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Library patrons share their stories at Main Street Library’s free festival

Share your story: Open Mic and Oral Histories program culminates storytelling series

Seven community members stood, one by one, in front of an audience on June 6 at Main Street Library and shared their stories. From difficult childhoods to ghost encounters, each story offered a unique perspective and insight on the teller’s life.

Newport News resident Mendel Williams, right, creates a collage with the help of Peninsula Fine Arts Center volunteer Jacqueline McCormick, center, at the Share Your Story program June 6 at Main Street Library. At left, Adrian Whitcomb and Barbara Drucker

Seven community members stood, one by one, in front of an audience on June 6 at Main Street Library and shared their stories. From difficult childhoods to ghost encounters, each story offered a unique perspective and insight on the teller’s life.

“Shrapnel shattered our rose-colored glasses,” said Marilyn Hargrove, the first presenter, who described growing up in Newport News during World War II. “Our childhood was shortened and distorted, and no one came through unscathed.”

As the only black students in a school of 2,000 in Canada, Mendel Williams and her siblings looked forward to seeing black faces on trips to the United States. “Others counted license plates, we counted skin color,” she said.

Dorothy Ward took her listeners back to the 1940s and her family’s home in Queens, N.Y. She demonstrated spending sweltering afternoons on the stoop waiting for her father’s return from work and her mother’s instructions to dab her face with a handkerchief because, “Horses sweat, men perspire – and women glow,” she said.

Barbara Drucker Smith shared the story of “Edna,” a lifelong swimmer who conquered many of the world’s seas and oceans before entering Virginia Beach’s Polar Plunge at age 71. Smith later admitted parts of the story were based on her own life.

In addition to performing their stories for the library audience, Share Your Story program participants could record their oral histories privately on a CD to take home and create a collage based on their lives, courtesy of the Peninsula Fine Arts Center.

Many participants had worked with professional storyteller Dylan Pritchett at earlier workshops and practice sessions to prepare for sharing their stories. The programs were part of the Newport News Public Library System’s six-month-long series that also included other performances and workshops by professional storytellers and programs on acting; Newport News, Native American and African-American history; and more. 

But not all of the presenters came to the event prepared to share a story. Shirley Martin happened into the program by chance and was inspired to share her story of overcoming an abusive childhood.

Pritchett stepped in several times with helpful hints, such as suggesting that the characters in “heavy” stories could be animals rather than people. He instructed storytellers to ask themselves what their story does because each story should do something, such as provoke tears, laughter or more, he said.

Adrian Whitcomb’s tales of his childhood in the Kecoughtan neighborhood that’s now part of Newport News had audience members roaring with laughter; while Nelson Farley’s ghostbusting adventures and Margaret Bristow’s tale of the haunted fruit vendor conjured up the possibility of spirits living among us.

The Share Your Story: Open Mic and Oral Histories program, as well as several other programs in the series, was part of the Library System’s Dr. Herbert H. Neisser Speaker Series. It was the culminating program in the series.

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