Edwina was excited and called my office three times that week leading up to our session. I have always known Edwina, she was the next door neighbor to my grandmother Beatrice. As a small child I would often see Edwina looking out her kitchen window as she did dishes. That two story house was recently torn down and all but erased from the Oak Hill landscape. In its place a prefabricated single story double wide occupied the same footprint. As I pulled into the driveway I was struck by familiarity as well as the change. The new house suited Edwina fine, she like the newness.

In the house she had coffee and cookies ready for the sessions. She flirted innocently with me as I put the lapel microphone on her. She was nervous as well as excited. Edwina was the first of thirty interviews that I was doing. I hesitate to really call it an interview, I had no questions to ask, I had no agenda, all I had were photographs.

Her eyes lit up as she opened to the first picture., they scanned the face of the ancestor on the page, “this is my great uncle Saul Neptune, this same picture hung in this house for years.” Years? I thought, this house is just months old. This picture and the recognition of it wash away all nervousness she may have had.

I spend two and half hours that morning with Edwina. That small amount of time was filled with stories, recollections, and most of all laughter. I learned that Edwina had a wonderful sense of humor, iron clad memory, and a true sense of community.

She mentioned she had a shoebox filled with photographs that she wanted me to scan into the collection. “Let me go grab them, they are upstairs,” she said as she headed down the hall. Then she stopped dead, the microphone recording her gentle laughter. She realized she was not in the old two story house and was embarrassed she was heading to stairs that weren’t there. She told me that because the house is exactly in the same place and especially her kitchen window, she forgets she isn’t in the old house.

The story project was dedicated to her. She passed away before the end of the project. She was the first elder who died that I didn’t feel guilty for not capturing their story.