September 26, 2001
Life Story Center preserves memories
Authors share experiences at Center's opening ceremony
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Giving voice to the wisdom and experiences of seniors, the Life Story Center at the Traverse Area District will serve as a living memory of generations, giving a glimpse of life gone by as seen through the eyes of the narrator.
Formally opened last Thursday, the Life Story Center is located upstairs in the library's Nelson Room. The center will house a collection of life stories, generated by participants in Writing Your Life Story classes offered by Northwestern Michigan College's Extended Education Service. A donated copy of "Looking Over My Shoulder," a collection of life stories from previous class participants, will also be in the collection.
The Life Story Center's grand opening Thursday evening featured readings of personal life stories from area participants. Topics ranged from a whimsical boyhood memory of sailing in the Upper Peninsula to a young wife's frightening, face-to-face encounter with racial discrimination in the early 1960s South.
Anne-Marie Oomen, life story teacher and chairperson of Creative Writing at Interlochen Center for the Arts, then held the audience of 40 spellbound as she read two life stories, both slices of her childhood experience.
It was Oomen's vision a few years ago led to the Life Story Center.
The Life Story Center began when the college began offering Life Story classes in 1996. Initially offered just a few times a year, the classes were always packed and had a waiting list. After the first instructor moved away, Oomen began teaching them and immediately galvanized her students.
The life story process and the friendships they formed while writing and sharing personal memories captivated a group of students who took the course a few years ago. They formed a support group and continued meeting, guided by Oomen.
"Anne-Marie provided a very safe, creative environment with a lot of open-minded people," said Dr. Suzette Corbit, a former student in Oomen's life story classes and one of five readers that evening. "It was wonderful, I took several classes and they really opened up for me doing writing on a regular basis."
After a few more semesters, Oomen and Carol Evans, director of Extended Education Services, began to sense that these stories needed a larger audience. They found the depth, quality and authenticity of the life stories compelling and believed they could benefit more than just other class members.
"We began to think of how to create that and Anne-Marie carried it much further, into encore readings around the region, book openings and the culminating piece is Life Story Center," said Evans, who made time each semester to come hear the finished readings on the last day of class. "The whole project really is an extension of extended education, a broader view of community education."
Two years ago, a grant from the Michigan Council for Arts and Humanities began the process of compiling, publishing, reading and housing the life stories of these students in the Life Story Center. This collaborative grant pulled in the Traverse Area District Library and the Grand Traverse Pioneer and Historical Society as well.
By building a repository of life stories the Life Story Center hopes that area students and residents will draw upon the collected insights and experiences of the authors. An old card catalog will be used to index and cross-reference all the stories, making them more accessible for research projects.
"It is very important, not only to the writer but also to the community, to hear voices of older adults and there are not a lot of avenues in the community for that," Evans said. "The Life Story Center gives voice to an age group that struggles to have a voice. As a society we are hunting for ways to listen and integrate the gifts of an older community."