[Photo of Kitchener Public Library’s Oral History Tapes, 2023. Source: Kitchener Public Library’s Grace Schmidt Room of Local History]
Back in the 1980s, Kitchener Public Library wanted to preserve local history from the people who actually remembered and experienced it. And so, in 1981, the Oral History Program was born and would go on to collect and record 89 tapes in its first year. By 2006, through conducting their own interviews and receiving donations for safe keeping, KPL’s oral history collection grew to hold 1,060 tapes sharing the memories of over 600 individuals. And now, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, these tapes are available online through History in the Making!
These tapes preserve the perspectives of many Waterloo Region citizens and share personal stories of rural farm life, immigration, the world wars, and many more. These broad topics won’t be new to folks familiar with researching local history, but these tapes provide their listeners with unique and personalized accounts of the Region’s past. In processing these tapes to go online, I’ve gotten to know a great deal of individuals - many of whom passed before I was even born.
[Street view of George’s Restaurant, Cambridge 2022. Source: Google Street View]
I got to meet George Seto, a Chinese immigrant who came to Canada in 1917 and would go on to run his own restaurant, George’s Restaurant, in Cambridge - which is still in operation today. I then learned of the work of William Dalgarno, a blind man and activist who worked tirelessly to make Braille more accessible in the region and beyond. He would receive an award honouring his advocacy work on the Canadian Council of the Blind in 1993.
[Photo of Margaret Erb Schreiter in uniform, ca. 1915. Source: David Westfall on Waterloo Region Generations]
I also got to hear the voice of an individual I had researched before, Margaret Erb Schreiter - a woman who boldly went against the expectations of her family and ran to Buffalo to become a nurse. She would go on to serve in World War I with the American Army Nursing Corps. Discovering stories like these has made the process of digitizing these tapes an incredibly rewarding experience.
And so, I encourage you all to take the time to explore these tapes as I have. There are many ways to parse through them, like finding a familiar name or a subject of interest, but I humbly suggest a more serendipitous approach. Scrolling through the tapes and selecting a recording at random could introduce you to a story or experience that you’ve never considered before.
You can now find all the Oral History Recordings online. Happy listening!
We would also like to express our thanks to the Waterloo Regional Heritage Foundation for support of this project.
Have a comment about this blog post? Reach us at localhistory@kpl.org
Julia Barclay, Digitization Assistant, Grace Schmidt Room of Local History