Skip to main content
WoLakota Project & Teachings of Our Elders

06 Eugene Hale: Stories From Grandma at Night

Explore 06 Eugene Hale: Stories From Grandma at Night with available transcripts, learning questions and source alignments in the South Dakota and North Dakota Elder arch

Interview · North Dakota · Eugene Hale

Themes: Kinship & family, Storytelling & oral tradition, Humor & play, Intergenerational learning

View the original resource

New transcript-based questions created with AI assistance using Scott Simpson’s Learn About and Learn From guide.

Learn About questions

1. Who told Eugene Hale stories as he went to sleep? 2. What does he recall about humor and language in those stories? 3. How does he connect memories of his great-grandmother with later experiences in his life?

Learn From questions

1. What did the way someone told me a story communicate beyond its words? 2. How might I preserve a family story when I remember only part of it? 3. What memories of being cared for help me through a difficult time?

Transcripts

06 Eugene Hale: Stories From Grandma at Night

Watch this interview on YouTube
But my grandma used to talk to me and tell me my grandmother’s Mother’s wanna raise me she would tell her Tony but this story’s all kind of stories about that tell about other people had done some crazy things and he told me and just to put me to sleep I guess tacos yes she would say well on the steamer just to say are you sleeping on here is here that’s there’s a taco cheat Jackie just i’ma tell you something and that’s the joke she was and I want to tell me how this concept of story says well but you storage that I can’t remember the right now it’s quite a few years since I heard him up so who knows what may be and there from 9 to 14 years old she told me the stories and I would fall asleep I laid him when I was bidden she sit there talking away not fall asleep and she will polish cou wake or somewhere to see from a week I’ll be sleeping which user that was my like I said of like my grandmother’s mother my great-grandmother she was a good she couldn’t speak English but icemakers same words in English I said - laughs okay and she said to left this is a dampen sound they’re safe right - that’s it here do you remember what that felt like to hear those stories as you were falling off to sleep how did it how it helped you or yeah there’s a lot of them she’ll tell me I don’t know if they’re made up or the truth but she’ll sister those are honk okay she said it was a jokes you know the stories that but she said that someone that it’s a is real but they make the changing it to a joke a story what she said then uh a hundred ahead she took the car she’s a long time what I thought used to be she said so that you know a little bit ladies a quit later should the dirt and from and she well now she said uh she told me she said uh I hate when I’m going to leave she said I know it’s gonna happen to you couldn’t have a hard life and when I think about that and look back and I sure did there is our time because uh become an alcoholic I wonder big drunks in town and all that I do charity I did everything that she was she was she had it you know predicted that I’ll be like so you know I think what sitting on how does she know that you know maybe it’s a thought or a feeling or but then the honor she was right so though you know it was great-grandmother innocence I called her Khushi

Affiliation sources

NDNAEU document credits: Eugene Hale — Spirit Lake (Dakota).

Video title and URL from the supplied Teachings of Our Elders transcript document.

Source materials

Supplied transcript documents. Text and transcription uncertainties are preserved as supplied.