COMMUNITY HISTORY PROJECT
Welcome to our Community History Project! This project was created by our Y.O.U. Council Members who were interested in learning more about the experiences of older adults in our community while providing them with companionship and a feeling that the stories and experiences are important and respected. We started the interviews at the Allen R. Baca Center in Round Rock and hope to continue recording interviews from all over Williamson County. If you are interested in participating, please email us! We have questions and forms you can use to interview any of the older adults you know, or you can join us at one of our interview days.
We have started documenting the interviews below. Take a look and learn something about the wonderful people who live here!
Linda
Linda was born in Burbank, California in 1942. It was a simpler world, but “every child feels that life is simpler.” After 5 years, her family moves from California, across the country to a much different New York. Linda grows up horseback riding. She goes every weekend, and a she get’s to be old enough she begins to ride competitively. She misses the open space she had in California, and when she becomes a teenager, her family moves back to California.
Alfonso Martinez
Alfonso Martinez was born in San Antonio Texas in 1957. As a child he enjoyed being outside “The world was beautiful and something to take in, the trees, lake, clouds, seashore.” He would travel to Corpus Christi and California with his family.
Kathlene "Kathy" Abbott
Born in 1941, Kathy grew up in the panhandle of Texas. In high school, she was a typical student with dreams of finding love and having a good life. She mostly focused on the sport of tennis at the time and was an overall decent player, in her opinion.
Marion Byron
Marion was born in Montague, Massachusetts and lived there until she was in her 50s. "I remember that it was interesing that my mother had me in my grandparent's town specifically. My mother went to Montague so that I would be born there."
Rose Marie "Posey" McClung
Rose Marie got the nickname “Posey” from her twin sister. Posey was born in 1925 in San Antonio, TX, where her family owned the Menger Hotel. “I was born after World War I. We were very fortunate during the Great Depression. We had a huge two story house and were prosperous, so we made it through.”
Judy Siebrandt
Judy was born in Ontario, Oregon on December 8, 1954. She said that during her early life “everything happened” including the landing on the moon, the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy, end of McCarthyism, and the Kent State shootings. “It was an extremely exhilarating and scary time to grow up.”
