Milwaukee is really the only hometown I’ve ever known. I was born in Washington, DC, but I’m the youngest of five, and I was kind of the straw that broke the camel’s back. Before I was one year old, we moved to Milwaukee so we could live closer to my dad’s family in Chicago. I …
Miranda: I grew up in Green Bay, right near the edge of town. It used to be lots of cornfields and forests, but now it’s mostly subdivisions. I was a very early reader; I started reading before kindergarten. I didn’t grow up in a house with a lot of books, but we did have one of those complete …
I was born in Taiwan, and my dad was a very poor preacher. When I was just a little tot, I remember my dad took my brother and me to the zoo in Taiwan. This was a huge treat for us. We saw something there that day we had never seen before—an American with blonde …
“It all began with my father smiling and saying, ‘Hello’.” Read More »
My name is Dylan Jennings, or Bizhikiins—Young Buffalo, as we translate from Ojibwemowin, our language. Photos by Megan Monday “My parents were really young when they had me, just out of high school. They met down by Waaswaaganing, or the Lac du Flambeau Reservation, near Minocqua. They stuck together to raise me and to take …
“I dedicate my life to educating others about Native people.” Read More »
I was born in 1950 in Rice Lake, Wisconsin. I lived literally between two lakes, a woods, and a swamp. We were on the edge of the city limits, and quite a few of our near neighbors were on small farms. Photos by Megan Monday “In my family, we have some Welsh and some Scottish …
When I was in middle school, I did a project on Elizabeth Blackwell. I read her biography; she was the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States. I thought to myself, ‘Maybe I’ll do that someday.’ Then in eighth grade science class, we had to dissect a frog and I decided …
“I was interested in studying the history of my people.” Read More »
I first got interested in history in the fourth grade. I took a book out of the school library on the colonial South—I don’t remember what the title was, but I remember how it looked. It had a real cloth pink binding. Photo courtesy of the Center for the Study of the American Constitution From …
I went to Milwaukee Trade and Technical High School and during freshman year they had us take an exploratory shop class to decide the trade we wanted to spend the next three years learning. Photo courtesy of Tom Jenz They had an electronics shop, plumbing shop, carpentry shop, all these different shops. I didn’t know …
I grew up in a place called Veefkind. It used to be a little bitty rural community with a store, post office, a couple of sawmills, tavern, church, and, of course, the cemetery. It was named after my great-great grandfather, Henry Born Veefkind, who actually built our farm. The home farm went through six generations …
I grew up on the north side of Milwaukee. My dad drove a truck for a living. He was gone all week on the road and home on the weekends. My mom was a homemaker. She was at home with the four kids—me and my two sisters and brother. We grew up in a neighborhood …
In this series, we are featuring the Odyssey Project, a University of Wisconsin humanities class for adult students facing economic barriers to college. With its whole family approach to breaking the cycle of generational poverty through access to education, this program has been transformational. Emily Auerbach is the co-founder of Odyssey. Emily: My mother was …
“Once you figure out who you are and what is special about you, that stays with you.” Read More »
We are excited to introduce you to Ex Fabula and share four stories from their 2020 virtual Deaf StorySlam. Since 2009 Ex Fabula has been connecting Milwaukee through real stories. Ex Fabula, which is Latin for “from stories,” leads storytelling workshops, StorySlams and Community Collaborations. At a StorySlam people come together to tell and listen …
