Sarah Buckingham

“There was a great feeling of loss in the community and that was the context in which tearing down the Victory Theater seemed like one more nail in the coffin of a dying city.”

"We have been truly blessed since the plant has closed - because some people have committed suicide, divorces, people have lost their homes, their cars... We're still standing. Everytime we think we're going under the water, something pushes us right back up."

"I went to first grade for a month, maybe six weeks. The Italian Army invaded the village, therefore we were left without a teacher. Luckily, she left the textbook with us and so from that textbook my illiterate mother and I learned how to read."

“All I can remember is looking out the back of the ambulance and getting the feeling we were driving about 90 miles and hour. At that point it started setting in that this was a very serious event.”

“I’ll just take this child and put him in a little baby bed and he’ll just lay there and I can do my work, and then we had you. That wasn’t the way it worked out? No. You cried and fussed and carried on and you were way more work than I was prepared for.”