Best Laid Plans: The 50th Anniversary of the Oral History Project

By: Maggie Wilson

Back in 2017, Mayor Tina Sartoretto asked me to help her reboot the Oral History Project. At the time,
transcriptions of the 1972 interviews were posted on the library’s website and paper copies were stored
on the local history shelves.

Prior to this time, online content was published on one long page containing every interviewee’s
answers. Not ideal, but better than none. To add to the confusion, replies to the questions were difficult
to understand without referring to the questionnaire for context – again, not ideal.

Then the library’s website was rebuilt, but without the interviews! Definitely not ideal, especially for a
history and research fan such as myself. I was more than motivated to see this project through.

The 2017 Plan

Tina hoped that with the help of library staff and volunteers, we could take those interviews and publish
a book, the sales of which would go toward the Cobalt Legacy Fund. Here was the plan:

• Update the content so it was more meaningful both in digital and hard copy (a book).
• Re-tell the stories in the third person, in a more engaging fashion.
• Bring the stories up-to-date and expand upon the interviewee’s life. Volunteers would contact
  the original interviewees or their descendants so that we could fill in blanks in the family’s story.
  Where are they now? Who and where are the children? Where did/do they live/work? And
  other yes/no as well as open-ended questions that encourage the interviewee to reflect upon
  their life in Cobalt between 1972 and present.
• We set a deadline of for or before the 50th anniversary of the original 1972 project (i.e., 2022)

The To Do List

I volunteered to be project lead and developed a “to do” list. First order of business was locating the
original digital files. Second order of business was creating those files, because misplacing files is just the
sort of thing that happens! No biggie. Good thing I had a back-up copy of the library page.

Next, I created an outline of the book.

• Introduction: an explanation of the original 1972 project and its purpose
• Biographies of the interviewers past and present and the writers who re-worked the content
• 200 interviews retold in the third person, in anecdotal fashion (i.e., not Q&A), fleshed out and
  expanded by the new information that we were able to gather
• Links to social media sites, possibly a Facebook Group, or a WordPress blog or other site
  dedicated to the book. Certainly, a link to the original transcripts on the library’s website. On
  those sites include audio, video, and music files.
• Thanks to sponsors and grantors and other financial support
• Index of names, place names, streets, businesses, etc.

The book would be illustrated with “then and now” pictures of the people, their homes, their
workplaces, the attractions, and of course, the town. We would use the content of the library’s
scrapbooks and borrow from the Cobalt Historical Society, of which I am a board member. We would
include The Cobalt Song, recipes from the 1910 Cobalt Cookbook, news clippings, poetry, prose, and
artwork. Maybe a map of where the interviewees lived in 1972. Maybe even a global map of where they
and their families live now – to show if and how far the families have dispersed.

Excuses, excuses

Of course, other things got in the way of these optimistic, perhaps unrealistic, best laid plans.

First, I was brand new to the area, just getting to know the “lay of the land” so to speak. Work with the
Cobalt Historical Society kept me occupied and unable to attend to the interview project.

Another of the challenges was that dang-blang virus that hit in March 2020 and all the associated
lockdowns that meant people did not meet, the library was closed, and so on. I’m sure you are just as
bored by that excuse as I am.

Dear Tina

Of more serious consequence was the loss of our dear Tina who passed away in October 2021. Without
her vision and encouragement, the project lost steam.

In the meantime, I located additional interview transcripts for residents of Haileybury, New Liskeard,
and other towns across the province. Summer staff at the library scanned these documents to PDF files.

I think of my promise to Tina every time the subject of the 1972 interviews arises, and how I hoped to
have it finished by the 50 th anniversary of the project.

The Ta Da List!

With that in mind, I am happy to share this news. With the posting of this blog entry, I can claim, just in
time, that I finished the first step of the 50 th Anniversary of the Oral History Project!

It’s a stretch. I know, I know. But as our librarian Amber says, turn “To Do” into “Ta Da!”

No book is in the cards at this point. But for researchers, historians, and family members, we will provide
a listing of the several hundred names of interviewees from all communities.

We intend to rewrite certain of those interviews and share them with you here on the library’s newly
recreated website.

By sharing the posts on social media, it is our hope that we can fill in some of the blanks of the
interviewee’s answers when either they, or their family, add to the story.

This time, it will be an ongoing project, without a deadline, and one that we can all share in from this
moment forward.

In memory of Tina Sartoretto