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Skinker-DeBaliviere is using oral histories to explore its past
(by Tim Woodcock - January 01, 2001)
Clayton is not the only community exploring its past through oral histories. The city neighborhood of Skinker-DeBaliviere is also mining its residents for insights into how the neighborhood has changed over the years.
This year is the neighborhood’s centennial year and community organizers plan to produce a book and DVD in time for the culmination of the celebration in October.
Many of the old-timers recall a time when white flight to the suburbs was weakening the fabric of city life generally, and banks were reluctant to make loans against homes in the neighborhood. The clearance of the Midtown neighborhood of Mill Creek Valley in the 1950s and 1960s resulted in many displaced African-American families moving to Skinker-DeBaliviere. It took a conscious effort to stabilize the neighborhood and Skinker-DeBaliviere is one of the few neighborhoods in the city that can legitimately claim to be racially integrated.
The neighborhood is taking a two-pronged approach to the oral-history project, said Jo Ann Vatcha, one of the coordinators of the project. One aspect is working with the Missouri History Museum to conduct a series of videotaped interviews with residents. The contract governing this is still being worked out. The second aspect is a series of audio-only interviews and these are being conducted by volunteers in the neighborhood.
The History Museum’s researchers have experimented with group interviews, which have the advantage of creating a synergy between participants, said Angie Dietz, program coordinator for the Missouri History Museum. In group interviews one person’s recollection can prompt another person to chime in and elaborate on the same theme, she said. But the difficulty is that the intended structure can easily get lost and the resulting dialogue is tricky to transcribe, so the museum generally stays away from this kind of interview and sticks with one-on-one interviews, she said.
So far the interviews have focused on the history of the Skinker-DeBaliviere Community Council — which is run by volunteers and a skeleton staff, with financial support from neighborhood churches and Washington University — and the deep roots of families in the 6100 block of Westminster Place, where three-term mayor Vince Schoemehl and Dan McGuire, former aldermen for the 28th Ward, are residents. The focus on this single block serves as a case study of how connections can be made within a neighborhood, Dietz said.
Other focal points for interviews will be community gatherings, such as the various concerts and fairs at Four Corners Park at Kingsbury and Des Peres; the burgeoning McPherson Community Garden; and strategies that have been used to stabilize and strengthen the neighborhood.
There is also interest in exploring the phenomenon of a cohort of people, now in their 30s and 40s, who grew up in the neighborhood, moved away and then came back to raise their own families there, Dietz said.
Those who have photographs and other materials they would be willing to loan, or are interested in contributing to the nieghborhood history in other ways, are encouraged to call Marj Weir on 863-7558.
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