Oral history project tells Aspen’s coronavirus story for future generations

Preparing for the centennial of the 1918 flu pandemic two years ago, Aspen Historical Society curators and archivists were disappointed to find sparse resources in the society’s files about the outbreak in Aspen.

Curator Lisa Hancock collected all she could from archived newspaper articles, cemetery indexes and hospital records. But she found no first-hand recollections and no historical artifacts — the things museums and historians rely on to interpret events of the past meaningfully for present audiences.

One of the first people in the world killed by the flu in 1918 was here in Aspen, where whole families died from it and where deaths continued in waves through 1920. But the local experience of that pandemic is lost to history because it wasn’t preserved.

“We saw where the gaps were,” Historical Society executive director Kelly Murphy said. “We had the data but not the personal story.”

That experience was fresh in Murphy’s and Hancock’s minds as the novel coronavirus outbreak hit Aspen in March and soon shut down public life here. With the historians of 2120 in mind, they wanted to leave a textured and detailed record of local life through the public health crisis.

At the same time, Aspen Public Radio began using its platform to share locals’ first-person accounts of COVID-19 and the stay-home period, broadcasting them on air.

“As soon as we heard about it, we were like, ‘We’ll archive that!’ and we volunteered to be a part of it to keep those stories,” Hancock said. “The impetus came from the lack of a collection from 1918 and knowing we needed to be proactive and collect all the stuff now.”

The nonprofits partnered and launched their “Quarantine Stories” oral history project, with a call for public submissions announced April 14. The project has gathered more than 30 histories since then.

For the radio station, the project aimed to build empathy and connect people personally while they were forced to stay apart. For the historians, it’s about future Aspenites understanding how this period reshaped the town.

“We have specific missions as organizations and it’s interesting that this project aligns with those missions separately,” said Aspen Public Radio community engagement manager Lisa DeLosso.

They want to reflect the full spectrum of local experiences. They’ve gathered stories from people who have been infected and recovered, people who lost loved ones, who lost jobs, people whose work and school lives have been disrupted. An entire class of Carbondale sixth-graders shared their impressions (“Dear Future Historians…” they begin). One local woman recorded a poem she wrote in mid-April about the anxiety of the stay-home period (see sidebar).

Because everyone’s life has been impacted, everyone has a valuable story to tell for history. (Hancock’s own oral history details watching the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe with her family during the shelter-in-place period.)

“Everyone’s experience going through this is unique, everyone has something to contribute,” Hancock said. “It doesn’t have to be one extreme or the other.”

Statistics and public records like the ones she has from 1918 provide information, but they can’t tell future generations what it felt like here.

“Quarantine stories are invaluable to us,” Hancock said. “Historians can tell all sides of it.”

Eventually the transcripts will all go into the Historical Society’s database along with its other oral history collections, as well as digital files of the audio recordings.

For Aspen Public Radio, the community-centric project follows a bumpy patch in community relations. A fierce public backlash followed the station’s January decision to remove most of its music programming and a dozen shows hosted by local DJs, filling their time blocks with more national programming.

“The feedback for us is that we need to be local,” DeLosso said. “(‘Quarantine Stories’) is something that we are doing to maintain that connection to our local community. It’s a good community-focused program.”

The Historical Society has never taken on a contemporary research project like “Quarantine Stories.” It has occasionally gathered artifacts from evidently historic events as they happen — archiving the receipt for Aspen’s first legal recreational marijuana sale, for instance — and in 2018 recorded a handful of oral histories about the Lake Christine Fire in Basalt. But it’s never done one on this scale.

The Historical Society is also collecting physical artifacts — “social distancing” signs from the county and local businesses, homemade masks and, eventually when it’s no longer needed, personal protective equipment from Aspen Valley Hospital.

“When looking back at the 1918 pandemic, I’ve thought ‘What are the things I wish I had?’” Hancock explained. “I wish I had a nurse’s uniform, I wish I had business signs, I wish I had physical objects that would tell the story.”

There is no end-date on the oral history project, just as there is no conclusion to the pandemic in sight. The Historical Society and Aspen Public Radio are hopeful that locals will continue sharing their stories as stay-home orders lift, recording initial experiences with public life in the safer-at-home period and as more people return to work and school in the coming months and years.

The prompts for participants will change as the situation on the ground evolves.

“‘Quarantine Stories’ will add so much to the ability to interpret this event because of their personal nature,” Hancock said. “I wish I had this kind of material to know how people were feeling 102 years ago.”

atravers@aspentimes.com