In November 2020, we were deeply saddened to lose a wonderful friend of the Framingham History Center, Libby Franck. As one of our most beloved and talented presenters, Libby put her heart and soul into each performance. With our friends at Access Framingham, we’ve created this video to showcase her many talents including stage performance, poetry reading, and storytelling over the years.
We are also honored to announce the establishment of the Libby Franck Storytelling Fund, which will ensure that we continue presenting captivating stories that Libby was so gifted at researching, crafting, and performing for the FHC community.
What follows is a portion of a eulogy written by Libby’s son Tom. We thought it revealed some of the magic behind Libby’s great storytelling.
It’s very clear that her storytelling had an impact on many people. And it’s worth trying to figure out why. When people talk about old time radio shows, what they invariably say is what made them so great was the amount you had to imagine while listening. The same thing holds true with storytelling. Storytelling is often thought of as a performance. But it’s really a dialogue. A dialogue of imagination. It forces the listener to fill in the blanks and meet the storyteller halfway. And, in thinking about that, geometrically, that halfway point is triangulated from the abilities of the storyteller. The listener’s imagination can only match what the storyteller brings to the table. How tall, how magnificent, how glorious that halfway point is, how rich those fill in the blanks details are, is predicated on the strength, on the might of the storyteller.
For the full eulogy, click here…
We hope you will enjoy watching this retrospective and remembering some of the many remarkable women Libby brought to life in her storytelling.
Many thanks to Access Framingham for producing this beautiful tribute. If you would like to join us in keeping Libby’s legacy of storytelling alive, we welcome your donations to the Libby Franck Storytelling Fund.