The My Carmel Oral History Project is poised to bring more of the past to life.

Former two-time Carmel mayor Charlotte Townsend died at age 97 on Oct. 31, the same day as her beloved town’s anniversary date. She’s now gone, but her memories of growing up in Carmel during the Great Depression and later serving as one of its most influential leaders are preserved, thanks to the My Carmel Oral History Project.

Townsend sat down for a video-taped interview in 2016 at age 91 and – always one for a good story and known for her jokes – she opined fondly about attending school at what is now Sunset Center, “in spite of the slates falling off the roof and almost decapitating students sometimes.”

Since the project’s start in 2016, over 20 people have been interviewed, although only a dozen are uploaded onto the city’s website at bit.ly/mycarmel, due to a lengthy editing process. Interviewees include former mayors, councilmembers and former congressman Sam Farr, as well as people who served as longtime volunteers or contributed in other ways to the fabric of the village. One of the interviews is with a few members of the Carmel High School Class of 1951.

“It’s a little bit of a mixed bag and we’ve been learning as we go,” says Katie O’Connell, the local history librarian for Harrison Memorial Library. The project is funded by the Carmel Public Library Foundation.

O’Connell took a break during the Covid-19 pandemic and is now preparing to interview more people from a list of about 20 to 30 names. She’s open to suggestions. And she’s considering shorter interviews or posting interviews with no editing.

“The stories we capture are the real history of Carmel, the real history of the community,” O’Connell says. It’s personal stories and observations like those Townsend shared that make history relevant. Without them it becomes “flattened” and the emotions and details are lost, she says. “To humanize the past and create a sense of connectivity with history that is 100 years old is really important.”