Heritage Renewal

Friday night we attended a joyous event at the old Opera House in Ellendale. The occasion was the 70th birthday of a heritage heroine of that community, Jeanette Robb-Ruenz. She has been the agitator, cheerleader, gadfly, hunter, and gatherer at the center of the restoration of the opera house and other exemplary restoration projects, such as the Dickey County Courthouse dome and murals. Gifts were designated for the next phase of the opera house restoration, the facade around the main entry. The aim was to raise $7,000 in honor of Jeanette's 70th year; the total raised was, in fact, more than $11,000. Congratulations once again to Jeanette, and perhaps more so, to the people of Ellendale for their grand work.

There were a lot of people involved, and so I'm not going to try to name them all, but they all deserve high praise for the new audio CD: Home Grown: German-Russian Farm Kids Remember. It's a collaboration of Prairie Public Radio with the Germans from Russia Heritage Collection of NDSU, drawing on the GRHC's Dakota Memories Oral History Project. Lurking in the background, therefore, is Michael Miller, director of the collection, who keeps coming up with these ideas. Jessica Clark heads up the researchers and staff of the center working on the project and on the new CD. Bill Thomas handles production at Prairie Public and also does a great job with the narration splicing together the episodes from interviews. Suzzanne Kelley provides easy-going scholarly commentary. The stars, of course, are the narrators, with names like Meidinger, Hoffart, Graf, and Boechler--real German-Russian names for people with real German-Russian voices. Those voices--you can get lost in them, forgetting to pay attention to content while you let the voices alternately lull and stir you. But listen to the thing again, and this time pay attention to what people say, and you will be transported. It's not just life on the plains; it's life on the plains as experienced and perceived by boys and girls. The child's perspective is as historically important as is the factual content. The Dakota Memories project has been doing oral history of a high order for some time, but this CD sets a new standard for public dissemination of product. Everybody take a bow. OK that's enough, now get back to work and do more of this great stuff!

Organizers of the Dakota Memories Oral History Project are coming to Napoleon, N.D., to conduct a workshop that will teach participants how to conduct their own oral histories. The event is set for Saturday, May 16, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Downtowner Bar & Steakhouse, 310 Main Avenue, Napoleon.

Acacia (Jonas) Stuckle, special collections associate, will provide information about the Germans from Russia Heritage Collection as well as the Dakota Memories Oral History Project.

Jessica Clark, project coordinator and recipient of the Germans from Russia History Doctoral Fellowship, will present the methodology of oral history from literature to application. She will teach participants how to find materials, narrators and places and how to manage oral histories. The workshops also will provide circuit training on digital recording devices, digital processing equipment and interviewing techniques.

Andrea Mott, 2009 Dakota Memories Oral History project interviewer, will assist with the workshops.

Public interest in documenting and preserving German-Russian ethnic identity inspired the launch of the oral history project in 2005. Since then, organizers have been traveling the Northern Plains, gathering stories and documenting family relationships and childhood memories of second and third generation Germans from Russia. Michael Miller serves as director of the Germans from Russia Heritage Collection and the project.

"Our project only focuses on Germans from Russia, yet there are plenty of other groups out there with rich histories – histories that should be documented and preserved," Clark said. "So, we are hoping by sharing our techniques and our methodology, individuals will be able to conduct their own histories regardless of their ethnicity."

Workshops are free and open to the public. Cookies and refreshments will be provided. Lunch is not included in the cost, but it will be available on-site for a fee. If you wish to register for lunch on-site, call Stuckle by May 11.

The workshop is sponsored by the Dakota Memories Oral History Project, Germans from Russia Heritage Collection, NDSU Libraries, NDSU Extension Service and NDSU Extension Service Center for Community Vitality.

The Dakota Memories Oral History Project is a privately funded project sponsored by the Germans from Russia Heritage Collection at the NDSU Libraries. For more information on the collection or the project, contact the Germans from Russia Heritage Collection at (701) 231-6596 or www.ndsu.edu/grhc/dakotamemories.