patrickcountyoralhistoryproject

“It was the collection of a whole volume of life; the lives lived by Patrick Countians;

It was memories, voices, dreams, stories, captured on the modern day miracle of tape.”

The Patrick County Oral History Project or it’s official title Patrick County: Continuity and Change in a Rural Community began in February 1979 at an informal discussion about doing oral history in Patrick County and evolved into the project between the Patrick County Branch of the Blue Ridge Regional Library and Reynolds Homestead’s Continuing Education Center. The resulting 202 cassettes containing 102 interviews of over 300 hours partially transcribed reside in the Patrick County Branch of the Blue Ridge Regional Library and the Special Collections Department of the Carol M. Newman Library at Virginia Tech.

The project resulted in a film Up and Down Those Roads in 1982 directed and written by Elizabeth Fine with cinematography by Jerry Scheeler. Narrated by Carl Dehart, the documentary features Patrick Countians Ruth Jane Bolt, Jim Shelor, Lynn Foddrell, Posey Foddrell, John D. Hooker, Dorn Spangler, students at Meadows of Dan Elementary School and others. Slide programs and a guide to library materials were produced. This material resides in the Special Collections at Virginia Tech. A more detailed description of the holdings follows in this guide. Materials from the guide to this collection follow at the end of this document.

A grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities sponsored by the Patrick County Branch of the Blue Ridge Regional Library and Virginia Tech through the Reynolds Homestead titled “The Free State of Patrick: The County and It’s People” provided three years of funding “To engage Patrick County’s adults in recording and preserving a history of the county. To increase community use of the humanities resources of the library and the Reynolds Homestead. To provide primary materials for future research.”

This page contains several NEW resources for those interested in using the materials of the Patrick County Oral History Project. Below is a guide with details on using the materials at the Patrick County Branch of the Blue Ridge Regional Library and Special Collections at Virginia Tech.

Frank Adams describes Patrick County, Virginia, where “Appalachia meets Piedmont.” The purpose of this guide is to reawaken interest in a forgotten resource on Patrick County history. This web page gives the names of those interviewed along with information such as the interviewer and date of the interviews and whether transcriptions are available. The indexes for subject and name are included for the first time. I transcribed the subject indexes from 3x5 cards located in three boxes at Virginia Tech. Only half of the interviews were transcribed and the index reflects only the transcribed materials.

To read any of the pdf files on this website you can download by clicking the icon to the left.

Name and Subject Index (pdf)

Not needing a government grant to preserve Patrick County’s history in 2005, I prepared these three resources about the interviews and the subject matter. Included for the first time are the name and subject indexes for the project, which have languished on 3x5 index cards for twenty years in three boxes at Special Collections at Virginia Tech virtually unknown and unused.

Using Materials in the Patrick County Branch of the Blue Ridge Regional Library

The Patrick County Branch of the Blue Ridge Regional Library contains cassette copies of all the interviews along with two copies of the six volume transcriptions.

Contact Information
116 W. Blue Ridge Street
P.O. Box 787
Stuart, Virginia 24171-0787
Phone:(276) 694-3352
Fax:(276) 694-6744
E-mail: patcolib@yahoo.com
(map)

Hours:
10 AM - 6 PM Monday & Wednesday
10 AM - 8 PM Tuesday & Thursday
10 AM - 2 PM Friday & Saturday

A Cassette player is available at the Patrick County Branch for patrons wishing to listen to the tapes.

Using Materials At Virginia Tech

The materials of the Patrick County Project are available in the Special Collections Department of the Carol M. Newman Library at Virginia Tech. Six Volumes of Transcriptions from the tapes are available at Virginia Tech along with the Patrick County Branch, Martinsville Branch and Bassett Historical Center of the Blue Ridge Regional Library

Please note to listen to the tapes you must order the collection from storage, which takes at least two days to arrive in the Special Collections Department. Listening to reel-to-reel tapes is not possible at present, but equipment to listen to the cassettes is available in Blacksburg. Please contact Special Collections about requesting at specref@vt.edu or (540) 231-6308

Internet Links To Materials at Virginia Tech

Other materials at Virginia Tech relating to the Patrick County Oral History Project

The Patrick County Project oral history collection: in the Special Collections Division, University Libraries, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University: A Guide.

Compiled by Dorothy McCombs. (Also available at the Patrick County Branch, Martinsville Branch and the Bassett Historical Center of the Blue Ridge Regional Library)

Compiled by Dorothy McCombs. (Also available at the Patrick County Branch and the Bassett Historical Center of the Blue Ridge Regional Library)

One of those interviewed stated, “I wanted the children of Patrick County to know how we lived back then…if somebody doesn’t do something they’ll never know.” This explains why I took on this project because I was concerned that a great source of Patrick County history was forgotten and not easy to use in the best case. It gives us a remarkable snapshot of time in the early 1980s that I believe future generations will appreciate it if this material is used, but “if somebody doesn’t do something they’ll never know.” It is my hope an increased awareness of the contents of this collection will increase interest to finish the transcribing and digitalize the recordings for preservation in the future. At present, less than half of the tapes are transcribed and they need to be digitized.

Thanks to Amy Elizabeth Snyder, who typed and combined both indexes for this guide.

Special Thanks to Joyce Nester and John Jackson, Special Collections Librarians at Virginia Tech for their assistance at Virginia Tech.