Saving Orcas History, One Voice at a Time

— from Pegi Groundwater for the Orcas Island Historical Society —

Orcas Island history is about the lives of our people –what they know and what they have experienced. The Orcas Island Historical Society (OIHS) has a treasure trove of more than 40 taped interviews in their storage vault behind the Pioneer Museum that need to be preserved, transcribed and shared with Orcas Island residents and visitors.

Calvin McLachlan

These tapes, which were recorded during the past 30 years, include the voices of Bob Schoen, Virginia Jensen, Arthur Reddick and Madilyn Reddick Haffey, Cherie Lindholm, Jane Barfoot-Hodde, Roy and Agnes Flaherty, the Bond brothers, Stan Englehartson, Rich Exton, Mary Gibson Hatton and Sara Gibson Seagrave, Hubert and Ruth Kidder, Charlie Arnt, Lucille & Culver Willis, Betty Hall, Carl Lange, Dorothy Granger, Fred Nicol, Barbara Meyer, Buster & Sarah Pearmain, Blanche Light Cramer, Cal McLachlan, Ellen Bruns Maddan, Howard and Geneva Wilson, Frank & Elsie Fowler, Hulda & Roger Purdue, Betty Moran Burns, Dora Cadden, and Carolyn Harrison Sisley. We have also just discovered another treasure trove of about 100 tapes that we are cataloguing and there are many Orcas Island residents who have fascinating stories and histories that have not yet been recorded.

OIHS has begun an exciting new project, called “Saving Orcas Voices”, to capture and share these stories. The project is being spearheaded by Board member Harold Lentzner and our volunteer archivist, Edrie Vinson. The first stage of “Saving Orcas Voices” focuses on the recorded histories that OIHS already has. This begins with creating digital versions of the tapes. Many of the tapes are old and fragile, and some have poor audio quality that needs to be technically enhanced so that volunteers can transcribe the tapes.

Betty Hall

After the tapes have been transcribed, the stories need to be matched with photos from the Pioneer Museum’s photo archive and placed into binders that can be shared with Museum visitors, school children studying local history, family researchers, and others. OIHS already has some completed binders with oral histories collected over the past thirty years that can be viewed at the Pioneer Museum. Winter hours are Wednesday through Saturday from 12 to 3 or at other times by appointment.

The second phase of the “Saving Orcas Voices” project will be to start collecting new interviews to catch more Orcas Voices before those voices fall silent forever. OIHS would like to document the social, artistic, cultural, commercial, and agricultural history of Orcas Island more fully in this second round of oral histories. Trained volunteers will tape the interviews, while other volunteers collect related photos from the OIHS archives, transcribe and correct the interviews, create binders for each interviewee containing the transcribed interview and accompanying photos, and, ultimately, create an electronic on-line catalog so that those voices can be shared today and in the future.

Ellen Bruns Madan

OIHS is also looking for volunteers to help with the project. There are several ways you can help. You can volunteer to become trained as an interviewer or transcriber, be a photographer, or help assemble the “Saving Orcas Voices” binders –leave a message for Edrie at the OIHS office at 376-4849. Send suggestions to Edrie of persons whose voices should be included in the second phase of the “Saving Orcas Voices” project.