Why Story Canoe?

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When my dad was 83 years old, I found this old photo of him taken in 1949.  Curious, I asked  about it. As it turns out, the raccoon belonged to his cousin Evelyn, and in telling me about it, my dad revealed part of our family history that I’d never heard before. During World War II, his family lived with Evelyn's family in Little Rock, Arkansas. My grandmother supported the war effort by working in a munitions factory, and my grandfather drove deliveries for the factory. I’d never known that they lived in Little Rock or that my grandmother had done anything besides teach school - much less make fuses for bombs! It felt like a significant piece of family history and I was hearing it for the first time because I was curious about a raccoon and the story behind it. 

Stories are everywhere: in a photo, in an old pair of shoes, in a family recipe or a scrap of paper. Even little things can bring stories to mind — important stories that are waiting to be told and gathered and saved. This raccoon continually inspires me to ask more questions, gather more stories and save them the best way I know how.