Veterans from Selma and Kingsburg were honored recently at a California State University, Fresno ceremony held at Clovis Veterans Memorial District. Cheryl Stewart, of Selma, served in the Air Force during the Cold War era. June Moran, of Kingsburg, is a Marine Corps veteran who served during World War II. The women were two of 60 Central Valley veterans who were recognized at a ceremony on May 6.

The event was in honor of Fresno State’s Central California War Veterans Oral History Project, a project that was created about five years ago by mass communications and journalism professor Gary Rice. The project aims to gather the personal accounts of military life from veterans in the Central Valley.

Students, veterans and family members attended the ceremony to commemorate the induction of the oral history projects that will be kept permanently in Fresno State’s Henry Madden Library.

“We started the project originally with a grant from the university,” Rice, project director, said. “We bought some tape recorders and when we started it, we didn’t know how well it would be received. But the first one got incredible reception from the veteran community, the families and from the students.”

This spring was the ninth semester of the project. Each semester, Fresno State students from various academic departments and majors interview Central Valley veterans about their lives and time in the military.

More than 400 oral history projects have been turned over to the Henry Madden Library so far, making the project one of the fastest-growing veteran archives in the nation. This spring, 50 students interviewed 60 veterans, of various wars and conflicts, from across the Central Valley. The students transcribed the interviews according to national oral history standards and submitted the audio files and transcriptions to Rice, who in turn submits them to the Fresno State library.

David Tyckoson, associate dean of library services at Fresno State, said that researchers, authors, scholars and the public can access the archive at any time to learn personal testimonies of veteran life.

“We often think of history as one big event, but history is made up of lots of people doing their job, doing their thing, that contributes to that big event,” Tyckoson said. “For veterans to be a part of this and tell their stories to our students ... The result is, those stories become a part of our archives. Future researchers who are looking at World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan can come in and read those stories and know what it was like to be a part of those big events. Nothing is a better record of history than individual stories like these.”

Rice collaborated with Fresno State history and women’s studies professor Andrea Johnson for the project this spring.

“This particular semester is a special one,” Rice said at the ceremony. “We decided to try to do something that we hadn’t done before — and that is highlight women veterans. We had done just an occasional woman before, but we had never made a special effort ... I’m happy to say students interviewed a grand total of 40 women. We’ve been thinking that this is probably one of the largest gatherings of [Central Valley] women veterans from all wars.”

All interviewed veterans were invited from their homes in Selma, Kingsburg, Hanford, Reedley, Fresno and several other areas to attend the May 6 ceremony and say a few words about the project and their lives in the armed forces.

Selma veteran Cheryl Stewart was interviewed by student Carley Brown, an anthropology and women’s studies major. Stewart served in the military during the Cold War era.

“She joined the military to make a better life for her children,” Brown said. “One story that stuck with me: She was a nurse and she was taking care of a little girl that was 4 or 5 years old. And this little girl had a full-body cast on from her waist down. Whenever she was on duty, she would take care of this child. This child was her duty. And every time she would go in there, the little girl would see her come in and get this huge smile on her face and say, ‘Mama.’ That would absolutely just make her day ... Before the child was let go from the hospital, the parents gave [Stewart] a gift to show how thankful they were that she took care of their child.”

Brown said she enjoyed learning about Stewart and her life in the military through the project.

Kingsburg veteran June Moran was also recognized at the event. Moran was interviewed by sociology major Hannah Poore.

“I first learned about the Central California War Veterans Oral History Project from students who have done it in the past,” Poore said. “They told me that it’s a lot of work but that it’s so rewarding. It sounded like a really great, rewarding challenge to take and I’m so glad I did because I got to meet this incredible woman and hear about her life story.”

Moran served in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II.

“I really enjoyed learning about her time [in the Marines] and the friends and memories that she made,” Poore said. “I really admire Mrs. Moran’s courageousness — she joined the Marine Corps at a very young age. She lived in San Diego but she traveled to North Carolina to serve. I really admire that. Talking to Mrs. Moran, I learned a lot about the war time and the Great Depression. I’m really glad I got to learn that much about how life was different back then. I really admire her so much for her courageousness and kindness, and for everything’s she’s done for our country. I aspire to live a life that’s as full as hers. ”

Moran said that though she was initially skeptical about getting involved with the Central California War Veterans Oral History Project, she is ultimately glad she was interviewed by Poore.

“Hannah was so excited to do this. She was really gung-ho and I thought, ‘Do I really want to do this or not?’” Moran said. “It was really a great pleasure to meet Hannah and the program here [is] great ... To have all this enthusiasm for the veterans is grand, and I feel very honored.”

The oral history projects can be accessed at the Henry Madden Library in the special collections department.

By Esra Hashem ehashem@selmaenterprise.com

Source: hanfordsentinel



Your Name Email Comment Type this number