Prologue / interviews

When I first thought about the oral history project, I immediately thought that interviewing my grandmother.  It would be a great way to know more things about her that we wouldn't always necessarily discuss.  I started out discussing the assignment with her, and let her know about the interviews and some details about the assignment.  At first I was unsure of what I direction that I wanted to take.  So, I began with some questions about literacy because I think it would be interesting with the difference in generations she has experienced.  I found out a lot of interesting information, however she did not recall much information on the beginning of her literacy. Then from there that led into a discussion on technology.  Where within my first interview, she discussed when she was growing up she did not have a phone in her house until she was 18. She always had to go to the house down the street or the grocery store to make a quick call, and Mr. Atkins did not mind.  Some of her friends had phones that lived across town, but not many people in town had one at the time. It was a party-line where about three different households shared the same line.  When she would pick up the phone, one of her neighbors would be on it and she would have to wait.  So making a call was not as easy and at times very inconvenient.  Also she had no television, only a few people around had one.  It was a black and white 5x7 screen where everyone would get together at the one persons house with one and were extremely excited to watch their favorite shows. There was no twenty four hour programming like today.  There were only shows on at certain times and nights.  Just about a half of a dozen show, and one she mentioned was milt and birch.  That was how my interview had first started though we began to change direction as we went further.  I started asking questions of what it was like growing up in that time period of the 40's and 50's compared to how things are today.

Eleanor Hope Marrone

Some background information, and alittle about what it was like growing up withing the 40's and 50's

Then that led me back to our discussion on technology which I found most interesting, and I asked how it was growing up without any of the technology that she has come to be used to today.

Eleanor's journey into technology...

After our discussions, I learned to appreciate some of what my grandmother has went through, and realize the differences from what it was like with the technology back then to now.  In those times I feel that people really had more of an apprciation for it where as now we are attached to our phones, televisons, and computers and we have come so used to it in our daily lives that we could not go a day without it.