On August 27, 2010, Suzan Huney began an oral history project with her Aunt Betty Jane Cooper Johnson, her mother’s sister.  For many years, the tight knit clan of Cooper family women had celebrated during yearly reunions, but interviewing Aunt Betty meant learning a lot more about the family as well as more about her own beloved parents.

The finished book, Women of Strength, not only tells Aunt Betty’s story but is also Suzan Huney’s tribute to her parents, Alice and Judd Huney. Suzan writes at book’s end of her inherited diamond ring:

When the prominent diamond knocks against my coffee cup, when it scrapes my leg in the shower, when it pokes against my little finger, when it cuts into the trough between my fingers, when it snags my gardening glove, when my thumb worries it, when it scratches my husband’s hand, it feels like living love.

Many of us wonder how to build a book around our family history. I asked Suzan to tell Writing It Real members about her process.

Sheila
How did this project start?

Suzan
In April 2010 I attended the Field’s End Writers’ Conference held at Kiana Lodge near Poulsbo, Washington. I attended Kit Bakke’s session titled “And That’s the Way It Was: The Joys and Challenges of Oral History.” Kit talked about what an oral history is and we how we can go about recording and preserving historical information. She had done several oral histories for clients that included putting the stories into book form. She passed around a copy of one. I knew then I wanted to work on an oral history with Aunt Betty, who was then 87. I knew I’d better get started quickly.

Sheila
Had you read others’ oral history books and/or books about doing oral history?

Suzan
I had read several books by Louis “Studs” Terkel, and I had the pleasure of hearing him talk at a book fair in Seattle. His books, The Good War: An Oral History of World War Two, and Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression, are two that come to mind. I also enjoy listening to StoryCorps interviews on NPR’s Morning Edition. The program offers such a great way to preserve and share stories.

Sheila
Your book moves chronologically as Aunt Betty tells of family moves across North America, but it also covers life history with chapters like “Fun and Stories,” “Chores,” “Pets,” and “Homegrown Foods.” At the book’s end,  there are favorite family recipes and an anthology with some of your own essays about the people and events in your family as well as oral histories from other family members.

Tell us your thoughts about the way you organized the taking of the oral history. For instance, did you start out your interviews with Betty on the subjects of her birth and early years or did the conversation just go from whatever she was thinking about that day or whatever questions you had come with?

Suzan
When I suggested the oral history project to my aunt, she was eager to begin. I prepared for my first interview by gathering questions.

There are many resources available on the Internet — step-by-step guides and the Oral History Association. Plus my sister, Judy Kutz, was heavily involved in tracing our family roots; she provided a lengthy list of questions from Ancestry.com.

We began with the basics: where did you grow up? Who were your parents and siblings? Did you have any pets? Well, my aunt is a natural born storyteller, and a single question could take us from growing up in North Dakota during the Depression to a trip she and her sisters Alice and Ruth made to the east coast in 1996. I found it best to go with the flow, and still ask all the questions I had on my many lists.

After each session, I typed up my transcript, and made notes about what follow-up questions I needed to ask. When my aunt talked so fast that I couldn’t keep up with her, I’d made a note to listen to the recorded transcript. I also did fact-checking research after each session.

When I started organizing the material into chapters, I first selected basic chapter headings. With a lot of cutting and pasting I moved the material to where it fit best. I also decided to include an anthology of my own essays and an oral history that I worked on with my uncle, Russ Johnson, in 2007. I think these stories add dimension to our family history.

Sheila
It sounds like you had fun and used many of your writing and editing skills in the process, both during the conversations with Aunt Betty and back at your desk. What kinds of facts did you find yourself checking and how did you do it?

Suzan
I did quite a bit of research to confirm what my aunt told me. For example, had she correctly recalled the names of the authors of books her mom read in the evenings? Did she accurately describe the Delaval cream separator? Were the dates she gave for historical events accurate? I Iooked up Fly-Tox. Almost without exception Aunt Betty was right on.

Sheila
Place and times–they are key in this kind of project.
What other research were you compelled to do as you listened to and wrote down Aunt Betty’s memories?

Suzan
I studied weather patterns in North Dakota. I gathered information from the Epping Historical Society. I looked up timelines for major events in history such as the Great Depression, World War II, and the WPA. I found information about North Dakota’s Governor Langer who fired my grandfather because he refused to pay a bribe.

Sheila
What were the biggest challenges in the work? And the biggest benefits?

Suzan
The biggest challenge was organizing the material into chapters that made sense.

The biggest benefits: My aunt and I spent a year working on our oral history project. Once a week we sat at her old oak dining table together while I asked questions and wrote her story. When she tired, she always suggested I stay for lunch. And I did. She is much like her sister, my mother, Alice, who died in 2007, so I was doubly thankful for this special time with my aunt and for the honest stories she told.

Sheila
Oh, we haven’t talked about photographs, which you’ve included inside the text and at the end like a mini album. What are your thoughts about including photos and arranging them in the book? Any lessons to share about how that works with the book’s production?

Suzan
Our family has a large collection of old family photos. I knew the photos would enhance the narration by providing visuals of the people mentioned in the stories. My husband was instrumental in helping me select the photos to use, cropping them, and doing the Photoshop magic to enhance the images. When I prepared the material for publication through Amazon’s Create Space, I was disappointed to find out that using color greatly increased the cost of each book so I went with black and white. Even so, I’m glad we could include so photos.

Sheila
How has the book been received by family and friends?

Suzan
Without exception family members who purchased a copy of the book have been thrilled with it. My friends have enjoyed it. too.

Sheila
How did you deal with print book production?

Suzan
Alphagraphics printed 50 copies of the book. Their staff used Adobe InDesign to format the book, and they did a beautiful job printing it. At our annual “Cooper Women Retreat” in July 2011, my aunt became a published writer and had her very own book signing party. (The women in my family have a weekend retreat each summer in July.)

I didn’t expect there would be much demand for the book outside the family but word spread, and people kept asking me for copies. I soon tired of mailing books. I decided to use Amazon’s Createspace for distribution. The book is now available for purchase from Amazon. If anyone is interested in purchasing a copy, search Amazon’s web site for Suzan Huney. If you search for Women of Strength, you’ll get books on body-building!

Sheila
What advice do you have for others who want to do oral history projects and turn the information into books?

Suzan
Assemble the questions you want to ask. Get a recorder (my husband downloaded a recorder to our computer and it worked very well). Take copious notes and record each interview. I preferred to work with my written notes, but it was handy to be able to listen to the recording. Do the research necessary to tell an accurate story. If your story includes an elder, get to working, don’t delay until it is too late.

Sheila
What do you look back on now and feel strongly about concerning this project?

Suzan
I wish I had done an oral history project like this with my parents, especially my father, Judd Huney. He was a storyteller like my aunt. I’m also sorry that Mom and Dad didn’t lived to read Aunt Betty’s book.

Sheila
I believe that writing really does make a difference — what difference has this project made in your life and the lives of your family members?

Suzan
Aunt Betty’s stories are in print. Whenever we want we can turn the pages to remember, to share, to laugh, to applaud our ancestor’s lives and strength.

I’ve been writing essays with a family focus since 1994 when I took your one-day class titled Telling Your Own Story. I’m thankful I can apply what I learned from you and from other teachers and bring my family’s stories to print.

Sheila
Thanks, Suzan. I know Writing It Real members will find your experience useful as they work on family histories. And thank you for affirming that writing well is an evolving process–we often go back and forth among topics, projects, and genres.

I’m looking forward to posting an excerpt from your work next week.