By Lindsey Pizzica Rotolo

Perhaps you have heard that the Norfolk Historical Museum is undertaking an oral history of the town looking towards the 250^th anniversary in 2008. But what is oral history?

An oral history in a primary resource document created in an interview setting. It involves collecting and preserving a person’s firsthand information about their memories and experiences, and making it available to the people of that particular community and to researchers. Oral histories are used to document the history of a community and have become very popular in the past few years throughout the United States. It is hoped that those interviewed would include town leaders, past and present, oldest and newest residents, shop owners, community organizations, weekenders and year-round residents, educators, and town workers among others.

Barbara Gridley, who s starting an oral history project in Norfolk, is a former history teacher.

Barbara Gridley, who has lived part-time in Norfolk since 1962 and is now a Connecticut resident, started an oral history project for Norfolk this summer after raising the necessary money to buy a digital tape recorder and two good microphones. She received help and advice from Columbia University in New York and Middlebury College in Vermont, and then spent a lot of time reading Norfolk history and planning a list of topics and questions to be used in her interviews. Currently Gridley is assembling a committee to help her with the interviews, and she plans to teach them how to use the equipment, conduct an interview and download the interview onto the Museum’s computer. Later these interviews will be typed up and will be available at the Historical Society for all to read.

Please sharpen up your memories and welcome the interviewer when you are called and asked to be part of this project. The interview should not last longer than about an hour and it is hoped that you will enjoy speaking about our beloved Norfolk.

Photo by Adela Hubers.