Oral History Interviews
Beginning in 2007
The founding committee — Louise Brodnitz, Denise Cunningham, Betsy Cooley, Hazel Denton, Nola Klamberg, and Leslie Kamrad, Annie Lou Berman, Patty Murphy and Leslie Wheelock – worked out details and procedures for the project. They met with Bernadette McMahon, coordinator of Capitol Hill’s Overbeck History project, to learn about that established project. (Check out Capitol Hill’s excellent website at www.capitolhillhistory.org to get a sense of their fascinating program.)
CAG’s Oral History project is recruiting and training volunteers to conduct interviews with people who have played significant roles in Georgetown over many years. Dozens of long-time residents are being tapped (many in their eighties and nineties) to record their rich experiences and invaluable memories of growing up, living, or raising families in Georgetown and/or participating in the organizations and businesses that have developed and preserved Georgetown buildings and structures over the past century. Our oldest residents are being interviewed at the earliest stage of the project to share their unique and irreplaceable knowledge.
Hugh Jacobsen
Hear Hugh Jacobsen’s humorous recollections of moving into Georgetown, raising a young family and starting his now international architectural firm over a delicatessen in the early 60’s. You’ll be in awe of his knowledge of Georgetown’s architectural styles and history, how he changed the look of so many Georgetown homes with his modern approach, and how his DC practice took him all over the world. In his interview with Annie Lou Berman, Hugh Jacobsen has many stories to tell, friends to...
Trudie Musson
Trudie Musson moved to Washington in the summer of 1965 to work as a college intern in the office of Senator John Sherman Cooper. She never left. In 1975, she returned from her post as Cooper’s secretary when he was serving as the first U.S. Ambassador to East Germany, to continue her career as one of the few free-lance social secretaries working for a number of prominent people in Washington and Georgetown. Lorraine Cooper worked closely with Trudie for decades and described her as a...
George Hill
In an informative interview with Carey Rivers, seventh-generation Georgetown family member George Hill explores his appreciation for the history, beauty, friendships, and opportunities that have allowed him to serve this community. Currently, George is President of the Board of Managers of Oak Hill Cemetery. George shared many fascinating tales of his historically prominent relatives. Family lore tells of hosting President George Washington for dinner. Family members over several generations...
Patrick Meenehan
Meenehan’s Hardware store was a fixture in the Georgetown community from the 1930’s until 1983. The Meenehan family owned several Hardware stores in D.C. and Virginia. Long-time residents from mid-century will certainly remember the advertising jingle, sung over and over on the morning radio show of Harden and Weaver on WMAL. “Meenehan, the hardware man, the hardware man is Meenehan.” Meenehan’s in Georgetown had a reputation as being a wonderful place to do business. John Meenehan,...
Dr. Susan Nalezyty
DR. SUSAN NALEZYTY Georgetown Visitation Academy has been educating young women since 1799 during the administrations of every president but George Washington. Dr. Susan Nalezyty is the archivist and historian of the school and a Georgetown University professor. In her interview with Carey Rivers, Susan traced the history of the school and Monastery founded by three nuns, Alice Laylor, Maria McDermottt and Maria Sharpe under the guidance of Bishop Leonard Neale of Georgetown College. The...
Tom Crocker
Henry Courtney and Pepper Van Noppen’s interview with Tom Crocker is an important and valuable addition to CAG’s Oral History Project. Much of Mr. Crocker’s interview focuses on the very early years of Georgetown from 1751 to the 1820s, it’s real heyday as an important tobacco port before the crash in the tobacco market which changed the nature of the Georgetown community considerably. The interview focuses on the daily life of Georgetown as a port city on the Potomac River. Tom’s relatives...
Girma Hailu
Girma Hailu came to the United States as a refuge from Ethiopia in the late 1980s. After the fall of the Selassie government in Ethiopia, his early years in Ethiopia were ones of hunger and famine. He endured one of the worst humanitarian events of the 20th century. He was sent by the Ethiopian communist government to school in Russia. He managed to escape from the technical school and he made his way into East Berlin and then to West Berlin to seek asylum at the United States Embassy. He...
Malcolm Peabody
In the 1970’s, Malcolm Peabody and his wife Pamela moved to Washington, where Peabody, known to all his friends as Mike, took a job in the Nixon administration. Coming from a politically engaged and civic-minded Yankee family long-settled in Massachusetts, he brought his zest for politics and good government to the nation’s capital. In this interview with Tom Birch at Peabody’s house on Dumbarton Street, Mike tells of his efforts and successes in improving opportunities for low-income housing,...
Robert Rinehart
Interview Date: Monday, March 18, 2019 Interviewer: Hazel Denton Transcript: Reinhart, Robert.pdf Robert Rinehart Interviewer is Hazel Denton, 3/18/2019. Hazel Denton: Today is Monday, March the 18th, 2019. My name is Hazel Denton. I am sitting here in my living room on P Street with Robert Rinehart. Bob and his wife Nana are old friends of mine because we all attend Holy Trinity Church. Over the years, he's made it very clear he didn't live in Georgetown, but he has so many anecdotes and...
Christopher Addison
A native of Washington DC, Chris Addison grew up living in Georgetown. In 1981 Chris and his wife Sylvia Ripley founded the Addison/Ripley Fine Art Gallery, in a large, historic carriage house behind the Phillips Collection. Now, long established in Georgetown at the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and Reservoir Road, the gallery is recognized as one of Washington, DC’s foremost contemporary galleries presenting changing exhibitions of work throughout the year by leading local, national and...
