Editor's note: Over the past several CIRCA issues, readers likely have seen advertisements for the Institute's oral history project and claims that an oral history interview can make an enormous impact. Below is one family's oral history story.

Like many families, my brother Marc Duber and his wife Nancy, my husband Ricky, and I have thought about ways to preserve and share our family history with future generations. We want our children and grandchildren to know about their ancestors and to draw strength from the pioneering spirit and commitment to Jewish heritage that characterized their lives. As my father's seventy-fifth birthday fast approaches and his struggle with some serious health issues continues, I became ever more committed to turning our plans into action.

Through an unlikely series of coincidences (what I call Besherith), I found myself involved with the Institute of Southern Jewish Life as chairperson of its recent gala in New Orleans. As I worked with the staff and my old childhood friend Julie Grant Meyer planning for this event, I became more familiar with its wide range of programs and vibrant oral history program. I quickly realized I had found my oral historian in Mark Greenberg.

Now all I had to do was convince our father, "Poppa Alvin," to participate. For years he has had the rather unusual practice of giving his children and grandchildren presents on impulse, rather than on specific occasions such as birthdays. My brother and I knew what we wanted this year for his birthday him. After some convincing and cajoling "I am not such an important guy for you to do this," he claimed he finally agreed to give himself to us as this year's birthday gift.

Conversations with Mark before the interview familiarized him with Poppa Alvin's life and our reasons for doing the interview, and allowed our entire family input on the questions he would ask. Mark clearly knew all the important topics to raise from earliest childhood to the present day, but we wanted certain things addressed.

I was not there when Mark traveled with his video equipment from Jackson to my brother's home in Potomac, Maryland, to interview my Dad. I waited expectantly for the video tapes to arrive so we could watch the results of their afternoon together on our television. I could not have been more pleased with the interview Mark and Poppa Alvin created.

The first time we sat as a family to watch my Dad tell about his life, we cried. Mark made him remember things and describe the reasons for his life choices. His answers helped bring closure to issues he never finished telling us about. To hear him talk about the terrible sickness and death of our mother revealed his sensitivity to my younger brother's pain as he saw other mothers drop his friends off at school each morning. I had never fully realized the personal sacrifices he had made to shield us from life's harsh realities and to raise us without a wife and mother. It made us love him all the more.

The second time we watched the tape, we laughed. To see my own facial expression and mannerisms in my Dad, to notice him pat the adoring dog nestled in his lap as he talked, or to hear him laugh are things that will stay with his children and their children's children forever. We keep one copy of the interview at home and the other in the bank vault.

Poppa Alvin still has not stopped talking about "his picture show." He shows it to friends and family at every opportunity. Conversations with his brother that were once few and far between have become regular and loving as they reminisce about their youth. I know that his most recent birthday present to his family is his very best.