Events and Activities : Donations Launch Digitization of Histories

The Nellist family's dairy truck. Photo is either Gertrude or her sister.

Gertrude Nellist, far left

Public event March 25

The Benton County Women’s Oral History Committee and the Vinton Public Library received donations late last month partially funding digitization of life stories of some of the ten women who were interviewed in the 1980s. One donation, from the Louise Gilchrist Charitable Trust, will fund individual stories as it is matched by other donations. The first donation received, however, was from an individual and will fund an entire woman’s story by itself.

The stories, originally recorded on cassette tapes, will be professionally indexed and sound-adjusted as they are updated to digital media for greater utility to schools, families and individuals. The women’s stories average about four hours each. Typed transcripts are also being digitized, at no cost, by the Iowa Women’s Archives.

The project’s first donor, Kathy Lariviere of rural Urbana, chose to earmark her donation for the stories of Gertrude Nellist Smith. Lariviere didn’t know Gertrude had lived in her own neighborhood, between Vinton and Urbana, when she chose the name from a list.

Gertrude was interviewed by Jane LaGrange of Vinton. Born in the village of Cayton, England in 1899, Gertrude came to this country in her youth and married ministerial student Willard Smith, who later served a Christian Church congregation in Urbana. The couple farmed between Urbana and Vinton, where they raised a son, George. She died in 1989,

“Since we have only lived in the area for two years, I'm not familiar with any of the women, so I'm choosing on a purely sentimental basis,” Lariviere said. “My grandmother's name was Gertrude and she could spin a story better than most people I know, so I choose Gertrude Smith.

Lariviere said she chose to donate when the project caught her attention as she read newspapers in an effort to become more involved in her new community.

“I found it difficult to meet people since we moved to rural Benton County two years ago,” Lariviere said. “This is unusual for me since I was always the neighborhood block captain, compulsive volunteer, and that friend who liked to bring people together to work on a project. So I subscribed to the local papers and read them from cover to cover to see what is going on in the community. That is where I read about your project.

“As an adult, I have learned to appreciate history and those who came before us. On a particularly cold winter day, I wonder how those who settled here survived the winters. Were they deceived by a sunny winter day only to be caught in a snow storm when the weather changed? Where did they find shelter during the summer storms? How did they grow enough produce in the short Iowa summers to tide them over until the next growing season?

“I love the fact that someone was foresighted enough to record and preserve these women's stories,” she added. “They provide us a brief glimpse into the past and a lifestyle that most of us can only imagine.”

Lariviere’s own stories can be read on her blog, House on the Hill, a “light hearted view on adapting to country life,” at http://learningcountryliving.blogspot.com/.

A 35-minute montage of the ten women’s stories representing life in Benton County between about 1900 and 1985 will be shown various places throughout the county including nursing homes, schools and churches, with a final public event at the Iowa Braille School in Vinton, Sunday, March 25 at 2:00 PM. The free program will be moderated by Kӓren Mason, curator of the Iowa Women’s Archives in Iowa City, and will include video interviews from the Vinton Sesquicentennial.