Ellen Line, a master’s student specializing in gerontology, started an oral history project this past spring at her internship with Shalom Austin-Jewish Family Service. She has interviewed older adult clients such as Miriam Simmons, who worked as a journalist during the 1920s, had a job at the Works Progress Administration during the New Deal, married a Holocaust survivor, and turned 104 years-old in 2016.
“I think the coolest thing about this project is the potential for us to learn from our elders and to place them in a context where they are treasured for their knowledge and life experience,” Line says. “In our ageist society, older adults are often cast aside as irrelevant, but my work on this project, and my internship in general this year, has shown me how far from the truth that is.”
