University of Florida Homepage
img

The Villages Squad: Veterans History Project Volunteers in Wildwood, Florida

by Ann Smith, Veterans History Project Coordinator
In early 2014, SPOHP Veteran’s Coordinator Ann Smith gathered the volunteers for the Veterans History Project group for a fact-to-face meeting. Ms. Smith’s talk at this meeting inspired Mike Parker to become interested in conducting interviews for the Veteran’s History Project of the Library of Congress, where SPOHP regularly submits interviews.

Mike Parker had recently asked to join the group, since he knew of many of the WWII veterans who live at The Villages, the retirement hometown south of Gainesville. Mr. Parker toured the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program’s offices to get an overview of the program and later purchased his own Marantz audio recorder. He received some instruction on its use and began to conduct oral history interviews, which he remotely sent to SPOHP.

As he continued interviewing, Mr. Parker realized how many veterans lived at The Villages–more than he could reach. He called Ann and strategized ways he might recruit some help from interested volunteers.  After conducting an interview for a local newspaper, he had a group of seven interested volunteers.

The Samuel Proctor Oral History Program is invested not only in collecting oral histories, but also in creating the best content at the same time. To this end, the program conducts oral history workshops. We suggested that before the Village Squad started they allow us to better serve the whole process by conducting a workshop for the new interviewers. Mike Parker reserved a space at the Senior Services building located in Wildwood, Florida, where Veterans Project Coordinator Ann Smith and Technology coordinator Deborah Hendrix spent an afternoon with five new volunteers.

The end result of this arrangement will be not only veterans’ interviews for both the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program and the Library of Congress, but also other themed interviews including Home Front Project interviews of those who were family members of those that served, or remained at home, just to name one. There are many other types of interview topics, including African American history, immigrant history, history of Florida, and on it goes. The Villages area is comprised of a cross section of the country that has retired to Florida, increasing opportunities to collect interviews relatively nearby of those from other parts of the country.

We hope to expand the Village Squad collaboration by organizing transcription teams and as a future goal, video interviews. The Samuel Proctor Oral History Program is contributing educational instruction, equipment instruction, two Marantz PMD 660 recorders graciously provided on loan from Judy Shoaff’s language lab, archiving, and all processing of interviews for both accessioning into the SPOHP collections and to the Library of Congress.

The result of this opportunity will be an influx of unique interviews to add to the collection that could not be available otherwise, and a chance for a retired population to recognize the valuable contributions they are providing for future generations.

For additional information about the Veterans History Project and other collections, contact SPOHP, call the offices at (352) 392-7168, and connect with us online today.