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Storytellers at the second installment of Story Matters, presented by Fort Thomas Matters. Photo by Mary Lou Keller. |
On August 26 six storytellers shared their tales to a packed house at
Fort Thomas Coffee for the second installment of Story Matters, presented by Fort Thomas Matters. Fort Thomas Police Officer Sean Donelan donated homemade wine.
The brainchild of Chuck Keller and Mark Collier (of Fort Thomas Matters), and Lori Valentine (owner of Fort Thomas Coffee), Story Matters, with a nod to
Cincy Stories, strives to celebrate our residents and history through the age-old act of storytelling. Through these stories community members quickly get to the heart of the matter, revealing love, life, loss and their personal truths.
At this free event, open to the public, stories are recorded and archived, and will be presented during the city's sesquicentennial celebration in 2017.
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Michael Clos. Photo by Mary Lou Keller. |
Michael Clos, who grew up in a family of storytellers and now works at P&G, as a part-time adjunct professor at Thomas More College and as a standup comedian, humorously shared how life doesn't always go as planned—and why that's OK.
"Always trust your instincts," Clos says, when telling about a cheetah encounter he had while working at a Skyline Chili kiosk in the The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. More nuggets of wisdom included: "
Never be too proud to ask for help. Never stop learning. Foremost, I pray." Clos always talked about the importance of not being afraid of failure.
"Every failed plan becomes a new plan," he says.
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Shelly Schlarman Walsh. Photo by Mary Lou Keller. |
Keller introduced Shelly Schlarman Walsh as a social worker, super mom and loyal friend. Walsh, who grew up in Fort Thomas, married her husband, a teacher, in 1997. Early in her marriage she held strong to this belief:
"We're going to be a team." They had three children and she described her family as typical until October 2012, when her husband caught a cold. That cold quickly snowballed—there was an upper respiratory infection and bronchitis. Ultimately, an MRI revealed masses in the brain.
"This community came together like I've never seen before," Walsh says. A benefit at St. Catherine of Siena Parish in Fort Thomas, with music by her husband's musician friends, brought in more than 600 people. The Walsh family freezer was filled with food for weeks.
"So much love came into our family," she says. Walsh's husband survived, and on the anniversary of his second brain surgery, the couple welcomed a fourth child.
"I want to thank you as a community for all that you did," Walsh says.
"We are all so lucky to be a part of this community."
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Snezana Popaja Tenhundfeld. Photo by Mary Lou Keller. |
Snezana Popaja Tenhundfeld fled Bosnia as a war refugee at the age of 12. Her story began in the spring of 1992, when she recalls walking with her aunt and mother on a dark night, the starts bright. She says she remembers feeling so happy. A few hours later, bombs began to fall. The aftermath of the civil war between the Serbs, Croats and Muslims in the 1990s were hundreds of thousands of lives lost and millions of people displaced, Tenhundfeld says. Initially Tenhundfeld's family stayed put.
"We had our family, we were together—that was what was important," she says. But eventually, it became too hard.
"The fear kept us awake at night," she says. In 1994, the family fled to Serbia, hiding in a tiny village. They applied for a refugee visa and for nine months,
"we relied on the mercy of others to help us through. We saw the goodness in others."