Thank you for celebrating with us!

This is the final week, of our 10 FOR 10 campaign to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Panama Canal Museum Collection’s (PCMC) arrival at the University of Florida. We will post an update on the success of the campaign in January so that you can share in the excitement.

We hope you have enjoyed the past ten weeks of oral history clips – I had such a wonderful but difficult time selecting them. There are many treasures in these interviews and it was hard to only pick ten. We hope that you will explore the interviews more on your own here. In additional to being a joy to conduct and to listen too, these interviews help document the past as well as to enrich our classes, research, and annual exhibits in the Albert H. Nahmad Panama Canal Gallery. Please get in touch with us if you are interested in doing an oral history, ehbemis@ufl.edu.

Now, on to the finale…

Since it is the last week I let myself pick two clips – one is Jeanne Sperry and the other is Bob Zumbado. They both talk about Christmas traditions and “chicanery” as Bob puts it.

The goal is to raise $10,000 during the ten weeks to support the PCMC oral history program. If you are interested in donating, please visit https://pcmc.uflib.ufl.edu/oralhistory/ or contact John Nemmers, jnemmers@ufl.edu, (352) 273-2766. View our Celebrating Ten Years Booklet. Contact Betsy Bemis, ehbemis@ufl.edu, if you are interested in doing an oral history interview.

This is week nine of our 10 FOR 10 campaign to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Panama Canal Museum Collection’s (PCMC) arrival at the University of Florida!

Once a week for ten weeks we will post an oral history clip to the blog. We hope you will enjoy them and that at least one or two of the stories inspire some memories

This week we selected a clip from Cirilo Alexander – he discusses being a young man in the Canal Zone during World War II and listening to news about the war on the radio.

The goal is to raise $10,000 during the ten weeks to support the PCMC oral history program. If you are interested in donating, please visit https://pcmc.uflib.ufl.edu/oralhistory/ or contact John Nemmers, jnemmers@ufl.edu, (352) 273-2766. View our Celebrating Ten Years Booklet. Contact Betsy Bemis, ehbemis@ufl.edu, if you are interested in doing an oral history interview.

This is week eight of our 10 FOR 10 campaign to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Panama Canal Museum Collection’s (PCMC) arrival at the University of Florida!

Once a week for ten weeks we will post an oral history clip to the blog. We hope you will enjoy them and that at least one or two of the stories inspire some memories.

This week we selected a clip of Bill McLaughlin – he talks about his favorite beach and the construction era town of Gorgona

The goal is to raise $10,000 during the ten weeks to support the PCMC oral history program. If you are interested in donating, please visit https://pcmc.uflib.ufl.edu/oralhistory/ or contact John Nemmers, jnemmers@ufl.edu, (352) 273-2766. View our Celebrating Ten Years Booklet. Contact Betsy Bemis, ehbemis@ufl.edu, if you are interested in doing an oral history interview.

Happy Thanksgiving Week!

This is week seven of our 10 FOR 10 campaign to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Panama Canal Museum Collection’s (PCMC) arrival at the University of Florida!

Once a week for ten weeks we will post an oral history clip to the blog. We hope you will enjoy them and that at least one or two of the stories inspire some memories.

This week we selected a clip from the Bremer family. In addition to Thanksgiving, this week is certain to be full of football for many people so we picked a clip about football games in the Canal Zone.

Click this link if you are interested in reading Thanksgiving recipes from the Panama Canal Review, November 1969, http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00097366/00045

The goal is to raise $10,000 during the ten weeks to support the PCMC oral history program. If you are interested in donating, please visit https://pcmc.uflib.ufl.edu/oralhistory/ or contact John Nemmers, jnemmers@ufl.edu, (352) 273-2766. View our Celebrating Ten Years Booklet. Contact Betsy Bemis, ehbemis@ufl.edu, if you are interested in doing an oral history interview.

This is week six of our 10 FOR 10 campaign to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Panama Canal Museum Collection’s (PCMC) arrival at the University of Florida!

Once a week for ten weeks we will post an oral history clip to the blog. We hope you will enjoy them and that at least one or two of the stories inspire some memories.

This week we selected a clip from Ricardo Cox – he tells a story about riding his bike and how once it ended up in the Canal.

The goal is to raise $10,000 during the ten weeks to support the PCMC oral history program. If you are interested in donating, please visit https://pcmc.uflib.ufl.edu/oralhistory/ or contact John Nemmers, jnemmers@ufl.edu, (352) 273-2766. View our Celebrating Ten Years Booklet. Contact Betsy Bemis, ehbemis@ufl.edu, if you are interested in doing an oral history interview.

This is week five of our 10 FOR 10 campaign to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Panama Canal Museum Collection’s (PCMC) arrival at the University of Florida!

Once a week for ten weeks we will post an oral history clip to the blog. We hope you will enjoy them and that at least one or two of the stories inspire some memories.

This week we selected a clip from Lou Womack – she talks about her family building the El Rancho and her early memories there. According to Lou, the El Rancho opened on November 8, 1934 – 88 years ago tomorrow!

We are also currently working with Lou to preserve her extensive writings about growing up in the Canal Zone, and to document the life story of her uncle Marty who worked at the El Rancho and supported the U.S. troops stationed at the Canal during World War II. The photos below were selected from the materials that she has shared with us.

The goal is to raise $10,000 during the ten week to support the PCMC oral history program. If you are interested in donating, please visit https://pcmc.uflib.ufl.edu/oralhistory/ or contact John Nemmers, jnemmers@ufl.edu, (352) 273-2766. View our Celebrating Ten Years Booklet. Contact Betsy Bemis, ehbemis@ufl.edu, if you are interested in doing an oral history interview.

The Womack family also owned Agewood Bourbon Whiskey Distillery in Panama. Did anyone ever drink it? Do you still have a bottle?

This is week four of our 10 FOR 10 campaign to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Panama Canal Museum Collection’s (PCMC) arrival at the University of Florida!

Once a week for ten weeks we will post an oral history clip to the blog. We hope you will enjoy them and that at least one or two of the stories inspire some memories.

This week we selected a clip from Skip Rowley – he talks about working at the locks.

I picked his interview for this week because he talks about Halloween and pulling pranks, but the clip about the locks was too great to pass up. For those of you that want to hear Skip’s Halloween story, visit his full interview through the link below. (Plus the great people at the Canal Record beat me to the wonderful Halloween photo they used on the cover of the October issue)

The goal is to raise $10,000 during the ten week to support the PCMC oral history program. If you are interested in donating, please visit https://pcmc.uflib.ufl.edu/oralhistory/ or contact John Nemmers, jnemmers@ufl.edu, (352) 273-2766. View our Celebrating Ten Years Booklet. Contact Betsy Bemis, ehbemis@ufl.edu, if you are interested in doing an oral history interview.

This is week three of our 10 FOR 10 campaign to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Panama Canal Museum Collection’s (PCMC) arrival at the University of Florida!

Once a week for ten weeks we will post an oral history clip to the blog. We hope you will enjoy them and that at least one or two of the stories inspire some memories.

This week we selected a clip from Maxine (Conover) MacDonald – she talks about riding horses in Panama and the Canal Zone and the racetrack in Panama City.

The goal is to raise $10,000 during the ten week to support the PCMC oral history program. If you are interested in donating, please visit https://pcmc.uflib.ufl.edu/oralhistory/ or contact John Nemmers, jnemmers@ufl.edu, (352) 273-2766. View our Celebrating Ten Years Booklet. Contact Betsy Bemis, ehbemis@ufl.edu, if you are interested in doing an oral history interview.

This is week two of our 10 FOR 10 campaign to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Panama Canal Museum Collection’s (PCMC) arrival at the University of Florida!

Once a week for ten weeks we will post an oral history clip to the blog. We hope you will enjoy them and that at least one or two of the stories inspire some memories.

This week we selected a clip from David Seitz – he talks about mangos and growing up in Gamboa.

The goal is to raise $10,000 during the ten week to support the PCMC oral history program. If you are interested in donating, please visit https://pcmc.uflib.ufl.edu/oralhistory/ or contact John Nemmers, jnemmers@ufl.edu, (352) 273-2766. View our Celebrating Ten Years Booklet. Contact Betsy Bemis, ehbemis@ufl.edu, if you are interested in doing an oral history interview.

This is week one of our 10 FOR 10 campaign to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Panama Canal Museum Collection’s (PCMC) arrival at the University of Florida!

Once a week for the next ten weeks we will post an oral history excerpt to the blog. We hope you will enjoy them and that at least one or two of the stories inspire some memories.

This week we selected a clip from Reggie Hayden – he talks about selling Panama American papers near the Pedro Miguel Locks.

The goal is to raise $10,000 during the next ten weeks to support the PCMC oral history program. If you are interested in donating, please visit https://pcmc.uflib.ufl.edu/oralhistory/ or contact John Nemmers, jnemmers@ufl.edu, (352) 273-2766. View our Celebrating Ten Years Booklet. Contact Betsy Bemis, ehbemis@ufl.edu, if you are interested in doing an oral history interview.