Historical Storytelling
Looking for a Storyteller Who Brings History Topics to Life? You’ve Found Her!
Sarah’s storytelling journey began when she was a little girl in the 1960s, standing at the feet of her Grandmother Effie, listening to her fascinating stories about their family. She never forgot the fire of storytelling her grandmother ignited in her all those years ago. Sarah even created a sculpture about her grandmother’s stories once!
Sarah’s use of storytelling during her art lessons began accidentally. She was telling one of her grandmother’s stories to the students, and she noticed the students stayed engaged, so this began a process of introducing many of her art lessons with a bit of storytelling.
In 2019, Sarah began taking storytelling classes, eventually leading to her Storytelling Certification. Recently, she has traveled all over the state of Missouri telling stories, from Florissant to Jefferson City, from Butler to Monett, from Gladstone to Warrensburg, and more. She has also done virtual storytelling for organizations in Kansas and Nebraska. Sarah was also recently selected to tell the Olive Boone Story at The State Historical Society of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri as part of their Bicentennial Events.
She looks forward to continuing to tell more stories as she travel life’s trails.
Below are some of her more popular storytelling topics:
“Olive Boone and Early Missouri”
Come and celebrate Missouri’s early history by listening to Sarah share the story of Olive (Van Bibber) Boone, the daughter-in-law of Daniel Boone, in an engaging first person narrative. In 1799, at the age 16, Olive married Nathan Boone in Kentucky, came to the Upper Louisiana Territory, had 14 children, and watched the Missouri Territory achieve statehood. Olive is one of the few women of her time whose story was recorded. Alec, Sarah’s husband, is a distant cousin of Olive Boone.
“The River, the Rock, and the Road”
The Santa Fe Trail was America’s first commercial highway. Traders established the trail, which connected Missouri to Santa Fe, New Mexico and covered some 900 miles of the Great Plains, in 1821. Before its demise due to competition from the Santa Fe Railroad, the Santa Fe Trail served as a main road for countless traders, pioneers, and American military personnel and played a crucial role in America’s Westward Expansion. Sarah starts her story with the Native Americans who were the first to travel the trail, then moves on to the early French trappers who traveled the trail in the 1680s. You’ll learn of Becknell’s importance to the trail and how the economy of the time helped push the trail westward to Santa Fe. It’s amazing that the trail was so important to Westward Expansion and yet lasted such a brief time in history.
“We the People (Passing on the Legacy)”
In this presentation, Sarah “plants the seeds of freedom” in her audience as she delivers a simple and straight-forward overview of how our government was created, not just by the famous people we’ve read about in the history books, but also by average people like you and me. Our government has provided more people with freedom and opportunity and a higher standard of living that any other nation in the world. Sarah ends this inspiring session with a challenge to the audience to pass on the legacy by planting seeds of freedom in the next generation.
“Hearing Hazel’s Story”
In this engaging presentation, Sarah tells the story of Hazel Hunkins, a young lady who received a chemistry degree from the University of Missouri in the 1912-1913 school year. She has trouble finding a job in a man’s world. Frustrated with this situation, she travels to Washington, D.C. and fights for passage of the 19th Amendment, being arrested and mobbed along the way. She is there in D.C. as women gain the right to vote. Sarah tells Hazel’s compelling story from childhood to helping President Carter with the Equal Rights Amendment in 1977.
“Eliza Travels the California Trail”
In this presentation, Sarah tell the story of how Eliza, along with her six children thirteen years or younger, traveled the California trail to meet up with her husband, who had gotten the gold fever and headed west. Eliza and her children find father’s name at Independence Rock, contract measles, encounter people with cholera, and deal with a plague of grasshoppers that eat all the grass in sight. This is an unforgettable story of courage, strength, and love. During the presentation, Sarah pauses several times to have children from the audience come up to do different chores children would have had to do on the trail, such as wash clothes and hang them on a clothes line. You’ll be transported back in time and experience both the hardships and joys of life on the trail.
“I thouroughly enjoyed her portrayal of the pioneer mother. What a story!”
“When a person reenacts the events that happened to a real person, it makes the history feel so much more real. It ‘connects’ us to those personal experiences.”
“I have ancestors who traveled by wagon train and I wanted to hear more details about the experience of making that sort of journal. [Sarah] did a wonderful job!”