Month: August 2017

New “Stirrup” Story Added to Web Site

New “Stirrup” Story Added to Web Site

Sandy Snider Stahl

It has taken me nearly as long to update my web page at sandystahlauthor.com with my new story on the development of stirrups as it did to write it! Problem seemed to be with our satellite network connection, which is just a fact of our rural living. Finally though, it’s there!

Please check out the story by going to Stirrups – An Historical View. It’s one of the stories under the Nonfiction section of my web site. Then please leave a comment or share with a friend…but mostly I hope you enjoy learning a little more about the history of stirrups.

Oral History

Oral History

Sandy Snider Stahl

Yesterday I started an oral history interview with a wonderful friend, a 97 year old ranch woman. I shared my first set of interview questions so she could have time to think about her responses. She said the questions are hard and I told her we’d use them as a basis to start the interview and could go anywhere she wanted from there.

Oral history interviewee
Virginia at 93 years young

As I drove home, I thought about my potential responses. Here is a sampling of the questions; how would you answer them?

  • What is something that changed the way you lived (like electricity, running water, automobiles) ? Describe your life before and after.
  • What are you proudest of and what do you most regret?
  • How has your life been different than you imagined it would be when you were young?
  • What wisdom that you’ve gained in your life would you like to pass on to your children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and great great grandchildren?

Hackamores

Sandy Snider Stahl

Got an email from Martin Black today, which reminded me of something I want to share.

Rebel and hackamore
Using Martin Black bosal, hangar and mecate on Rebel

In my first novel Magpie Summer. Allie gives a talk at her 4-H meeting on hackamores and references Hackamore Reinsman by Ed Connell.  Martin Black now has the distribution right on Connell’s neat little book. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the history and use of hackamores.

If you don’t know, Martin Black is an Idaho rancher, braider, clinician and sells traditional vaquero gear. I am proud to say I bought my favorite  hackamore and mecate through Martin’s web site.

Oral and Written Histories

Sandy Snider Stahl

The Powder River County Extension office is sponsoring a workshop on obtaining oral histories and I’m excited about attending next week. The workshop is an outgrowth of a statewide project to assist communities record  stories and the presenter is Paul Lachapelle, Extension Specialist at MSU Community Development.

The StoryCorps archive is the largest digital collection of human voices and are stored   in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. for future generations. The extension office shares guidelines to simplify recording oral histories and explain the digital recording and sharing process.

Similarly, Montana’s Department of Natural Resources and Conservation Districts has undertaken a project to record oral histories of ag women, a critical component of Montana’s heritage that we lose daily. I kept hearing radio ads about the project and told my mom that she needed to tell her story – after the training, maybe I’ll be able to record her story!

The contact for the oral history project is Linda Brander at LLbrander@mt.gov. and as stated on the DNRC website, “Once an oral history is completed, it will go into the oral history collection at the Montana Historical Society (at https://mhs.mt.gov/) and be placed on the DNRC website.   This will allow people from all over the world to read the histories.”