![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/Images\/Bates_Magazine\/spring05\/talktome2.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAndrea L\u2019Hommedieu is raising her voice to an elderly alumnus. But not to worry. Bates\u2019 oral historian is neither condescending to nor scolding Irving Isaacson \u201936. (And if she were, this Lewiston lawyer and World War II spy could certainly take care of himself.)<\/p>\n
Instead, it\u2019s all about the tape. L\u2019Hommedieu is recording an interview with Isaacson for the Bates College Oral History Project and, with the microphone directed away from her, is ensuring that the transcriptionist can hear her clearly. It\u2019s typical of the care that, along with a genuine fascination with her subjects, L\u2019Hommedieu brings to her work.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Isaacson is L\u2019Hommedieu\u2019s first interviewee for the project, an initiative marking Bates\u2019 Sesquicentennial this year. At least 40 other Bates people will also sit for L\u2019Hommedieu\u2019s microphone \u2014 alumni, staff, friends, and faculty sharing eight decades\u2019 worth of College memories.<\/p>\n
Over the 18 months of the project, L\u2019Hommedieu\u2019s interviews will be transcribed, annotated, and preserved in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library. They will join the 440 interviews conducted since 1998 for the Edmund S. Muskie Oral History Project, which ended in December, as well as materials from an earlier Bates-focused oral history initiative.<\/p>\n
Why oral history? From the correspondence of founder Oren Cheney to the records of the Stanton Bird Club, the archives hold all manner of documentary material telling Bates\u2019 story. But oral history brings an essential human vibrancy to those dry papers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are people telling you what it was like to be there,\u201d says L\u2019Hommedieu. \u201cYou get what their feelings were about it. You hear their voices, their inflections.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moreover, she says, oral histories \u201cprovide clues that lead you to the hard facts.\u201d Though memory gaps and personality quirks can make the facts in an interview suspect, those same quiddities can serve history in and of themselves. If five interviewees all associate the same wrong date with an event, the reason why might be important.<\/p>\n
L\u2019Hommedieu quotes Alessando Portelli, an influential Italian oral historian: \u201cOral sources tell us not just what people did, but what they wanted to do, what they believed they were doing and what they now think they did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oral histories also build bridges \u2014 between the people at Bates now and the ones who came before, between visiting researchers and the College, and between the archives and the campus community as a whole. And if those relationships lead to donations of important personal papers, memorabilia, and ephemera to the archives, so much the better.<\/p>\n
\u201cI also hope that the project will raise awareness about the importance of oral history generally,\u201d adds Katherine Stefko, archives and special collections director. The Muskie project, directed by the late U.S. senator\u2019s longtime associate Don Nicoll, had the incidental effect of establishing at Bates the capacity to gather oral history. That benefited not only the archives but the academic offerings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re unique in having a professional oral historian on staff,\u201d says Stefko. L\u2019Hommedieu has coached classes in gathering oral history, and this summer will issue an updated edition of the oral history manual developed during the Muskie project.<\/p>\n
The project is feeding the Sesquicentennial celebration, too. Each month L\u2019Hommedieu posts a new interview excerpt on a page linked to the \u201cSes-Q\u201d Web site. She and Stefko hope to supply audio snippets to historical exhibitions on campus, as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to ask people: When you went out into life, what was it that Bates College gave you?\u201d L\u2019Hommedieu says. \u201cWhat was the sense you had from being at Bates? How did Bates serve you?\u201d<\/p>\n
She came to Bates in January 1998 for the Muskie project. A Maine native and former children\u2019s librarian in Falmouth and Westbrook, she was hired as project assistant. Transcriptionist Nicci Leamon came on at the same time.<\/p>\n
Although L\u2019Hommedieu had no formal background in oral history, she proved to have the right stuff intellectually and personally. \u201cShe\u2019s comfortable with a broad range of folks, and she makes them comfortable,\u201d says Stefko. \u201cShe has an extraordinary memory for the people she\u2019s met and their relationship to Bates, so she knows the right people and the right questions to ask.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the same time, though, \u201cI like to let them digress,\u201d L\u2019Hommedieu says. \u201cThey know more about what they know than I do. If I let them continue, they often take me to a place I never knew to ask about.\u201d<\/p>\n
On this sunny December day, in the fourth-floor conference room in Irv Isaacson\u2019s law office, L\u2019Hommedieu asks about his trips with the debate team.<\/p>\n
\u201cBates was pretty provincial,\u201d he says, gazing into the air as if his answers were there. \u201cIt was a big deal for us to come out of the country, so to speak, to go to Boston or New York.\u201d A smiling L\u2019Hommedieu watches intently as Isaacson speaks.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love stories,\u201d she says later. \u201cThat\u2019s the key for me.\u201d College memories.<\/p>\n