Smoky Valley Historical Association Oral Histories: Anna Fuchs (January 23, 1986)

Описание: It's time for #FlashbackFriday, and this is the penultimate (second to last) oral history recorded through the efforts of Elston Flohr in the 1980s.
This interview with Anna Fuchs on January 23, 1986, is a perfect example of why its important to engage in preservation efforts regularly and as soon as possible. The audio is good on this one, but you'll notice that the visuals were almost entirely lost forever as a result of magnetic tape deterioration.

Anna's story centers around her experiences finding a new home out of the Orphan Train efforts that ran 1854 through 1929.
The history starts with reproduction of a PBS interview that was originally broadcast in 1979 and then replayed on Charles Kuralt's Sunday Morning program in 1986 - just before the local interview.
Anna was born in New York City to Hungarian immigrants, but by the time she was age 9 or 10, both her parents had died and she went to an orphanage.
In a group of 9, she was brought on a Orphan Train journey to McPherson in December 1924. She was taken in by Swedish American immigrant Jenny Bengston. Jenny was unmarried and ran a local boarding house.
Thanks to Jenny's support, a student loan program, and local work in the tag office while she studied; Anna graduated from McPherson College and entered a career in insurance. This included everything from helping farmers on their wheat loans to becoming the expert on an early IBM computer.
Although raised by Jenny as her child, it wasn't until Anna was in her 40s that she was officially legally adopted. It was a step that allowed Anna to care for Jenny as she entered old age and have tax benefits.

This is just one part of an ambitious set of oral history recordings under the direction of Elston Flohr, who was a member of the association's Board of Directors and part of the faculty of the Department of English, Theater and Speech at Bethany College. Those interviews are part of the museum archive collection, and there are about 30 Beta and VHS cassette recordings in the series, plus audio cassette tapes.
They were created out of a project by the Smoky Valley Historical Association - Kansas and are presented here with permission of the association.

Digitization of these videos was made possible with a small Nutt grant from the McPherson County Community Foundation.

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