JET CITY MAVEN - VOL. 4, ISSUE 8, AUGUST 2000

Copyright 2000 Park Projects. Please feel free to use the article and photos below in your research. Be sure to quote the Jet City Maven as your source.

Group seeking info on Green Lake history

By SUSAN HELF

Are you a long-time resident of the Green Lake area? Have you spent much of your life working, playing, or worshiping in the Green Lake area? If so, the Green Lake Park Alliance (GLPA), a local nonprofit organization, would like to hear from you.

GLPA recently began an oral history project, which is funded by a grant from the City's Department of Neighborhoods. Since 1997, GLPA has published the annual Green Lake History Calendar and is now moving on to preserve the memories of the neighborhood's oldest residents and others with a long-time relationship with Green Lake. This project has widespread support from the Green Lake area churches as well as The Hearthstone retirement community. These institutions have provided volunteer interviewers as well as interview subjects.

On June 24, 23 volunteers attended a one-day seminar on oral history techniques presented by Museum of History and Industry's historian, Lorraine McConaghy. These volunteers will meet with interview subjects this summer and fall and will tape their interviews. The project is seeking additional interviewers, who would be trained in a workshop in January 2001.

The tapes and transcripts of the oral history interviews will become part of the Green Lake History Archives at the Green Lake library. Louis Fiset, GLPA historian and Susan Helf, project volunteer, plan to seek additional funding to extend the project and hope to write a book on the history of Green Lake.

How can you get involved? The Oral History Project is looking for a diverse group of interview subjects, including those in the Green Lake area in the 1920s, '30s and '40s. The Project would also like to interview members of the African-American community who have had a long-term relationship with the area. In addition, we'd like to hear from immigrants from Mexico, Russia, Korea, Vietnam and other countries who reside, work, play or worship in the Green Lake area.

If you'd like to be part of this project, either as an interview subject or a volunteer interviewer, call Susan Helf at (206) 782-1836 or e-mail her at shelf1@earthlink.net.