Finding Your Voice: The Value of Telling Your Story

Ever considered telling your personal story in public? It’s not as easy as it sounds. Yet more and more people are finding the value they achieve in doing so. This week’s speakers — Dolly Browder and Victoria Emmons — will share how telling their stories have made a difference in their lives and the lives of others. 

In September 2019, local author and memoirist Richard Fifield compiled an anthology of memoirs written by Montana women. The book -- entitled "We Leave The Flowers Where They Are" -- gets its name from a line in the book's only poem, written by an 85-year-old woman. The 43 stories tell about joy, tragedy, family, love, culture, abuse, horror and more. Each author found her voice in telling her story. 

Dolly Ellen Browder retired from her practice as a Licensed Midwife after attending home births for 37 years in western Montana. 

Dolly resides with her husband in Missoula and their two daughters live and work in New York City. Dolly occasionally works as an expert witness in midwifery cases, is a docent for a local museum, practices yoga five days a week, rides her bike whenever possible and travels the world.

She is one of 41 Montana women whose stories appear in the recently-published anthology We Leave the Flowers Where They Are. Her memoir entitled “Number One” chronicles some of the challenges she had to overcome in her midwifery career.

Victoria Emmons moved to Missoula in 2015 to be near family after a ten-year career teaching French and journalism in secondary school in Florida and a 30-year career in healthcare administration in Northern California. Her daughter’s family subsequently relocated to Arizona, but Victoria was hooked on Montana. Today she is an author, editor and consultant in Missoula, and loving the local scenery.

Victoria is president-elect of the Rotary Club of Missoula and has served on many nonprofit boards throughout her career. She is co-chair of the Rotary District 5390 Public Image Committee and editor of the District’s Big Sky News. She is also a multiple Paul Harris Fellow.

For four years, Victoria wrote a lifestyle column for a California magazine and her website www.rueSleidan.com includes more than 100 of her poems. Her stories and poetry have appeared in six anthologies, including We Leave the Flowers Where They Are. One of her poems is on display at the Stanford Cancer Unit in Palo Alto, CA. 

The author will share her humorous memoir “Montana Bound” about moving to Missoula.