Other Oral Histories
These miscellaneous oral histories include audio interviews with Jackie Collum, Rev. Leland Mann (interviewed by Rev. Porter French), and Edith Renfrow Smith. Resources without audio include an interview with Lorene Alyce Pearce Morrison and a piece on the Union Township Freewill School based upon the writings of Gamette Steele Wheeler and the Grinnell Register piece by J. R. Steele on his early life in Poweshiek County (included here in the Frank Heath page).
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People Included
Mann, Rev. Leland (with Porter French)
An interview between Reverend Porter French and Reverend Leland Mann, former minister of United Church of Christ Congregational (UCC) for 21 years.
For more on the Old Stone Church, see Dan Kaiser’s blog post “The Wendell Phillips Pew in the Old Stone Church.”
Renfrow Smith, Edith
This 2015 video interview was between Edith Renfrow Smith and former Grinnell College professor Daniel Kaiser on Smith’s life in Grinnell and her time at the College. She was the first African American woman to graduate from Grinnell College in 1937, and at the time of the interview, she was 101 years old. Many photos of the Renfrow family are included in Digital Grinnell. At the 2019 Grinnell College commencement, she received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters. Topics discussed include her childhood, Grinnell College, prejudice, family, and aging.
For more on the Edith Renfrow Smith and the Renfrow family, see Daniel Kaiser’s book Grinnell Stories: African Americans of Early Grinnell.
Steele Wheeler, Garnette
An article on the Union Township Freewill School based upon Steele Wheeler’s writings on her father’s stories and J. R. Steele’s article in the Grinnell Register (included in the Frank Heath interviews section).
