Sometimes our job as current or future archivists is not about the materials we handle, but about the people who are affected by the records we keep. On days when I am frustrated or overwhelmed, I remember an encounter I had with a patron about a year ago and realize there is a reason I love this career path. I wanted to share the story that follows- a real event that happened in the course of my job in the Local History & Genealogy department of a public library- because it is another reminder of why we do what we do. ~ Jill
She walks into the Local History & Genealogy Room as many of them do- timid, unsure. She is about my age, with long blond hair and a pretty smile. Her eyes are uncertain. She talks quickly, with a nervous energy that tells me her story long before her words do. She is here for a reason. They always are. The reference books, the obituaries, the newspapers all pause in anticipation, wondering if they have her story, if they will be what she needs.
Her mother was adopted as a baby, she explains to me breathlessly. They just learned the name of her real grandmother, who had lived in this town. She was born here, had grown up here, went to school here. They are trying to find her, they've just started their search, and would we have her old high school yearbook in our collection? She pauses, out of breath. She said what she needed to and now a bit of fear joins her anxiety. I smile, trying to convey some sort of reassurance in a single glance before answering in the affirmative and going to the yearbooks. I find the one she needs and show her to a table. The room waits, breathless. Thanking me, she pulls out her digital camera and opens the book. I leave her there, giving her privacy. Minutes tick by, quiet but expectant. Nothing but the turning of pages. Then a small sob bubbles into the hushed room, flooding every corner with its pain and relief, asking to be heard. I hear. I turn to see her standing, hunched over the page, her blond, wispy hair falling across the photograph of the grandmother she's never known. I go to her, and she looks up as she hears me approach. She holds the yearbook out to me, her eyes pleading, no longer unsure but still afraid. In a voice as innocent as a child's, she whispers. "This is the first time I've seen my grandmother." Hers are not the first tears shed here, as pieces come together and stories are rediscovered. She is not the first to cry in this room and she will not be the last. This I know. Without words, I put my arms around her and she circles her arms around my shoulders. We stand quietly there in the silence, in a moment of fragile strength, forging a bond that links the past to the present, the living to the dead.
Her mother was adopted as a baby, she explains to me breathlessly. They just learned the name of her real grandmother, who had lived in this town. She was born here, had grown up here, went to school here. They are trying to find her, they've just started their search, and would we have her old high school yearbook in our collection? She pauses, out of breath. She said what she needed to and now a bit of fear joins her anxiety. I smile, trying to convey some sort of reassurance in a single glance before answering in the affirmative and going to the yearbooks. I find the one she needs and show her to a table. The room waits, breathless. Thanking me, she pulls out her digital camera and opens the book. I leave her there, giving her privacy. Minutes tick by, quiet but expectant. Nothing but the turning of pages. Then a small sob bubbles into the hushed room, flooding every corner with its pain and relief, asking to be heard. I hear. I turn to see her standing, hunched over the page, her blond, wispy hair falling across the photograph of the grandmother she's never known. I go to her, and she looks up as she hears me approach. She holds the yearbook out to me, her eyes pleading, no longer unsure but still afraid. In a voice as innocent as a child's, she whispers. "This is the first time I've seen my grandmother." Hers are not the first tears shed here, as pieces come together and stories are rediscovered. She is not the first to cry in this room and she will not be the last. This I know. Without words, I put my arms around her and she circles her arms around my shoulders. We stand quietly there in the silence, in a moment of fragile strength, forging a bond that links the past to the present, the living to the dead.
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