StoryCorps Rochester, NY

On July 2nd, 2009, the StoryCorps Oral History project opened its mobile recording booth at Rundel Library, as part of the City of Rochester’s 175th Anniversary Celebration. For the next month, over two hundred Rochesterians recorded their stories, and we’ve hearing them over the last year during Morning Edition/All Things Considered. read more

It’s Thursday, the day we hear stories that were recorded here in Rochester last summer by StoryCorps, the national oral history project. Today we hear from Anthony Venturo and his son Michael. Their visit to the mobile recording booth gave Anthony the chance to about what it was like to grow up during World War Two.

When she was just 15 years old, Lydia Timmons left school to go to work full time, because the economic downturn had severely affected her mother and 9 brothers. That was in 1941. read more

John Reid was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, and has lived and worked all over the world. His son Thomas was born in Bangkok, and spent his early years in Bagladesh. Both men now live in New York State. When the StoryCorps Mobile Recording Booth came to Rochester last summer, Thomas took the opportunity to ask his father some very personal questions.

Elizabeth Gocker moved to Rochester with her husband Paul in 1946. When the StoryCorps oral history project came to Rochester last summer, she talked with her friend David Sliney about the transition to living in the Flower City.

Betty Miller just celebrated her one-hundred-first birthday at Valley Manor in Rochester. When the StoryCorps Mobile Recording Booth came to Rochester last summer, Betty shared some of her early memories with her friend Cheryl Smith.

William Molinere was born and raised in Southern Louisiana, in a little town called Point Barry that has been washed away by hurricanes and floods. He now lives in Canandaigua with his wife Marjorie Torelli. read more

Emeterio Otero is the Executive Dean at the Damon City Campus of Monroe Community College. read more

It’s Thursday, the day we hear stories that were recorded here in Rochester last summer by StoryCorps, the national oral history project. Today we hear from George Nadorff (NAH-dorf), who talks with his wife Ann Betz about growing up with parents who had lived through World War II in Germany.

Stanley Witmeyer began his professional life as a basketball player, after playing for the Rochester Institute of Technology, and retired as RIT’s Director of the School of Art and Design. He shared his story with his friend Beatrice Anderson, when the StoryCorps oral history project came to Rochester last summer.