that might otherwise go unexplored.
• Your life is interesting and worth discussing. I wish I had a dollar for every time an oral history interview began with the respondent remarking, almost apologetically, that they really didn’t know what to talk about. That their life was “pretty normal.” Make no mistake: You are the only person in the world who has lived your life. Your story is worth telling. In fact, I would go on to say that this telling is imperative. You counted. You participated in the context of historical events. You touched others’ hearts and minds along the way. I look forward to talking with you.

Ivan is the Tascam DR-05x field recorder I use to collect interviews. Being equipped with two omnidirectional stereo mics and an excellent preamp, Ivan provides the best possible low-noise sound quality in recordings. He’s also able and willing to facilitate phone interviews.