Sebastopol Area Elders Oral History and Documentation Project

Transition Sebastopol is looking for local elders who can remember being young adults during the depths of the Great Depression of the 1930's and who would be willing to be video interviewed about their experiences of that time.

This project is particularly interested in learning about how people at that time were more self-reliant than they are today and how people lived simpler lives. How was the Sebastopol area community more resilient and self-sufficient in those days? Where did people get their food? What skills did they have? How did people work together and watch out for one another?

As our current economy downsizes, and as trends move away from the globalized economy and hyper-consumption lifestyle of recent decades, perhaps these remaining elders among us hold some keys to how we can adjust to simpler living and thrive in a more localized economy. We would like to capture some of this wisdom before it is too late.

We need your help finding these elders. We are most interested in interviewing elders who lived in the Sebastopol area at that time, but we might also be interested in interviewing any elders who lived in similar communities, or anywhere in Sonoma County. For these elders to have been young adults during the depths of the Depression they would now need to be in their late eighties or older.

A free copy of the video in DVD form will be provided to the family of the elders.

We are also looking for more volunteers to help with shooting video, editing, and transcribing.

If you have any helpful information or leads, please contact Scott McKeown at [email protected] or call 707-824-1361.

Thanks,

Scott







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