Storytelling Resource Center
By Pamela Miller
Pamela Miller, Ph.D., is the founder and president of the Storytelling Resource Place, Jonesborough, Tennessee. The organization serves as an archive of stories and storytelling materials. The following is a narrative she wrote of how this trove of storytelling treasures came to be.
Once long ago, actually it was in 2004, 18 years ago, I came to Jonesborough, Tennessee, in search of the wonders of storytelling. I had heard about the Storytelling Festival for years when I taught in California, New Mexico, Indiana and finally, Florida. My college students brought me newspaper clippings to show people sitting on bales of hay with rapt expressions on their faces as they looked at what looked like an everyday person dressed in overalls speaking to them. They included Smithsonian Magazine and American Heritage books on the American experience. All of a sudden, it seemed that so-called festivals were popping up all over the country. Nothing fancy, lots of people sitting on folding chairs under large tents facing a single speaker on a riser speaking into a microphone. No costumes, no sets, no elaborate musical accompaniment but there was no denying that something amazing, even magical (since it couldn’t be seen) was happening.
Naturally when I arrived at Jonesborough, I went all over the little historic town asking, “Where are all the storytelling materials?” But I didn’t arrive in October. I moved here in a hot June. I was directed to the children’s section of the library and the ISC gift shop. But, you see, I had spent a 30-year career studying the world of storytelling (called the Oral Tradition) throughout history. My doctoral area of study at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles was in the performance of literature. I was looking for the bards, the minstrels, the folklore scholars, the puppeteers, the Kabuki actors, the storytelling symbols such as storyteller dolls from the Southwest, black lacquer fairytale plates from Russia, drums and thumb pianos to keep the rhythm of the tellers from Africa, a “quipu,” colored string tied in complex knots to help the Aztec storytellers remember the events of a story, a large board divided into cartoon like squares showing a sequential story with pictures so the audience could follow the plot, boomerangs to beat out the cadence of the story in the sand and handy to throw sand in the faces of inattentive audience members, Chinese storyteller masks, a notched and painted regular stick which the teller chanterwould finger while singing the dirge at the funeral of an important person in the northwest Indian tribes.
Storytelling is so much faceted and more elaborate than just a tape or book. It is so much more than mere entertainment. Storytelling helps us define who we are, where we came from, and where we are going. It is our history, our religion, our community, what brings us together and helps us through hard times like wars and pandemics. The stories that we revere and re-tell help us find hope and order in times of fear and chaos.
One day as I brought home and filled still another bookcase for my numerous collections on folklore and storytelling, it occurred to me, why not donate my holdings to Jonesborough and start a Storytelling Library. I spoke with the founder of the Storytelling Festival Jimmy Neil Smith and asked how I could donate about 750 or so books to the storytelling center. He said that I couldn’t, but I should donate them to the Jonesborough Public Library. The library director said they would try to find room for a while. So... the idea began of trying to find a place to hold books and other materials on storytelling. Hearing about my donation, Flora Joy, one of the founders of the ETSU storytelling master’s degree donated 2,000 books to the library about storytelling. The library was getting pretty crowded.
I went to speak with Bob Browning and then Mayor Kelly Wolfe. Browning suggested that I start an organization for that purpose. I had never done that outside a college, so I learned from him what to do. First, he said, you need a mission statement. A few friends and I began to work and came up with “to collect, to preserve, and to make available storytelling resources.” At this point, like a good story, we need to have an audience chorus: I’ll teach it to you: Please all say together: “And then what do I need to do?” Let’s try it.
Then Browning said, “Well, you need to gather a slate of officers to help you structure and organize this organization.” And so, I found a few tried and true friends who were willing to humor me and help the project take shape. Vice President was Linda Poland, Secretary was Molly Catron, Social Media Director was Joann Jones. And then I went back to Browning’s office. Chorus: “And then what do I need to do?”
Well, he said, you need to write a set of bylaws to provide structure and systems for your group. Well, that one was harder, but he gave me a copy of the Jonesborough Repertory Theatre’s bylaws and I looked at the Jonesborough Storytellers Guild’s bylaws and finally, with the expert help of Lynda Harris, we generated a set of bylaws for the Storytelling Resource Place and voted to approve it. Then, expectantly, I went back to Browning and said, “And then what do I need to do?”
He gave me a small smile and said, “You need to apply to the Internal Revenue Service for a tax-exempt designation.” “Uh-Oh,” I said. I had heard how hard this step was. I was way out of my comfort zone. I spoke with Richard Griffin, the director of the Jonesborough Public Library, and he told me about Gene Hurdt who was the key person in the genealogy department of the library and had helped someone else. Hurdt and “Junior,” his laptop, agreed to mentor me through the ordeal. And so, for the next six months or so Hurdt and I met Mondays at the library and waded through the forms. We finally sent the application in. We got it back. We corrected it and re-sent it in. Finally ... finally ... We got the acceptance letter from the IRS. Hooray.
With a full heart, I went to the Corner Cup to celebrate. As I moved to the back room, I took my cup of tea and was dying to tell someone of our accomplishment. When I saw Steve Cook and his wife Tava, I just burst forth with the happy news. “We got a 501 c 3.” They congratulated me and then Steve said “Now, what do you need to do ?”
Well, for years, we had been looking for a building, a space where we could house all the booksthat people had been giving us. We had tried and tried. Either it was only one small room or it was way too expensive, orit was way out of town. Finally, we couldn’t go any further without a location. As if divinely prompted, Tava commented, “What about the Slemons House in Mill Springs Park?” “Where is that,” I said.So, I called Bill Kennedy, and he showed me around the house. It definitely needed some work. The roof leaked, the gutters leaked, the crawl space was full of water. The town of Jonesborough was using it for storage.
Dr. Kennedy and the Town councilcame up with a proposal for our group. If we could get a donor to pay for a new roof, new guttering and propping up the crawl space, the town would lease us the building long term. As an organization, we decided to invest $20,000 for new roof, gutters and propping to benefit the town and storytelling in general. Proving our claim that Jonesborough is “The Storytelling Capital of the World.”
The Slemons House has such potential. A large pre-Civil War Victorian with a large gracious porch, an adjacent lovely park with a meandering creek. Convenient parking. A ramp to the back door making wheelchair access possible. Lots of windows, high ceilings, a small restroom, and lots of room to grow.
Well, the rest, as they say, is history. We are here, welcoming people in to share our storytelling resources. Please join us in celebrating a miracle in a small town of Jonesborough which put together the only Storytelling Library/Museum in the country.
And now what do we need to do?
As of 2023, The Storytelling Resource Place houses over 2,200 books, 900 cassette tapes, puppets, storytelling costumes, instruments, storytelling plates from Russia, Southwestern Indian storyteller dolls, topsy turvy dolls, nesting dolls, professional journals, hundreds of copies of Storytelling Magazine, early books on how to tell stories, and over 50 versions of Cinderella from all over the world. And we’re just getting started.
