Dorothy Stover Interview Trailer, Michigan

A lifetime of knowledge and experience is showcased in this oral history "trailer" featuring Dorothy Stover. The full oral history can be found at the Heritage Museum and Cultural Center in St. Joseph, Michigan.

During the summer of 2016, Michigan students took part in the Youth Ambassadors program at the Heritage Museum and Cultural Center, developed as part of Museum on Main Street's Stories: Yes program. The students researched, conducted and transcribed the oral histories of area locals. They created short "movie trailers" for each interview so that museum visitors could quickly glean the content of the longer-format oral histories.

Dorothy Stover (00:15): In the Depression times, I can remember that there were people that were drifters because they had no place to go, and they would actually stop at houses and ask for food. My mother would always give them a plate of food. They would always be so grateful because they were hungry.

Dorothy Stover (00:48): I can remember when the American soldiers pulled out of Vietnam, and those people were so fearful of what their lives were going to be after we were gone. When the airplanes took off carrying American soldiers, these Vietnamese people would be hanging on that plane until they finally dropped to the ground. Many of them probably were killed in doing it. They would do anything to have gotten out of there.

Dorothy Stover (01:13): She was a black lady who was a seamstress, and she said how she would sit in that restaurant waiting for service and they'd go around her and around her, wouldn't take her order. Finally, they'd take her order, and when her food came, this is something, she says, "I would get less food on my plate than you would get on yours." That was someone's way of showing her that they didn't like her, they didn't want to wait on her. I didn't know that some of the colored people were hung and that sort of thing down south. The racism down there was so bad.

Dorothy Stover (02:03): I don't know. I've had a good life. I've been very lucky. My husband was successful and I never had to worry too much about money, and I had a nice family. I was glad I had four girls, because now I'm older and these girls are helping me so much. It's nice to have girls.

Asset ID: 2022.20.01
Themes: Memories, Great Depression, food insecurity, Jim Crow-era, segregation, injustice, Vietnam War, family
Date recorded: 2016
Length of recording: 02:33 m
File Type: Video
Related traveling exhibition: Crossroads: Change in Rural America
Sponsor or affiliated organization: Heritage Museum and Cultural Center, St. Joseph, Michigan
More information: https://museumonmainstreet.org/blog-node/st-joseph-benton-harbors-youth-ambassadors

Museum on Main Street storytelling platforms provide an opportunity for small and rural communities and their residents to share their thoughts, opinions, and anecdotes. However, the opinions, ideas and language expressed by individual storytellers’ may not necessarily be those maintained by the Smithsonian. Individual storytellers’ and their collaborators are solely responsible for the content of their narratives and stories.