Cary Heritage Museum Oral History Project

In the early seventies, a group of citizens came together in the-then-small, southern town of Cary, North Carolina to preserve local history and a few treasured structures. In 1974, they formed the Cary Historical Society as a non-profit organization to formally pursue their goals. One of the accomplishments of this group was to record several oral history interviews with a few prominent people of the town. Then the Society began focusing their energies on saving the Page-Walker Hotel from demolition, and most other activities fell by the wayside.

More than twenty years later, the hotel had been saved, along with a few other landmarks in town, and a museum had been built on the third floor of the Page-Walker Hotel. The offshoot group from the Cary Historical Society, known as the Friends of the Page-Walker Hotel, found that with their task accomplished they needed to refocus their energies. So they set new goals to develop a cultural arts program and to preserve local history. Thus, in 1998, an oral history program was launched by the Friends to capture the collective memories about local history from the town's citizens so those stories could be preserved for future generations.

When a dozen interviews were completed and transcribed into written form, the original tapes and a copy of the transcriptions were deposited at the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill as part of the Southern Oral History Program. There they will be preserved for the future. The interviews have been made accessible to scholars through the university system so they can be studied. Later, as more interviews were completed, subsequent submissions were made to the library. Cary's oral history program continues today through the efforts of board members of the Friends of the Page-Walker Hotel.

We continue to pursue vehicles to share information with the public to educate, enlighten and entertain them. Many of the interviews have been compiled into a book entitled, Just a Horse-Stopping Place, an Oral History of Cary, North Carolina, by Peggy Van Scoyoc. The book sells for $20.00, and proceeds support the Friends' continuing efforts to preserve Cary's history through the Cary Heritage Museum.

Be sure to visit the oral history station in the second-floor library of the Page-Walker Arts & History Center, where modern technology makes history come to life through the voices of key figures who helped make Cary history.  Using recorded oral histories, the touch screen audio-visual station lets visitors choose the pieces of history they want to see and hear, as told by Vijaya Bapat, Bob Heater, C.Y. Jordan, Jean Ladd and Herbert Bailey. The new technology enables this content to be changed and expanded so that other oral histories can be played in the future.

What is oral history?

Doing oral history involves conducting recorded interviews with people who experienced events firsthand. Through this interviewing process, we can learn about history's meaning in the lives of the people who lived it. Oral history personalizes history by giving us access to subjective stories as told by people who are typically missing from the written record. It puts a real voice to the events, complete with emotions and perceptions, prejudices and attitudes, told in everyday language. Recorded interviews can preserve oral dialects, patterns of speech and expressions. It makes history come alive as it was experienced, not just factual dry events and dates written in a textbook. It debunks the idea that written history is truth. It provides multiple perspectives. It helps us to connect with the people who are telling their stories. It offers the people interviewed an opportunity to make sense and meaning of the events of their lives. The interviews help us to cope with change. And it empowers each of us by making us aware that we are all making history.

Who have we interviewed so far?

To date, we have conducted more than 70 interviews. Several of our interviews were with two or more people. And several people were interviewed twice. Following is a list of our narrators, with the date(s) of their interview. This list includes the four interviews conducted by the Cary Historical Society. Click on the speaker icon to listen to the interview or click on the document icon to read the transcript. If prompted with "No  preview available", select "open with" and then choose "Music Player for Google Drive".

						Charles Adams	February 18, 2000
						Ralph and Daphne Ashworth	August 5, 2003
						George Bailey	March 25, 2009
						Herbert Bailey	March 31, 2009
						Lynn Banks	February 5, 2015
						Dr. Vijaya Bapat	September 17, 2013
						Clabron Barbee & Carolyn Allen	August 1, 2014
						Ron Barbee	April 14, 2015
						A. J. Bartley	November 12, 2007
						Jon Bartley	March 23, 2017
						John W. Boles	November 1, 1998
						Koka Booth	July 6, 2004
						Russell Booth	February 17, 2016
						Margaret Broadwell	December 18, 2013
						Bill Burkhardt	August 2, 1999
						Harold Burt	February 14, 2011
						Tom Byrd	January 25, 2005
						Phyllis Cain	August 26, 2009
						Randy and Fay Chandler	September 28, 2011
						Paul Cooper Jr.	March 19, 2009
						Lucille Evans Cotton	March 13, 2000
						Louise Massey Crow	July 6, 2009
						Mary Crowder	April 1, 1999
						Hilda Crumpler	March 27, 1995
						Vivian Dalmas, Rosemarie Verhoeven,  and Linda Weaver	April 30, 2013
						Vivian Dalmas, Rosemarie Verhoeven,  Linda Weaver, and Lewanna Stout	September 10, 2013
						Bertha Pleasants Daniel	July 19. 2000
						Doris Denning	June 17, 1999
						Charles Dreher	October 30, 1999
						Rachel Dunham	November 18, 1998
						Michael Edwards	January 13, 2014
						Michael Edwards	February 7, 2014
						Charlott Ellington	June 24, 2016
						Clyde Evans, Jr.	March 28, 2000
						Jeanette Evans	April 9, 2009
						Linda Evans	May 22, 2003
						Leroy and Betty Farrar	July 22, 2003
						Rev. S. J. and Feonia Farrar	May 28, 2003
						Ruth Fox	June 10, 1999
						Jimmy Gibbs	August 12, 2014
						Bob Godbold	November 14, 2000
						Joe Grissom	February 11, 2015
						Bob Heater	July 1, 1999
						Bob Heater	July 3, 1999
						Bob Heater	October 24, 2011
						Esther Ivey	March 1, 1982
						Esther Ivey	February 21, 1985
						Emma Lou and Raymond Johnson	September 30, 2001
						Sallie Jones	April 23, 2009
						Virginia Jones	April 12, 2013
						C. Y. Jordan	December 8, 2000
						Clyde (Sonny) Keisler Jr.	August 25, 2000
						Anne Kratzer	March 13, 2005
						Jean Ladd	September 20, 2013
						David Martin	September 28, 2010
						Gwen Matthews	December 9, 1999
						J. Raoul Maynard	April 1, 2015
						Robert Maynard	April 5, 2012
						Barbara Mayton-Fraser	February 18, 2016
						Guy Mendenhall	March 9, 2009
						Ruby Merritt	August 4, 2006
						Jerry Miller	August 5, 2004
						Carl Mills Jr.	June 30, 1999
						Carl Mills Jr.	July 13, 1999
						Wayne and Jean Mitchell	October 7, 2009
						Pete Murdock	February 8, 2001
						Christine Nordan	July 3, 2001
						Ned Perry	March 30, 1999
						Charlotte Phelps	March 4, 2009
						Mary Belle Phillips	June 22, 1999
						Austin Rich	July 24, 2000
						Bruce Roberts, Bob Pierce, Mary Shelton, and Shirlene Robinson	January 17, 2009
						Billy Rogers	August 2, 2000
						Carolyn Rogers	May 22, 2003
						Carolyn Sampson	March 4, 2009
						Mildred Sanderford	August 20, 2001
						John & Maggie Sears	October 10, 2012
						Fred and Marie Seeger	August 23, 2000
						Colleen Spencer	February 16, 2016
						Isobel Stephens	August 17, 2011
						Bob Strother	July 25, 2012
						Elva Templeton	January 28, 2005
						Terry "Doc" Thorne	September 19, 2012
						Margaret Travis	January 28, 2005
						Phil Upchurch	October 15, 2015
						Warren Williams	November 1, 1998
						Deborah Wright	January 3, 2000
						John Yarborough	August 21, 2000