Community Oral History Project
Past President of the Southwest Oral History Association and California Delegate
The Laguna Woods History Center has an ongoing project to interview community leaders in order to document their story and preserve our heritage. Please contact us and let us know if you would like to participate.
Jennifer and Cindy Keil (shown here) of 70 Degrees designed this History Center website. They are spearheading the community oral history project. They have over a decade of interview experience and have developed collections throughout the Southwest region. They have trained university professors and staff through workshops at the Southwest Oral History Association. They served on the SOHA board and present at the annual conference. This community oral history project has been highlighted at the Oral History Association annual meetings as an example of local history collaboration.
Oral history is a methodology key to understanding the past as it is a first-person account. It transcends the historical record as it is the oldest form of record keeping. Every interviewee has a pre-interview to develop a series of research questions that frame the interview. Narrators often donate personal photos and other archival materials to the LWHC to accompany their interviews.
James Thorpe participating in the oral history project.
Each candidate for this project is selected by LWHC for their early history and major contributions to the community. They provide varied perspectives of life in Leisure World which was incorporated into Laguna Woods in 1999. Each oral history has a verbatim transcript, recording log, and video. These interviews are indexed with OHMS: Oral History Metadata Synchronizer. Use the links below to use the text searchable oral history interface with interview segment titles.
OH01_Morris Meadow_Recording Log
OH02 Evelyn Shopp Recording Log
OH02_Evelyn Shopp OHMS
OH 03 Bob Ring Video
OH 04_Rob Merritt_Recording Log
OH 04 Robert Merritt OHMS
OH 05 Myra Neben Video
OH 05 Myra Neben Recording Log
OH 06 Lee Bevilacqua Transcript
OH 06 Lee Bevilacqua Recording Log
Oral History Project Interviews with a Transcript Only:
OH 08 Fran Lindberg Transcript
OH 09 James Thorpe Transcript
OH 09 James Thorpe Recording Log