Everyone who knows me knows I’m big on oral history. I like to hear people talk about their families, and I enjoy writing down what they say. Just today, a lady shared her experience as an eight year old student. A sudden hail storm came up when she was having class in a one room wooden schoolhouse. The wind was so strong, it blew the structure off its foundation and the school landed on the front door trapping the children inside. While hail pummeled, the sky was as dark as night and everything became chaotic. It was a fascinating story of survival by a young female teacher about seventeen years old and her twenty-two pupils.

Personal histories are valuable to