On December 7, 2001, America will commemorate the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Imperial Japanese Navy. As a result of that act, the United States officially entered World War II on the following day. By the time it was over nearly four years later, approximately 15 million Americans had served in one of several military branches of service. Countless others joined the war effort on the "Home Front".
Almost 60 years later, these veterans and others who lived through the war, are dying at the rate of several thousand a day. Some of the most frequently requested materials in the Young Adult Department at the LaGrange Park Public Library District, are books about World War II. The former Young Adult Librarian at the LaGrange Park Public Library District, Susan Frazin, taking note of the popularity of this topic, set up a meeting in the summer of 1999 with Ms. Meg Pokorny, the Social Studies Chairperson for School District 102 in LaGrange Park. The meeting generated an idea for the school district and the library to develop a cooperative program for eighth grade students that would use the resources of both the school district and the library. Neither had the financial resources available to develop an entirely new program to fit within the schools curricula or the library’s existing Young Adult programs. The idea the two came up with, was to see if eighth grade students were mature and knowledgeable enough to interview these people. Eventually, they were both pleasantly surprised.
Every city, town and village in America has within its midst, at least a few surviving World War II veterans. Each, in their own way, has a unique story to tell. With the help of a $4,612 federal Library Services Technology Act (LSTA) grant administered by the Illinois State Library, the library and the school district were ready to implement the new course work. When the 1999-2000 school year began, eighth grade students involved in the Social Studies Program were assigned background material, both fiction and nonfiction, about the Second World War. Twenty students were originally selected to actually interview the World War II veterans and others who lived through the war. As Susan Frazin says, "the kids were so excited that about 40 students actually participated."
 The students met periodically with La Grange Park Young Adult Librarian Susan Frazin and the Social Studies Chair Meg Pokorny in seminar fashion to discuss the work’s progress, transcriptions and summaries. The student’s language arts and social studies teachers also acted as advisors on the project. Eventually, a 42-page document containing the printed interviews with pictures of those interviewed and some photos from the war period were printed. The grant also enabled the library to invite Dr. Barbara Truesdell, an oral historian from Indiana University, to present a ‘how-to’ workshop on oral history. Each student was given some background on his or her assignment where a set of questions was developed to get the conversation going. The interviews were recorded, summarized in writing by the students, edited for accuracy by those interviewed and finally put into the book, which is dedicated to those interviewed.
 Frazin said, "history came to life for the students. Talking face-to-face with the generous people who shared their World War II experiences brought a whole new dimension to the students’ study of that era, and the book we made preserves the stories for our entire community."
In recent years, many Americans, most of them not even alive during the 1939-45 conflagration, have become more and more interested in this period of our history. Bestsellers such as Tom Brokaw’s "The Greatest Generation" and James Bradley’s "Flags of Our Fathers", have proven this point. It is said that when World War II ended, the veterans just wanted to return to normal life, get married, raise a family and put the war behind them. Only in the past few years, as witness the two books listed above, as well as this project, have these people, knowing their time with us is short, began to record for history those long ago events that still shape our lives today. They truly did save the world for democracy. Thanks also to the foresight, dedication and hard work of Susan Frazin, Peg Pokorny and many others; another small chapter in this proud legacy has been preserved for history.
(For further information regarding this grant contact Susan Frazin Smfrazin@aol.com The oral history of this project is available on the LaGrange Park Library website.
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