How We Found Women to Interview

Originally, our goal had been to collect a hundred birth stories. We didn’t come close. Even these thirty stories took over two years to locate, complete and transcribe.

The first person we interviewed, Mrs L.G was the friend of a friend of one of the midwives Maryanne knew. Mrs G referred us to the second person we interviewed, but we had already realized that the personal referral approach was going to take far too long.

We put together a letter of introduction and a description of the project, and sent it to the directors of every seniors’ residence in the city. We explained how we would conduct the interviews:

“Previous interviews have taken place in the privacy of the woman’s own home, using a prepared questionnaire as a guide and a tape-recorder to ensure accuracy. We conceal the identity of any participant who wishes us to do so and we are always happy to have a friend or family member present during the interview. Our goal is a relaxed and comfortable conversation. We have no interest in pressing for information the participant is unwilling to offer.”

We asked for permission to make a presentation to the women residents themselves, to ask for volunteers.

It’s important to understand that the women we spoke to may have been advancing in age, but they were all still managing their own affairs. They were entirely capable of understanding the project, the objectives and the process, and the decision to participate was theirs and theirs alone to make. Those who did so were not only fully informed but also enthusiastic and supportive of our efforts. We did not suggest or imply that these adult women should “check” to see if their grown children “approved” of their involvement. Again, the decision about whether or not to reach out to their children was theirs and theirs alone.

If you think you recognize your own family story, and would like to know more, please get in touch via the contact page. Connecting generations was the whole point of the project, after all.

The presentations generated lots of interest, and our sign up sheets filled up at every residence we visited. Very quickly, we had more work than we could handle.

At first, we did every interview together, and tag-teamed on the work of transcribing each one into the computer. We were using a basic personal cassette tape recorder, with the built-in microphone. The sound quality, especially with some of the softer-spoken women, was poor and it used to take us about eight hours to transcribe a 60 minute interview. Eventually, we learned about directional microphones, with the fuzzy covers. Maryanne bought one. By that time, we had begun doing interviews by ourselves, so we shared it. It had a slightly more intimidating effect on some of our subjects than the tape recorder alone, but it made all the difference in the world to the quality of the recording.

We also gave up on our amateur attempts to transcribe the interviews. We hired a professional. The relief was immense. It felt like the best decision anyone ever made.

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Materials Archive

All the recordings (on cassette tape), and all the paper (including interview transcripts, notes, and random thoughts) are stored for safe-keeping in the University of Saskatchewan Archives. It’s all embargoed for the time being. Eventually, once this website project is completed, I plan to release the original materials to students of Saskatchewan and women’s history.

All the digital files are stored on my computer, backed up many times over. None of the digital material is available to the public. Not yet, anyway. That may change at some point in the future.