Retired BYU professors passion is oral history

OREM, Utah — For Christmas of 1964, Don Norton interviewed his father for two hours and recorded him speaking about the events of his life. Norton then transcribed the session, laboriously typed it out on a manual typewriter and surprised his father with the gift, which was placed in a large envelope marked, "Do not open until Christmas."

When the family was sitting around the tree that year and his father opened the envelope and saw what the gift was, he wept.

Norton's mother recalled that in more than 30 years of marriage, that was only the second time she had seen her husband cry. The first time was in 1930, when the couple's first child, an 18-month-old infant, contracted spinal meningitis and almost died.

"That was the beginning of my oral history work," Norton said. "I did 100 pages on my father, telling about his life as a journeyman electrician and a farmer. I think I was born to listen to people tell their life stories."

At the behest of Orem's Heritage Commission, Norton began a project in 2003-04 to interview residents of the city who had served in the military, beginning with the veterans of World War II, who were then dying at a rate of more than a thousand per day nationally. Since that time, Norton has interviewed about 100 Orem veterans. Seventy of the tape-recorded, transcribed stories can be found on Orem's website, www.orem.org, and the other 30 will be online soon.

Norton is the most recent recipient of the Walter C. Orem Award — a recognition presented by the city council and mayor to honor members of the community deemed to have demonstrated outstanding citizenship.

Born on a farm in northern Montana in a place called Zurich, Norton moved with his family to Burley, Idaho, when he was 11 years old. He was enrolled in a four-room grade school there, graduated from Burley High School, then came to Brigham Young University where he has remained ever since, except for pursuing his graduate studies.

Norton retired from BYU in 2004, after spending most of his 40 years there in the English department. His last few years at the university found him in the Department of Linguistics and English Language. Usage, grammar and history of the English language were his academic specialties, and he taught a variety of writing courses. But his main passion has been personal history, with a focus on oral history.

The oral historian acknowledges that it requires a particular skill to take communication from speech to writing — retaining an authentic voice while also making the work readable. Interviews generally take from one to three hours, plus another four to five hours to process each hour of interviewing.

Norton said he has benefitted greatly from the work of about 75 of his BYU students, who, through a work-scholarship program or editing internships, have helped him transcribe taped interviews and organize his files. Important tools, along with the computer, have included "Webster's Geographical Dictionary" and Google.

"Any ship, any unit, anything I'm looking for — it's there," he said.

Norton's oral history work has ranged far beyond just the Orem veterans' stories. He has listened to and written about dozens of Utahns, and feels he has a good grasp of what it is like to experience life in rural or small-town Utah and Idaho — a very familiar lifestyle to him.

But Norton's main emphasis has been on veterans. His own military experience consisted of four quarters of ROTC during the Korean War era, but he said he has picked up on the military mindset through that and his many interviews, and knows that those who have served always see it as a defining period in their lives.

Les Campbell, Norton's brother-in-law, said Norton's transcription work is "a labor of love," and "a tremendous service to our community and to our servicemen and their families. Although they may never speak it, I know the families appreciate very much his efforts."

Norton said motivation in doing the veterans' narratives has been so families have the story of their father, brother, grandfather or relative who served. Families receive copies of the taped interviews, as well as a written transcription.

"People ask me why I am providing these histories for families," Norton said. "But if you could go with me once when I take a history back to a family — you would never ask me that question again."

By Reva Bowen