Emily Truitt

This interview with Emily Truitt was conducted in Hudson, New York as part of the Oral History Summer School. Emily is a former farm worker and aspiring therapist who lives in upstate New York, on the border between the United States and Canada, not far from Montreal. In the interview, she discusses the ten years she spent in the Pacific Northwest in her 20s and 30s, as a farm worker, a volunteer firefighter in her community, as well as a builder of luxury treehouses. She reflects on how the community and support network she was able to build during her time in the Pacific Northwest came to shape her sense of self: from the chief firefighter in her department and Buddy, her supervisor at the treehouse mill, to her two close friends Alicia and Olivier, a couple who offered for her to stay in a school bus in their backyard (and where she lived for three years). Emily also reflects on leaving the Pacific Northwest for upstate New York and what it was like to leave a place that was so formative to her. She talks a bit about her life now, as a mother of Simone, a four-year-old, and how the experience of mothering has symbolized a new season of life for her. And she reflects on her aspirations for the future, particularly in feeling galvanized to work with individuals who have experienced trauma.

This interview may be of interest to anyone who wants to learn about mentorship and friendship; as well as how community formation happens for an individual who moved to a part of the country that was new to her; the rhythm of life for a farm worker; the experience of being in your 20s/30s as a woman; the emotional experience and journey of becoming a mother; agricultural therapy.