Consider This with Christine Zak Edmonds
Bringing Aunt Jennie’s Diary to Life
Clip: Season 7 Episode 9 | 1m 14sVideo has Closed Captions
Dick Oakford shares how he adapted an 1859 family diary while preserving its voice.
Dick Oakford shares how he adapted an 1859 family diary while preserving its voice. Long summary: A family diary became the foundation for Dick Oakford’s book about Aunt Jennie’s journey west. He explains how he researched missing passages, added fictionalized sections and preserved her original language, grammar and misspellings.
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Consider This with Christine Zak Edmonds is a local public television program presented by WTVP
Consider This with Christine Zak Edmonds
Bringing Aunt Jennie’s Diary to Life
Clip: Season 7 Episode 9 | 1m 14sVideo has Closed Captions
Dick Oakford shares how he adapted an 1859 family diary while preserving its voice. Long summary: A family diary became the foundation for Dick Oakford’s book about Aunt Jennie’s journey west. He explains how he researched missing passages, added fictionalized sections and preserved her original language, grammar and misspellings.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipSo, tell me, how did you come about this?
How did you find it?
- Well, the cousins had it, and they placed the original diary in the University of Illinois, in the Historical section.
So it really is a national document there.
And I found that they had a cousin that typed the journal, and I took that, and some of the pages were missing and I had to research to find those missing pages and some of the language that was out of there, and then I fictionalized some of the areas that the pages were missing.
But in all, I wrote that and used the same language, the same phraseology and the grammar and the misspellings of the journal of Aunt Jennie- - Yeah.
- Who was a great-great-aunt of my wife, Carmen.
- And this was in 1850... - 1859.
- Okay.
- They left Metamora a year after they were married;
NewVideo has Closed Captions
Clip: S7 Ep9 | 58s | A newlywed’s diary captures an 1859 trip from Metamora to California. (58s)
NewVideo has Closed Captions
Clip: S7 Ep9 | 57s | Dick Oakford finds a connection to a relative through her words on nature and faith. (57s)
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Consider This with Christine Zak Edmonds is a local public television program presented by WTVP