Reposted from an interview by Julia Yarbough. See her entire blog post Here.
The great thing about this is that I am not the only one who recognizes the value of collecting these personal accounts before an elder passes.
That same approach is part of the mindset (there’s that word again) of entrepreneurial storyteller Nancy Leve. The South-Florida-based business owner is moving into her own ‘new chapter’ by focusing her skills on documenting individual histories and perspectives she calls Video Journals Online.
I spent some time chatting with Leve about her ideas. She says several years ago she began recording stories for clients. Her original business idea did not sustain financially but then the Covid-19 pandemic hit, forcing most everyone to stay inside and work from home. Leve says that motivated her to revisit the concept.I caught up with Leve to learn more and discovered we are of the same mindset: we believe we must catalog stories of our elders.
Learning from life stories
“I did hundreds of interviews and I heard such incredible stories and different mindsets. One woman had been living in Italy during World War II and she became an orphan and was hiding out in a cellar.
She used to come out and had to climb over dead bodies trying to get to garbage so she would have something to eat.At the end of my interviews, I would always say, ‘How would you describe your life in general? Has it been a good life?’ She said to me, ‘I’ve had a fabulous life!’
At this point she was living in Coral Springs [Florida] and had grandchildren. And I thought, isn’t that a great mindset? She came from such really traumatic experiences and she was able to turn it into something positive.”