Our small community (Rome, GA) about 70 miles NW of Atlanta has had a
community storytelling event around Halloween for several years. For the past two
years I have been fortunate to be one of the guides to lead one of the groups on
a prearranged route through our historic downtown area. The coordinator of
the event is looking for ideas for next year. Generally the tour starts by
groups being split up based on the number of tour guides. This year they
estimated we had about 300 people come through and the coordinator and some other
helpers had to jump in as tour guides.
Local storytellers are stationed at various points about a block apart and
the tour guides lead their designated group from one storyteller to another.
Each tour guide is given a schedule where they are supposed to go in order.
While I can't speak for the other guides, I try to tell some of the history of
the downtown area and any of the buildings I know or have researched...for
instance, back in 1914, Woodrow Wilson's first wife was buried in Rome and the
community really threw out the Presidential red carpet for her funeral.
First and foremost...all stories told are tried to be researched and have
some basis in fact. This year one person was stationed on one side of a river
foot bridge and told a story about a train wreck that had occurred there.
Another teller was stationed between the main street (Broad Street) of our historic
downtown and a back street where a parking is now and told about a ghost in a
house that had been somewhere in that area. The next teller (as you can
tell, I'm going in order that I took my group) was on the front steps of an old
church and told a story about someone who had attended that church. From here I
then had to take my group back to the opposite side of Broad Street to
another back street and a shell of an old building that had been there. This was
probably the creepiest place we went to. My final stop was back near our
starting point where our last teller told a funny "ghost" story. All tour people
either had a flashlight or a lantern.
Last year, one teller was in a small park on the backside of Broad Street
(opposite side of where the tour started), another at the corner of the main
street (this was dropped this year due to problems in the past with the noise
level of street traffic), but my favorite was walking up the steps near the end of
our Broad Street (required walking over a bridge and crossing the road) to
the foot of our historic Myrtle Hill Cemetery where some of Rome's founding
fathers and Ellen Axson Wilson (Woodrow's first wife) are buried.
Has anyone visited any community-wide storytelling events and can share ideas
on things you liked? I plan to recommend finding some of the local Broad
Street store owners to allow their buildings to be used and tour groups could
enter the building for a telling session. I thought furniture stores, the local
downtown museum, etc., would be good spots. The furniture stores could leave
on lamps to provide just enough lighting to see by. Rome was also prone to
flooding, and back in the 1930's or 1940's, a levee was built and the current
historic downtown area was filled in with dirt...so what was originally the
ground floor became the basement for the buildings we currently see. I would love
to take a tour down into one of these former ground floors....but may be too
much liability or too hard to do. My group this year had a middle school boy
in a wheel chair...and I had difficulty getting him into/out of some
areas...but thanks to the help of some in my group, we made sure he didn't miss out.
Thanks in advance!
Tony Pope
Library Media Specialist
McHenry Primary School
100 McHenry Dr.
Rome, GA 30161
_Pope1966@aol.com_ (mailto:Pope1966@aol.com)
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