Know someone with a great West Seattle story to tell – or maybe you have one yourself? “Telling Our Westside Stories” is about to get going, and the Southwest Seattle Historical Society needs your help to find the “storytellers”! Here’s the official announcement:

What was it like growing up next to the Duwamish River? How often did you go to Alki Beach? Did you catch fish in the creeks? Did you ride your bikes up the West Seattle hills? Did you think the ravines were scary?

The Southwest Seattle Historical Society is launching an ambitious three-year project of Telling Our Westside Stories. The project will engage youth of the various neighborhoods of southwest Seattle in talking to elders to find out how they have experienced life in southwest Seattle over a period of many years and elders talking to young people and finding out how they experience the same neighborhoods in a different time. Youth will ask questions about living on the Duwamish Peninsula, about work, and about home.

The resulting exhibits will feature interactive maps with audio clips from the interviews and exhibits that travel to area libraries, schools, community centers, and retirement centers.

A permanent exhibit will reside at the Southwest Seattle Historical Society’s Log House Museum, located one block from Alki Beach.

The exhibits will bring to life the stories of ordinary people after Seattle’s founding families landed on Alki in 1851. The history of southwest Seattle includes land development and Native American displacement; a steel mill and many small businesses; baseball teams and Girl Scouts; estates, farm houses, beach cottages, Craftsman homes, and low-income housing; amusement parks, trolleys, bridges, immigrant communities, fishing boats, and every aspect of richly lived lives. The best way to tell this history is to gather stories.

The project is funded with a grant from the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods. Youth from Madison Middle School, Delridge Community Center, and South Park Community Center will conduct the interviews this fall. If you would like to suggest a person who should be interviewed, please contact Sarah Frederick at the Log House Museum, at 206-938-5293 or loghousemuseum@comcast.net.

For more information, contact Sarah, or Judy Bentley at 206-938-7687, bentley.judy@gmail.com.