Janis Wilton understands she is a vessel of sorts. Stored away in her carriage are stories, so many stories, others are petrified they will forget.
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“I have this vivid memory of sitting with a woman recalling, as she fled across Europe, losing family members along the way and she started crying, I started crying . . . I still want to now,” Dr Wilton said.
“I wanted to stop the interview but then she said ‘no, this is wonderful I’m using you to tell my children’.
“It’s about capturing the power of the past and how it’s around us, everywhere. It’s a part of everything.”
The historian doesn’t quite recall how far back her love of history goes, she’s never actually thought about it but she sensed it has probably been there all along.
“I was always a little bit aware of our own family
history and then I started history at school, then university. But the real passion started when I finished studying.”
Fresh out of university Dr Wilton was employed as a research assistant and some of her first work involved recording the experiences of European refugees who came out to Australia during the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s.
“This was the really early days of oral history and I had not experience at all. But once I started going out and interviewing I got hooked, because this was living history,” she said.
“It was people’s personal experiences and it was in your face really. And these were really powerful stories. It can all be absolutely addictive.”
Along the way Dr Wilton became fascinated with her own family history, along with that of husband, Maitland Regional Art Gallery director Joe Eisenberg.
Where Dr Wilton’s heritage is a blend of English and German descent (‘it’s a really, truly Australian family whereby it’s really mixed’), Mr Eisenberg’s history harks back to one of the world’s greatest tragedies.
Born in Israel, Mr Eisenberg came to Australia in 1956 with his parents and sister. His family has escaped the Holocaust.
Mr Eisenberg’s mother lost her entire family in the catastrophe while his father lost 85 per cent of his kin.
“I’ve recorded my mum’s and both of Joe’s parents’ voices and Joe’s mum is still alive at 99,” Dr Wilton said.
“I like using those interviews as a way of going into the family
history, it’s about the present going back to the past. It’s just amazing.”
Now based in Maitland, Dr Wilton is an associate professor in history at the school of humanities at the University of New England.
In 2010, Dr Wilton and Mr Eisenberg collaborated to produce Maitland Jewish Cemetery: A Monument to Dreams and Deeds.
“I’ve been lucky to do work on the Jewish cemetery and that’s taken me into a lot of stories,” Dr Wilton said.
“I’d actually love to take the stuff with the Maitland Jewish Cemetery to the next step and to look at the stories of the Jews in Maitland as a way of looking at High Street, so you actually have a thematic focus of walking along.
“I always think it works best if you have a particular focus.”
The Wilton-Eisenbergs became part of the Maitland community almost 10 years ago and now live their life in a Californian bungalow – expertly cluttered with images and objects they love and adore – in the heart of the city.
Visitors include their children Daniel and Rachel, whose childhood included numerous trips to cemeteries and museums.
“Those poor kids, they would play with their Lego in cemeteries,” Dr Wilton said.
“We were terrified they would get overexposed. But Daniel, ironically, works at the Australian War Memorial and Rachel is very creative, so I don’t think it’s been too bad, they haven’t totally rejected their parents.”
And then there is Dr Wilton’s ever-growing love for the town she now calls home.
“I love Maitland and its history,” she said.
“I just love the sense of walking down a street that wiggles with this river at the back of it, and knowing that the city started because of that river and suffers because of that river.
“Places, and their histories, are full of stories that make people alive. One of my frustrations is people who think history is just facts and information, but it’s actually about people, their tragedies and successes . . . that sort of thing.
“If you look around the past is all around us and we often don’t recognise it as that.”