Do you have a family member, friend, or neighbor who lived in or around Chestertown in the 1940s and who likes to tell stories about the old days? Did you grow a Victory Garden? Attend Washington College on the GI Bill? Did you contribute to the “School-At-War Program” at Garnett School? Or work at the Kent Defense Corporation? If so, Washington College students want to hear about it.
A team of students from the College’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience is setting out this summer to record a series of oral history interviews with people who lived in Chestertown and its surrounding area of Kent and Queen Anne’s Counties during World War II. The student researchers seek to chronicle the local wartime experience through the stories of those who experienced it. Potential interviewees might be veterans, family members of veterans, or simply people who lived in this area and remember things like blackouts, bond drives, munitions factories, and the presence of German POWs at local farms. Our students welcome memories of how the wartime experience involved men, women, and children from all backgrounds and walks of life, whether in uniform or as civilians.
The Dr. Davy H. McCall World War II History Project will collect and archive personal stories and recollections to show how Chestertown, a small American town, participated in the war effort. Students will also be making digital scans of wartime letters, photos, and other artifacts to be permanently archived at Washington College. This year’s StoryQuest program is named for Dr. McCall, chair emeritus of the Department of Economics at Washington College. Dr. McCall is also a World War II veteran, a pioneer in documenting Eastern Shore history, and a generous friend and supporter of the StoryQuest program.
This summer marks the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, and with each passing year, more stories and memories of that era are lost forever. Washington College students hope to save a few of them, a task with particular resonance in this anniversary year.
“It’s a great opportunity to share memories across the generations and to document the myriad of ways that Americans were called upon to support the war effort during the early 1940s,” says Michael Buckley Starr Center Program Manager. Buckley and co-instructor Lani Seikaly will lead this summer’s phase of the Starr Center’s ongoing StoryQuest Oral History Program. The president of Chestertown RiverArts, Seikaly is the recipient of a 2015 William Donald Schaefer Helping People Award.
If you or someone you know would like to be interviewed, please contact Michael Buckley by phone at (410) 810-7156, or by email at [email protected]. For more information, visit the C. V. Starr Center’s website: starrcenter.washcoll.edu
Founded in 1782 under the patronage of George Washington, Washington College is a private, independent college of liberal arts and sciences located in colonial Chestertown on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The College’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience is dedicated to fostering innovative approaches to the American past and present. Through educational programs, scholarship and public outreach, and a special focus on written history, the Starr Center seeks to bridge the divide between the academic world and the public at large.
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