Preserving the Past, One Story at a Time
The Recollection Agency is on a mission to record family and community histories
History books are filled with stories of great leaders, entrepreneurs, and government officials. However, the tellings of the common man often go unheard. Stories throughout a family’s history typically only go back a couple of generations — and they go unrecorded. Trevor Harris, the owner of Recollection Agency has made a career out of recording those forgotten stories … before it’s too late.
Harris started Recollection Agency in 2019, just as the COVID pandemic was making its presence known. At the time, Harris was living in Kansas City, where his wife worked as a professor. Initially recording stories of friends or family friends, he eventually started getting clients he hadn’t met before.
“I was weeping from joy because everybody who hired me up until this point, I’ve probably been doing business for two years, was a friend or a friend of a friend,” Harris said. “And here was somebody who just knew me by reputation.”
When a customer wants a story to be preserved, they contact Harris and he sets up a preliminary interview to understand their goals and to discover the stories they want to record. Then he creates interview questions that will guide that story on the recording day when he sets up his equipment, makes sure there is no noise pollution, and lets his subjects tell their stories.
It takes a lot of trust to tell a stranger your stories, much less have him record the stories. Some of these stories are near and dear to the family, and most of the time, the subjects don’t wish for the recorded stories to find a way to the general public. Harris is diligent in not repeating what he’s heard.
“I’ve observed all of these stories. So I had to develop a way then to let them pass through me and not hang to me,” he said.
That was his motivation for creating the “MO’ Curious” podcast, a production about Missouri’s deep history, with about sixteen episodes so far, and more stashed away. Harris has been all over Missouri to record stories.
Harris has been the Bootheel to investigate and retell the history of sharecroppers strike of 1939. He has been to Joplin to uncover the lead mining history that has since been forgotten about. For him, his most impactful story was the history of an African American vocational school in Dalton, Missouri. He partnered with the Sheridan County Historical Society to record the stories of individuals who attended.
“So the recordings that we did in Dalton back in 2022 were not life stories with these half a dozen individuals, but their memories of that school,” he explained.
Since those recordings were made, four of the six subjects have died. That’s the reality, and Harris is trying to preserve those stories while individuals can still tell them.
“It was powerful. Because by nature of doing this work, I’m talking to older people, the people who have had long lives, and done a lot of stuff. And they die, as do we all,” he said. “When I hear that a subject has passed, I’m sad. I also like to breathe some sigh of relief or there’s some contentedness that like, ‘We got their story down — while they were able to tell it.”
In the spirit of historic preservation, Harris also owns historic homes in Columbia. For some, a historic home can be a burden, but not for Harris. The homes make him feel like he’s preserving history.
“I do not feel like an owner of the houses. I don’t feel like they own me,” he added. “It’s more like I feel like I’m just kind of shepherding them along to the next owner.”
That doesn’t mean historic home ownership is a walk in the park. There are many hurdles to cross when trying to preserve a home over one hundred years old.
“If you own an old home, you know, that you know, there’s always a list of things to address, maintenance issues,” Harris said. However, owning a historic home does have some upsides. “You know, it’s also a great honor to be of service to provide people with housing. Especially people who want to live in a historic home.”
Preserving history is something Harris does not plan to stop doing.
“This will be my business until I am no more,” he said. “There are always folks who want to have the life stories of their elders recorded.”
However, Harris does not want the stories that he cannot preserve to go unrecorded.
“I say if you think grandma’s got some great stories or your uncle has a good way of spinning a yarn, record them,” Harris said. “Even if you can’t record your grandma, go record somebody’s grandma.”
Check out the Recollection Agency and Trevor’s “Mo’ Curious” podcast here.