In the fast-paced society of the world we live in, we find that
unless people take positive steps to preserve history, it is often
lost forever. Knowing the value and the lessons that history can hold
for us, Gold Award Girl Scout Erin O’Donovan wanted to do her part to
preserve her hometown’s history, and make it accessible to all.
Choosing a topic was tough, as Cumberland is a town rich with
history. Erin decided to focus her lens on the one-room schoolhouses
in town. After surveying a number of long-term town residents, Erin
secured 14 different interviews with residents who had attended these
schoolhouses as children.
Visiting residents at their
homes, the library, and nursing homes, Erin captured each of their
stories on audio. Later, she reviewed each story and edited them into
smaller audio clips that she incorporated into a webpage she was
developing to house these historical treasures.
Erin
worked with the town’s communications director to establish a page for
the Historical Society on the town’s website, and include a subpage
that would house Erin’s work in a page titled “Cumberland Schools
Through the Ages.” Her webpage provides a summary of the history of
the schools, a map, photos, and the audio clips from her
interviews.
Erin is using her webpage to encourage others
to help add to the schools’ history, as well as history of the town.
Since the publication of her project’s webpage, four additional pages
have been added by others about the school district!
In
addition, Erin has coordinated with second grade teachers in her
school district to incorporate her project into their curriculum,
supplementing their lessons with a one-page description with photos of
the one-room schoolhouses in town.
Because of Erin’s
project, people from Cumberland – and around the world – will be able
to learn important pieces in the history. Friends and family of the
people she interviewed will be able to hear the recording of their
loved ones, and hear their stories. More importantly, though, her
project helps preserve the oral history of “Smalltown USA,”
establishing its importance in history, right alongside big cities and
famous Americans.
Erin says the importance of this
project really hit home for her when her neighbor, one of the town’s
long-time beloved residents, passed away just weeks after she
interviewed him and recorded his story. In her own way, she says, she
was doing her part to preserve oral history before it was gone forever.
Erin O'Donovan, of Cumberland, earns 2018 Gold Award
21 Jun 2018
