Here’s a sample of our work.

Your History MN oral history writers meet with your loved one to record favorite family stories. With each meeting, we provide a free audio recording of our conversation. We can also provide a written transcript and/or an oral history narrative. The transcript is just a written version of exactly what was said when we talked. The oral history narrative is more like a story. For some oral history narratives, we may do additional research to clarify or provide more information on certain points. We can also include provided photos and provide printed versions of the narratives.

Below is an example of an oral history narrative we created for a client. This one didn’t include additional research.

The Infamous California Trip of 1985

It was the fall of 1985. Keith and Wini were married with 3 kids. Keith worked as an electrical engineer at John Deere and regularly travelled for work. He had been asked to fly to California to check out a company that made draft sensors for tractors, which helped sense how much pull was needed on a hitch, and then the sensor would compensate up and down to try to keep the same pull on the tractor. The company was based outside of Los Angeles, CA. Wini decided to accompany him on the trip, to spend some time in the sunshine and do a little shopping.

At the time, their youngest, Pam, was 4 years old, their next oldest, John, was 9, and their eldest, Karl, was 14. Karl thought he was old enough to babysit his younger siblings for a couple days, but Wini and Keith disagreed, especially since they’d be in California, across the country from their home in IA.

Instead, they asked a friend’s college-aged daughter, Kim*. Karl knew and liked Kim, so that made the “babysitter” decision go over more smoothly.  

“And she knew Karl,” says Wini. “But I don’t know that she would have been prepared for John—who was about nine—and Pam having certain rules. It was a lot to take on.” 

Keith and Wini flew to California and then got a rental car. For the visit to the company, Wini dropped Keith off, was supposed to go shopping for about an hour, and then pick him up. She went to a department store, found a dress she liked, and tried it on. The dress had a long back zipper, and it was difficult to get the zipper up and down. She thinks she was probably trying to get the zipper down when she dislocated her shoulder.

“And I had dislocated my shoulder several times before that, so I thought maybe I could just pop it back in. Because sometimes if it wasn’t very bad, you could just raise your arm and it would pop right back in,” says Wini. “That was not working. And I was in the dressing room going, ‘Oh, oh, oh…’ And finally, the lady in the dressing room next to me says, ‘Are you okay?’

“I replied, ‘No, I’m not. I think I’ve dislocated my shoulder. Could you help me get out of this dress and get dressed?’”

The woman went to get a salesclerk because she likely didn’t want to get involved in dealing with a stranger’s medical problem. The clerk helped Wini get out of the dress and into her clothes. Her outfit must not have involved putting anything over her head because that would’ve been fairly impossible to do with a dislocated shoulder. 

The salesclerk said, “We’ve called an ambulance.” Wini says she replied, “No, I don’t want an ambulance. It’s just a dislocated shoulder. I’ve done this before. It can be put back in fairly easily.” 

But the ambulance was already on the way. When it arrived, Wini refused the ambulance.

Of this, Keith remarks wryly, “Standard procedure on both sides.”

Wini asked to use the phone to call Keith. She was thinking that someone from the company he was visiting could bring him to the store to pick her up. Since she had dropped him off, she knew the name of the business. 

“I called the business, and said, ‘My husband’s there visiting from John Deere, and I have a dislocated shoulder. He knows I’ve done this before, but I need him to come pick me up because I probably shouldn’t drive,’” says Wini. “They said, ‘He’s already left.” But I said, “So if he doesn’t have a car, he’s probably out in the parking lot or in the lobby waiting for me. They said, ‘We’ll find him. We’ll bring him to you.’”

After another half hour, Keith arrived. Someone recommended a hospital, and Keith drove Wini to the hospital.

She recalls, “And they look at me and say, ‘Well, it looks like it could be a dislocated shoulder.’ And I’m like, ‘I can guarantee you that is a dislocated shoulder.’”

It became quickly apparent that the doctor had never put a dislocated shoulder back in place. The staff had a long discussion on how to fix Wini’s dislocated shoulder. 

The solution they landed on was to get a bucket full of water, have Wini lie on her stomach, and then the doctor handed her the bucket of water. Wini remembers, “And he said, ‘The muscles are all in knots right now. And so, this will relax your arm and then we can pull it back in.’ And I’m like, ‘I’m not relaxed. I’m holding a bucket full of water.’”

Regardless, she held the bucket of water off the side of the table with her dislocated arm.

“Anyway, after—I don’t know how long—felt like an eternity, probably five or ten minutes, he comes back in, he pulls on my arm, and it pops right back in,” says Wini.

But while she was lying there, Keith and Wini were worried because their flight back to Iowa was leaving soon. They told the doctor they needed to hurry, and he assured them that he’d give them a medical emergency card, so the airline would change their tickets.

Meanwhile, back at home, Kim was dealing with a teenager, a 9-year-old, and a maybe-not-as sweet-as-she-thought-4-year-old. Pam had some specific rules around bathing, and she firmly believed in adhering to these rules. The main rule was, she only had to take a bath every other day.

The maybe-not-as sweet-as-she-thought-4-year-old, Pam

The first night wasn’t a problem, but when Kim tried to get Pam to take a bath again the next night, Pam threw a fit.

Wini remembers, “I’m sure she was thinking, ‘What happened to this sweet little girl?’ And by then she’s a little frustrated—been planning on babysitting one night—and I’m sure Karl and John were picking at each other a little bit here and there.”

Kim was also feeding and cleaning up after the kids, which meant loading the dishes into the dishwasher. The family lived in an old house that they’d been renovating. The house didn’t come with a dishwasher, so Wini and Keith bought a portable dishwasher. A portable dishwasher hooks up to a kitchen faucet with a hose, and then lets out water through an opening in the bottom of the hose attachment.

After their trip to the hospital, Wini and Keith missed their flight back to Iowa and couldn’t get onto another flight until the next day. That meant they needed Kim to stay an extra day to watch the kids.

Pam was in preschool, John was in grade school, and Karl was a freshman in high school. During the day, the kids weren’t home. However, by the time Wini and Keith tried to call home, it was late afternoon, school was out, and everyone should’ve been home. But the phone just kept ringing and ringing. 

They decided to call one of their neighbors, a woman who lived in a little house next door. Wini and Keith reached the woman on the phone, explained the situation, and asked her to go over to the house and check on Kim. 

Kim was there with the children, and everyone was fine. Kim returned to the neighbor’s house to call Wini and Keith back. They asked Kim to stay an extra night, and she agreed.

The reason they couldn’t get Kim on the phone was that the phone line had shorted out. When Kim had hooked the dishwasher to the sink, she’d make the mistake of leaving the stopper in the sink. So, as the water drained back out of the dishwasher, the sink had filled up and overflowed. The water flooded the kitchen sink, then ran onto the floor, through the floor, and shorted out the phone line. 

So, Kim had no phone until Wini and Keith got home and contacted the phone company. If she had an emergency, she would have had to run to the neighbor, but, of course, by then, she’d met the neighbors. Her parents were also likely checking in on her, too. 

Wini says, “I remember it was somewhat dramatic for Kim, and she must have gone home and said, ‘I am never doing that again.’”

Keith adds, “Her mom told us later, ‘Thank you for letting Kim babysit, because that’s the best birth control I’ve ever heard of.’”

*Kim’s name has been changed to protect her identity.

This narrative is 1,412 words. The conversation was 15:49 minutes. It took 2.5 hours to write and edit, so the charge for the narrative was $75. Added to the initial meet and greet of $60, and an hour-long conversation (including free audio recording), the total cost to the client was $165.