Tune In to the Listening Event Next week: Wanda’s Back!

Here’s a story with a sad beginning…and a happy ending.

A letter I received late last Spring from the good folks at the Chicago StoryCorps booth alerted me to yet another change to accept here in Chicago.

Here’s how they broke the news:

Dear Beth,
We’re writing to share that after eight years at the Chicago Cultural Center, this September we will be ceasing operations at the Chicago StoryBooth.

Since we first opened in 2013, StoryCorps Chicago has recorded and preserved more than 4,000 facilitated interviews, including yours.

We are grateful to the Chicago Cultural Center and DCASE; to our Chicago-based funders; to WBEZ, our local station partner, and producer Bill Healy; to the many organizations we’ve partnered with which have enabled us to preserve so many voices of Chicago; and of course, to the Chicago participants like you who have shared their stories with us.

With gratitude,
The StoryCorps Chicago Team

In the eight years that StoryCorps was located here in Chicago, three conversations I recorded in the StoryBooth aired on Chicago Public Radio. Two were conversations with writers who were in the memoir-writing classes I lead:

1. In 2017 I interviewed Giovanna Breu. a retired journalist who had a long career with Life, Giovanna had covered the funeral and burial of President John F. Kennedy for the magazine in 1962.
2. In 2019, StoryCorps recorded a conversation I had with Wanda Bridgeforth. Among many other things Wanda talked about during that interview, she outlined the boundaries she grew up with on Chicago’s South Side. “When I was a kid, if you crossed east on Cottage Grove Avenue, a policeman would come out of nowhere, ask where you were going and escort you right back across the street.”

And then in 2019, when StoryCorpscontacted my friend Nancy Faust, the renowned retired White Sox baseball organist to see if she’d be willing to let them record a conversation with her in the Chicago StoryCorps booth, Nancy agreed “as long as Beth Finke is the one who interviews me.” What fun that interview was, and what an honor to be the interviewer Nancy Faust insisted on. The conversations with Wanda Bridgeforth and with Nancy Faust are now featured in two separate posts on their StoryCorps blog.

But wait. There’s more! Yesterday I received additional good –and very flattering – news.Here’s their letter:

As you may know, the Chicago StoryCorps booth has now closed its doors for the public at the Chicago Cultural Center, and we’re moving on with a final listening event. We chose to feature your conversation with Wanda and other memorable stories for this closing virtual event on August 26th from 6:00pm -7:3-pm hosted by Nestor Gomez. Would you be available to join us for a Q&A for this event?

No specifics yet about how you can tune in to the listening event, or what I have to do to participate, but You know me: I said yes. I also mentioned that while I haven’t been face-to-face with Wanda since March of 2020, we do keep in touch by phone. You Safe & Sound readers already know I have Wanda to thank for us getting so much positive attention from StoryCorps –she’s a superstar!

My appreciation goes out to Amy Tardif, Regional Manager of the Chicago StoryBooth for listening, to Bill Healy, the talented producer and great guy who put together the StoryCorps conversations that aired on WBEZ, and to the entire StoryCorps Chicago team. Thanks for the memories!