Hoosiers Are Telling Their Pandemic Stories

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INDIANA – Hoosiers are telling their stories about how they are making it through the coronavirus pandemic, so people in the future can benefit. The Indiana Historical Society has gotten around 500 submissions from 200 people around the state for a project called “Tell Your Story: Documenting Covid-19 in Indiana”.

“They’re students and teachers who talk about what it’s like to teach and learn from home on an online platform. They’re health care providers who are on the front line,” said Indiana Historical Society Pres. Jody Blankenship. “There’s some great main street photos of stores that are closed or grocery aisles that are just barren.”

He said the Society is taking more than just photos, though they seem to be some of the more powerful media.

“Right now I’m looking at a great photo that a mother took and her daughter made a little sign that says ‘sorry, we’re closed’, and put it on her bedroom door with her giraffe,” he said. “You can see how what they’re seeing on the streets is now filtering into their daily life as something that is normal.”

Among the donations that are not photos are poems and stories. Blankenship said some of those stories involve athletes who are not allowed to play or train, some of whom had hoped to compete in the Olympics, or who play for the Colts or Pacers.

He said the stories help put the mission into focus.

“This is a chance for us to save this history while it’s occurring and put it into the collection so that future historians, if God forbid there’s another pandemic, can look back at this time and say, what did these folks do? How did they deal with it and what can we learn from what’s going on right now to solve future problems?”

Blankenship said you can’t see the submissions yet, but they are working on a web page to put them on display.

If you want to submit pics or any other items, you can do it at www.indianahistory.org.