Saturday's Internet Edition, May 17, 2008.
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“All through the late ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s, I had a feeling that these personal World War II accounts should be preserved,” Story said. “I had that feeling as a little boy. I always tried to get my mother and dad to record their memories of these experiences, but that never happened.”
Leigh Anne Groves also grew up listening to her father discuss his war experiences.
“I’ve always been fascinated by war stories,” Groves said. “My father was in the Korean War. “I would listen for hours at a time as he recounted stories of the war and some of the horrifying things he saw. Sometime I would get teary-eyed when I heard of the things he went through over there.”
Today, Story is a resident of Piedmont Crossing Retirement Community. Groves is Piedmont Crossing’s director of fund development and public relations. Last year, Story was also president of Piedmont Crossing’s residents association, and the two of them got to know each other well. Story told Groves about his interest in recording memoirs of first-person World War II accounts and Groves offered support in such an activity. Several months ago, they invited Roy Gilliland, curator of the N.C. Aviation Museum in Asheboro, to visit Piedmont Crossing and record interviews with certain residents, who had served in World War II, about their memories of the war.
Now Groves and Story plan to continue this activity.
“We’ve got an additional group of people who did not get interviewed on our first go-around,” Story said. “Leigh Anne and I are going to do this together. She’ll do the video-taping and I’ll help out with the legwork when she needs it.”
Groves said another resident would convert her tapes to VCRs of the quality the aviation museum would accept.
Story, a retired schoolteacher who serves on the Executive Council of AARP North Carolina, found out through a fellow state AARP leader that the Smithsonian Institute in Washington would also be interested in copes of these tapes. Of course, permission from the interviewees would have to be granted before the tapes could be distributed to another location .
“I feel it’s important that we record these people,” Story said. “We are losing them at a rapid rate.”
After recording 16 other residents of the community, Story and Groves would like to reach out to World War II veterans throughout the Thomasville area. Anyone interested in talking about his or her World War II experiences to these historians are encouraged to call Story at 475-6280.
“This needs to be capitalized upon to preserve the stories of these people,” Story said of the World War II veterans. “Every time we lose one, we lose a library.”
Staff Writer Kevin Reid can be reached at 472-9500, ext. 230, or at reid@tvilletimes.com.