First taping completed, second on deck for the weekend.

Howdy folks!

Sorry for the long delay in writing. The past couple of weeks at work have really kept me on my toes. Back to the GG files update. The first week of filming was really fantastic. My whole purpose was to just get her used to being on camera which is something she has never done before. I turned it on and just had a normal conversation with her until I felt like she had forgotten it was there which thankfully she did.

I really just wanted to get some basic facts from her so that I could go back and revist those stories later. She definitely told me a few things I never knew before like that 6 of her sisters were born in the house she lived in, one was born in a hospital and she was born in a house two blocks away. She doesn't know why she was born in that house, and there is no one alive to ask, but she thinks it was because it was her grandfather's house and they may have been remolding the one she lived in at the time. My grandfather was shipped off to WWII for three years. She told me how they met, through work, but that after they were married he had to be transfered because it was an actual law at the time that married people could not work together. She and her sisters used to love to go an see movie at the theater down the street. How they used to take the train everywhere and that she watched both the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate be built. How her family obtained their first car.


It was a lot of little things like that that give you a window inside a person and to how their particular life was formed.

This weekend I am hoping to film a couple of hours with her and really get deeper into her childhood. In the coming months I am going to be heading to Napa to visit her sister Murray and her husband who have so many photographs from the family and interview them as well to just add to the story.

So far this is turning out to be a really great project and should keep me quite busy this year.

Happy Monday!

And so the Project Begins...

On Saturday I am beginning my 2010 project involving my beloved grandmother, Lenore Mary (Sullivan) Basso. Born September 17th, 1914 in Berkeley, California. I am going to be videotaping my "interviews" of her for a couple of hours biweekly and transcribing her stories. She really is one of the most interesting people I have ever met and one of my favorite people to talk to.

In her life time she has lived through:

World War I
World War II
18th Amendment prohibits alcohol
19th Amendment gives women right to vote
The Great Depression
The "New Deal"
Seeing the Golden Gate Bridge Built
Korean War
Alaska and Hawaii becoming States
Desegregation
The Kennedy Assassination
Vietnam War
Watergate
Hippies
Yuppies
The Moon Landing
17 Presidents
8 Popes
7 Sisters
4 Children
6 Grandchildren
3 Great-Grandchildren
Television being put into homes (both black and white and color)
Telephones
Cars
Refrigerators
Calculators
Computers
Cell Phones
Microwaves
Electric Trains
Electric Cars
The Internet
She didn't learn to drive until she was 43 years old. She still does not have a computer and has no intention of ever owning one or using one. She is quick witted and has an opinion on everything whether you like it or not. She is a die-hard Democrat and a progressive Catholic.... How that is even possible is nothing short of amazing.

You will never meet anyone like her and would be lucky to know her.

And that is why I am doing this project. To document our family history and the history she has lived through. Because no one can tell a story like my GG.

(the above picture is from 1936, shot by a friend of hers that was practicing to be a photographer in San Francisco.)