This summer, Erin Hoopes, our Summer Oral History Coordinator, will begin a thoughtful examination of the lives of those parents of the boomer generation. Erin will examine this unique group’s experiences during World War II and life after the war as they faced coming to grips with work, marriage, parenthood, and the boundaries of family relationships.
With this project, we hope to learn how this generation set the stage for the social change of the 1960s and beyond in the Holland area. Erin will investigate the drawing and redrawing of gender roles, renegotiated in family after family as children grew and income fluctuated.
With the completion of this project, we hope to add a previously uncollected resource to the already rich oral history holdings at the Joint Archives, initiated in 1977 with the help of Dr. Elton Bruins.
But before this project can begin, we will need volunteers. Candidates will include couples, married or divorced, who were at least 18 years of age at the beginning of the war and married either before, during, or after, but before 1950. I encourage you to volunteer or contact us concerning persons who might enjoy participating in this worthwhile project. Please contact Geoffrey Reynolds at 395-7798 or archives@hope.edu to do so.