The South Side of Chicago is a vibrant community with many elderly individuals who have borne witness to significant historical events throughout their lifetimes. There are incredible stories of family heartbreak and triumph during the Great Migration, the wartime efforts, and the Civil Rights Movement. As the clarity of these stories dim with the onset of dementia, physical illness, and death these first hand accounts and stories become forever lost to time. Furthermore, as people face the end of their lives there can be significant turmoil and angst. One technique to combat this is a method called "Legacy Work." It involves interviewing people and using questions to help them make sense of their lives and their hoped for personal legacy. Ultimately this will allow us to preserve some of the history of the South Side of Chicago.

The plan is to collect oral history through interviews with older residents of the South Side of Chicago. The oral history recordings and transcriptions will be analyzed for themes. One possibility would be to create a virtual or physical exhibit of stories with individual footage given to participants and their families. Furthermore footage could be compiled into a video/ documentary format.

UChicago providers will be asked to make referrals of patients and families who would be interested, willing, and able to be interviewed and recorded for this project. There is an interview guide within the "legacy work" framework that will be used. We will then review transcriptions of the interviews to analyze them for themes.