Business helps families keep history alive

Madelyn Dalgleish thought she knew everything about her father, until she learned more about his memories of World War I and why he became a physician.

Dalgleish, Mission Hills, recently hired Voices in Time to record her father's history.

"We all have somebody elderly who has a great history," Dalgleish said. "You think, ‘I'm going to record them or write down what they say,' but time passes and you never do. (Voices in Time) takes over and gets everything recorded on a CD. It's priceless. It's something I will play over and over when my father's not here. I can pop it in and hear him. That family history is for me and my children and their children."

Dalgleish's father, Charles White, Mission Hills, will be 104 in August. He is a retired physician and avid saxophone player. He remembers school being let out when World War I ended.

"It is overwhelming to think about what changes he has seen over the times – technology, antibiotics – from when he started in the medical field," Dalgleish said. "We even had him play his saxophone. He got through med school playing his saxophone, so it’s a big part of his life. I wanted him to play something (for the recording) and he did."

Lili Shank, Fairway, and Courtney Holmes, Prairie Village, started Voices In Time to help people preserve special stories and important family history through recording sessions. 

"We came together a year ago to launch Voices In Time through a shared passion for oral history," Shank said. "In these difficult economic times, when many are re-prioritizing their values, families are finding a gift of preserving a loved one’s personal stories to be the most meaningful gift of all."

The women are fans of "StoryCorps" on NPR and wanted to make the storytelling service available to Kansas Citians year-round.

"We also wanted to make the process more user-friendly, more in-depth and more customized to the family’s needs," Holmes said. "… Recording your life story is something many people think about doing, but have trouble getting started or finding the right format. I passionately believe in the importance of recording your stories to pass on to future generations."

In the last six months, Shank said they have recorded about 50 people from across the metro area. Their clients’ average age is 70.

"This is really that greatest generation that lived through World War II. A lot of them lived through the Depression and the Dust Bowl in Kansas," Shank said. "They’ve seen so much history and that gets lost if the effort isn’t made to sit down with the intention of recording some of their stories.

"At a certain age, a parent or grandparent doesn’t need another thing. We love this as a Mother’s Day or Father’s Day gift. It’s a wonderful way to honor someone, to let them know their lives mattered and that you’re interested in preserving their stories for your children and grandchildren."

Dalgleish gave copies of her father’s recording to her three children. She said she recommends the service to everyone she knows.

When Overland Park resident Barbara Gilhousen recently turned 90, her son Fred Gilhousen and daughter-in-law Carolyn chose to give her a Voices In Time recording session to capture her stories in her own words.

"Fred and I were enthralled and moved with Barbara’s recording," Carolyn said. "Through this audio interview, we saw our mother through new eyes and in a different light. We have even more appreciation and respect for her life’s journey. The history and wisdom she shared will leave her descendants with a treasured gift."

Barbara, who grew up in western Kansas and raised her sons alone during World War II, said she went into the recording session with trepidation but ended up enjoying it.

"It was invigorating," she said. "I realize there are things my children and grandchildren don’t know about my life."

Shank said they have discovered families with a lot of "assumed knowledge."

"There’s a lot of stories in our lives that we’ve often not told the people we’re closest to," she said. "It’s rare that we have a recording that a family member doesn’t listen to and say, ‘I never knew that about Mom’ or ‘I’ve never heard Dad tell that story.’ We don’t have conversations of this sort with people in our lives on a regular basis."

Using mobile recording equipment, Shank and Holmes record clients’ stories in the comfort of their own home. Sessions usually last an hour to an hour and a half, and some people will come for a series of sessions until they have completed their life story.

Shank said many people are nervous about recording their stories, but that evaporates within a few minutes.

"That’s why we do audio only, because most of us are nervous with a camera lens pointed at us. We make the process pretty invisible to them and they just get lost in their stories," Shank said. "Getting the stories told in that person’s voice with their particular turns of phrase, the words they use, their accent, their unique expressions – that can capture someone’s essence and bring someone back to mind in a way a hundred photos can’t."

Holmes said there is much power in the human voice without the distraction of visual stimulus.

"When you sit down to listen to a recording, you can close your eyes and escape into the stories and picture your loved one how you wish to see them in your imagination," she said.

For more information, visit ourvoicesintime.com or call 831-0848.

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