The historical society preserves the history of our region by recording interviews with area residents sharing their oral histories. Capturing their voices adds an extra dimension of meaning and sometimes humor to  exhibits and other museum and publication interpretations.  Read on…

There are 40+ recordings of early settler interviews done in the 1980s on audiocassette tapes that remain to be converted. An expert digitizing service will be enlisted to conduct the transfers. Money raised will be used for file conversion, file storage, possible interview transcribing, and upgrades to current interview recording equipment.

Photographer: Peggy Wendel circa 1999

One the activities of the early days of the Stanwood Area Historical Society was our interviews with old timers in the community. These early interviews were conducted by Ole and Evelyn Eide for many years.  They were members  from about 1976 until 2006.  Ole and Evelyn were much beloved by the community.  She was a local teacher and Ole was the local game warden.  They lived on Camano Island but Ole grew up on Leque Island with the family home just behind a dike that threatened every time there was a super high tide or flood. 
All this is to say that while we wish everything could be written down about our history there are many other ways to gather stories and our Oral History Program is critical to that effort in order to display, research, write about and continue our mission to preserve and interpret Stanwood and Camano Island local history.
Our interviews are also no longer just pioneer families but residents of all of our occupations, avocations and heritage. They are also not necessarily limited only to elders.
Many of our members have contributed their voices to our oral history program as subjects and interviewers (sometimes both) and this will continue.  We welcome volunteers to help us with this and our other crucial preservation and conservation projects in the future. Oral history projects require careful interview preparation, recording equipment, scheduling, notetaking, cataloging and transcribing. New AI technologies promise to make this easier, but still require good management.  Please contact us if you can contribute or help!