Join Us on Wednesday, Dec. 2 To Listen to the Flanner House Elders

On Wednesday, December 2, Flanner House Elders will be reading from their collection of published memoirs titled Sitting at the Feet of our Elders: Flanner House Speaks, a publication of the Writers’ Center of Indiana. The seniors at Flanner House are rich with stories and those attending will be invited to sit at their feet to hear stories that are rich with wisdom.

WHO: Flanner House Elders

WHAT: Sitting at the Feet of our Elders: Flanner House Speaks Book Release Party

WHEN: Wednesday, December 2, 2009 from 1-3 p.m.

WHERE: Ruth Lilly Library and the Indianapolis Arts Center, Marilyn K. Glick School of Art, 820 East 62nd Street

COST: FREE

This book represents a collaborative effort between the Writers’ Center of Indiana, Flanner House, and Central Indiana Community Foundation. This urban outreach program is part of the Writers’ Center of Indiana’s Memoir Project and was generously funded by the James Proctor Fund for Aged Men and Women through Central Indiana Community Foundation. For more information about the Memoir Project and other programs offered by the Writers’ Center of Indiana, call 317-255-0710 or visit www.indianawriters.org. To find out more about the Flanner House Speaks project, visit http://indianawriters.wordpress.com/.

About the Authors: Flanner House Elders are part of the Flanner House Senior Citizen program at Flanner House. Flanner House of Indianapolis supports the community on the near Northwest side of Indianapolis by providing early childhood education, senior services, employment skills and social services that will empower families and individuals to move from instability to self sufficiency.

About the Writers’ Center of Indiana: Founded in 1979, the Writers’ Center is Indiana’s only comprehensive community-based literary service organization. The Center’s mission is to nurture a writing community, to support established and emerging writers, to improve written and verbal communication, and to develop an audience for literature in Indiana.

Sitting at the Feet of Our Elders: Flanner House Speaks

There is an African proverb that reminds us, When an old man dies, a library burns down. Henry Butler, a Flanner House Elder, shared this proverb with us on the first day of this project when we asked the Flanner House Elders, Why do we need to write down our memories?

We may tell our stories but we are counting on others to remember them and retell them and hope they tell them well.  Once we pass, those memories, those stories that have shaped us and made us are gone.  William Shakespeare reminds us in Sonnet 18, “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see; So long this and this gives life to thee.” Or more contemporarily, as August from Sue Monk Kidd’s novel, The Secret Life of Bees, reminds us, “Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can’t remember who we are or why we’re here.”

Once we write it down, our words become immortal and continue to shape and give meaning to all others who read them.

While searching for an urban outreach sight for our Memoir Project, the Writers’ Center of Indiana learned of Flanner House and its wonderful history in the Indianapolis area.  The seniors or elders are rich with stories- stories that come from the gut and from the heart. With age comes wisdom and the courage to say exactly what we know to be true. Consider Flanner House Elder Gloria Jean Patterson Stone who, when recalling memories of being a carefully watched preacher’s wife, reminds us, “The brother can do anything but the sista’ can do nothing.”

The Flanner House Elders have survived migrations, wars, and segregation.  They have watched their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, children, and spouses pass. They have survived and thrived. They are living history.

Sitting at the Feet of Our Elders: Flanner House Speaks is a project of the Writers’ Center of Indiana and Flanner House Indianapolis and has been generously funded by Central Indiana Community Foundation’s James Proctor Fund for Aged Men and Women in Marion County.

Our purpose in this project was simple… to remember.  We gathered as many memories as we could from the Elders. We had many seniors who could not write, so we listened and wrote for them. We asked them at first to just remember anything – people, places, events, or times. After listing those snapshot memories, we then asked them to take one memory, talk about the entire scene and to tell it like they remember it happening and feeling.

These writings will be published in an upcoming book with the same title.  We will keep this site updated so you know when the book is available. We asked the elders to also record what they had written.  Those recordings will also soon be available on this site for you to click and play or download and share.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reminds us, We cannot walk alone.  And this project is no different.  It represents a collaboration of community and people.

Special thanks to Central Indiana Community Foundation and Bryan Payne for believing in our vision, Flanner House Executive Director Myron Richardson and Senior Program Director Gerald Ardis, Writers’ Center Executive Director Barbara Shoup, Writers’ Center Board Vice President Nancy Baxter, Writers’ Center Memoir Instructor Darolyn “Lyn” Jones, and the following amazing volunteers: Assistant instructor and Marian University and Ivy Tech Community College instructor Mark Latta, University of North Carolina professor Dr. Lisa Merriweather-Hunn, Hamilton Southeastern classroom teachers Mary Lynn Moore, Peg Dunn, Ed Dartis, and Tish LeMaster, Indiana University students Ashlyn Anderson and Shari Raper, Indiana University lecturer Kate Duffy Sim, community leaders and members Norma Dartis and Susie Voith, writer Susan Learner and her gifted son, Sam, and writing instructor Kyle Robeson.

And finally and most importantly to the Flanner House elders for their trust, truth, and tales.