CENTENNIAL, Colo. — For more than 15 years, a small radio station inside the Holly Creek Retirement Community has been giving residents more than just something to listen to — it's been sharing resident's stories.
“This is a resident project, and so you learn a lot on the way that you can kind of prove to yourself that I can learn something new at this age,” Priscilla Stenman, 89, said. She co-hosts the weekly interview program “Wanderings” alongside fellow resident Sandy Washington, 86.
With “no radio experience at all,” Stenman said, “we’ve learned a lot.”
Each Tuesday, the pair goes live from the cozy in-house studio. Their voices are carried to every television in the complex. They interview both residents and staff — uncovering family histories, personal achievements and important chapters of each person’s life.
“I think it’s a wonderful way for people to learn about the other residents and staff,” Washington said. “It’s a chance of building our community.”
Recently, their guests were three Japanese-Americans — Carol Furuta, Ruth Kawamura and Jane Mayeda — all survivors of World War II incarceration camps in the United States.
“My brother, my two sisters and I, my parents, we went to three camps, two in California and one in Colorado, and that was our last place, and that’s how we ended up in Denver,” Furuta said.
That “last place” was the Granada War Relocation Center — known to internees as Camp Amache — an internment camp in southeastern Colorado.
“Where we lived was four walls and a floor,” Furuta said.
Furuta’s parents never spoke about their wartime confinement.
“They were probably ashamed, although the shame wasn’t with them, but the fact that it happened, I think it was painful,” she said. “Never, ever spoke about it, and I wished I had asked them more.”
After internment camps were shutdown, Furuta remembers prejudice as a constant.
“A lot of prejudice. I mean, I remember words being said to me,” Furuta said.
Sharing her experience with neighbors is not just personal — it’s a call to awareness.
“It is important that we all know our history,” she said. “I think that the younger generations, they don’t. I don’t know how much of it is in history books, but people who are my age don’t know. So I would think that the younger kids would know even less.”
The message from Furuta is clear: “Let’s not repeat history and let’s pay attention and not judge people because they may look different from you.”
For the hosts of “Wanderings,” these conversations exemplify the strength of the community they serve.
“It’s nice to get to know people you know — their real stories,” Washington said.
