Stories From The Wild – The Enduring Power of Storytelling

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The Power of Personal Narratives in History

I’ve been lucky to work in the field of oral history and witness the power of storytelling and its potential to provide insightful historical context. The point of oral history is to record a person‘s life experience and how they later reflect on that experience. Their choice of words, pauses in their dialogue, and the way they prioritize the events they experienced — all of that provides context to that period in history. The reflection process in itself becomes a part of the historical record.

Oral histories add to a society’s understanding of the past in meaningful ways and enrich what would otherwise be a mostly academic process of determining and documenting facts — or rather, the facts as they were understood by historians at the time of publication. The power of our imagination when listening to stories from the past can help us with the ongoing struggle of what the past means in the present.

Connecting Generations Through Storytelling

Although my work now is primarily with people who experience memory loss, I continue to witness the power of storytelling and oral history. I have recently been reading the stories of my ancestors to our residents as part of my “Stories From the Wild” program.

In the late 1800s, my ancestors settled in the wild Kenai Peninsula in Alaska after immigrating from Scotland. When word of gold was discovered, my great-great-great grandfather Robert Burns Mathison brought his family to the town of Hope. He helped to establish the town itself, and many years later his granddaughter Nell Mathison reflected on her experience at the turn of the century during the Alaskan gold rush and wrote our family’s stories down for future generations. Our family treasures these stories of hardship, community, and hard-won lessons on survival. Nell is my great grandmother, and I am grateful for her account of a very different life and time in America.

Storytelling and Identity

During the storytelling program, our residents become inspired to reflect on their own ancestry and journeys, often sharing those stories with each other. Memory loss can cause one to feel lost, and although some may not later recall our storytelling sessions, I can see how the process of reflection and sharing empowers residents to regain their own identities.

I have just returned from my family’s first visit to Alaska, to the town of Hope, and feel an even stronger connection to my ancestors. Here is a link to a short video that features one of my great-grandmother’s wonderful stories. The link is below.

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