Interview
The interview with Fred Erchul took place on the mornings of December 9 and 10, 1981 in his living room on Chief Lake near Couderay, Wisconsin. We [interviewer Barbara Morford and Mr. Erchul] were seated so that Mr. Erchul could look out at a panorama of the frozen lake, the woods and the numerous grosbeaks and chickadees which were feeding outside the window. Mrs. Erchul (Fran) was in the adjoining room baking Christmas pastries for her children. There were occasional interruptions so that she could run her electric mixer and on three or four occasions she brought notes to jog Fred's memory. She also provided information about how destructive his career was on his health and how hard his stress was for their family. Erchul was just recovering from a bout with pleurisy so we took several stretch breaks.
The interview gives a detailed, candid view of a dedicated labor leader whose career spanned a period from the turmoil of the 1940's to the 1970's. The interview puts the values and actions of a union activist into a personal context of family background, education and work life, although it does not add an abundance of detail to our knowledge of institutional history.
Abstract to the Interview
The tapes for this interview have two tracks: a voice track containing the discussion, and a time track containing time announcements at intervals of approximately five seconds. The abstract lists, in order of discussion, the topics covered on each tape and indicates the time-marking at which point the beginning of the particular discussion appears.
Thus, the researcher, by using a tape recorder's fast-forward button, may find expeditiously and listen to discrete segments without listening to all of the taped discussion. For instance, the user who wishes to listen to the topic on “FATHER'S WORK” should locate the place on the second track of tape one, side one where the voice announces the 04:20 time-marking (the voice says at this point, “four minutes, twenty seconds”), and at this point switch to the first track to hear the discussion. The discussion on “FATHER'S WORK” continues until approximately 06:35, at which point the discussion of the next topic (“MOTHER'S MOVE TO MILWAUKEE”) begins.
Notice that in most cases, sentences beneath each headline explain more about the contents of the topic. For example, the sentences underneath “FATHER'S WORK” give further details on what appears on the tape between 04:20 and 06:35.
The abstract is designed to provide only a brief outline of the content of the tapes and cannot serve as a substitute for listening to them. However, the abstract will help the researcher to locate easily distinct topics and discussion among the many minutes of commentary.
