Public radio listeners are familiar with weekly Friday segments from StoryCorps in which family members and close friends talk with one another, sharing memorable stories.
And as we head into the holiday season and families begin to gather, we’re reminded of opportunities to take full advantage of documenting and preserving family histories and stories.
Host Don Marsh talked with Connie McIntyre, author and founding co-director of The Grannie Annie Family Story Celebration, and Martha Stegmaier, the coordinator of a partnership between St. Louis Public Schools and Springboard.
Springboard is a local organization which provides in-school arts and cultural integration and enrichment programs.
The Grannie Annie is also local organization whose mission is, “to inspire young people to discover, write, and share stories from their family's history, and to publish collections of their work.”
According to the organization’s website:
The Grannie Annie invites young people in U.S. grades 4 through 8, and homeschooled and international students 9 through 14 years of age, to interview people from an older generation of their family and to write about something they learn from their family's history — a story from before their birth. Authors are encouraged to share their stories with their extended family and their community as well as with The Grannie Annie. From the stories submitted each year, some are selected for publication in a paperback book, released in May, and on this website. Beginning in 2011, some stories are published in a PDF book as well. There is no submission fee; the annual submission deadline is February 1.
Marsh talked with McIntyre and Stegmaier about the value of preserving family memories and we listened to some of this year’s stories, as told by the young authors.
