At Radford University’s Center for Archives and Digital History, “you can actually hold history in your hands,” C.J. Garland said, looking over open black boxes full of decades-old letters and documents.
For the past year and a half, the senior from Manassas, Virginia, has learned firsthand what it’s like to grasp and preserve important moments from the past. Important moments in the history of our world. Important moments in family legacies.
After transferring to Radford, Garland began working in the then newly opened center, transcribing and digitizing boxes of handwritten letters penned by Frank Elliott, a U.S. Army soldier who bravely served in the South Pacific during World War II.
“He was at Okinawa the whole time, and he stuck around for about a year, saw it through until the end of the war, and stuck around as part of the occupation,” Garland said of the soldier’s war-time service. “And from the moment he left home to do basic training to the moment he came back home after finishing his service as part of occupation, he wrote two or three letters a day, and he saved all of it.”
Frank Elliott’s daughter, Ann Elliott, a retired Radford psychology professor, donated the letters to the center. There were nine boxes in total containing documents and letters written by Ann’s father.
“Whenever I read one of these letters, it feels like I’m right where he was because a lot of these letters describe what his day was like,” explained Garland, whose grandfather was also a WWII veteran and part of the Dunkirk evacuation. “I feel like I’ve been transported to the 1940s in the midst of World War II. I’m seeing what this person is seeing. That sort of thing is incredible. It really is incredible.”
There is an enormous “sense of responsibility,” Garland said, that goes along with this work. “Because everyone has their own unique story when it comes to history. And every passing day, letters like these get lost and destroyed,” he said. “But the Center for Archives and Digital History can preserve these stories so future generations can learn from them and can appreciate them.”
There’s great honor in these preservations, too, and preserving the past is work that Garland, who is set to graduate from Radford in December, plans to do far into the future.
“If I can make my career out of archiving letter collections, oral histories and documents that tell the average person’s stories to as many people as possible, that’s what I want to do,” said Garland, whose mother is a historian. “That’s what Radford has instilled in me. That’s what Radford helped me realize what I wanted to do for a career.”
Garland found his place here at Radford by immersing himself in his work – he completed two summer internships there through the Highlander Works program – and in the university’s Department of History. Helping him find a home there and in the center was department chair and professor Sharon Roger-Hepburn, who, “more than anyone else,” Garland said, “was the professor who instilled the path I wanted to take in history in my time here at Radford.”
Radford University is a fantastic choice for any student who loves history, Garland continued.
“The history department here is a very welcoming, positive work environment. All the professors genuinely want to help you, and they’re all genuinely fun to be around, and you will find your place in the history department because the faculty and students are so incredibly nice.
“We’re all very passionate about history, and if you are too,” he continued, “you’ll find your place here, too.”
Chad Osborne for Radford University
