Thomas N. Tegge was born in rural Illinois in 1932. He earned his Bachelor’s Degree from Butler University and his Master’s Degree (History) from DePaw University. He served in the United States Airforce right after the Korean War and left as a Captain in Intelligence. Tom and his wife Shirley raised 6 kids in Oak Park, IL. He began teaching history at Oak Park River Forest High School in 1960 and in 1968-69 spent a year studying Asian History at the University of Hawaii under a Fulbright Grant.
Tom was a devoted scholar and always sought to make history “come alive” for his students. In 1986 he launched a new social studies elective, Witness from the Front: An Oral History of World War II. It quickly became one of the most popular history courses at the high school and he later expanded it to include vets of the Korean War, Vietnam War, and Desert Storm. This course was offered from 1986 to 1992 when he retired from high school teaching. Tom also concurrently taught this course at Triton Junior College in River Grove, IL. After retiring and moving to Dixon, IL, he offered this course as an adjunct faculty member at Sauk Valley Community College, ultimately retiring from there in 2011.
Tom had a deep understanding of the importance of oral history and of preserving and honoring the legacies of those he interviewed. Over the course of 25 years, he interviewed hundreds of veterans and captured and preserved each person’s very unique experiences. He did this in classrooms so that these stories were shared with students of all ages. The Tegge family is deeply honored and indebted to The Baylor University Institute for Oral History for accepting Tom’s collection and for improving the sound quality (when possible) and adding transcriptions. Their commitment ensures that Tom’s work and the stories of so many veterans will be preserved for students and researchers for many years to come.
This collection features over 250 video oral histories with US military veterans. These donated videos were edited and described for online access, which includes transcription and captioning text provided by OpenAI’s Whisper. While highly accurate, some of this text may include errors, especially when proper nouns are involved.
Thomas N. Tegge was born in rural Illinois in 1932. He earned his Bachelor’s Degree from Butler University and his Master’s Degree (History) from DePaw University. He served in the United States Airforce right after the Korean War and left as a Captain in Intelligence. Tom and his wife Shirley raised 6 kids in Oak Park, IL. He began teaching history at Oak Park River Forest High School in 1960 and in 1968-69 spent a year studying Asian History at the University of Hawaii under a Fulbright Grant.
Tom was a devoted scholar and always sought to make history “come alive” for his students. In 1986 he launched a new social studies elective, Witness from the Front: An Oral History of World War II. It quickly became one of the most popular history courses at the high school and he later expanded it to include vets of the Korean War, Vietnam War, and Desert Storm. This course was offered from 1986 to 1992 when he retired from high school teaching. Tom also concurrently taught this course at Triton Junior College in River Grove, IL. After retiring and moving to Dixon, IL, he offered this course as an adjunct faculty member at Sauk Valley Community College, ultimately retiring from there in 2011.
Tom had a deep understanding of the importance of oral history and of preserving and honoring the legacies of those he interviewed. Over the course of 25 years, he interviewed hundreds of veterans and captured and preserved each person’s very unique experiences. He did this in classrooms so that these stories were shared with students of all ages. The Tegge family is deeply honored and indebted to The Baylor University Institute for Oral History for accepting Tom’s collection and for improving the sound quality (when possible) and adding transcriptions. Their commitment ensures that Tom’s work and the stories of so many veterans will be preserved for students and researchers for many years to come.
This collection features over 250 video oral histories with US military veterans. These donated videos were edited and described for online access, which includes transcription and captioning text provided by OpenAI’s Whisper. While highly accurate, some of this text may include errors, especially when proper nouns are involved.
User Notes :
User Notes :
Using This Resource In Your Research?
Scholars are welcome to use our interviews under the Fair Use doctrine of the US copyright statute. If you have questions about whether your intended use qualifies as “fair use,” please contact us at BUIOH@baylor.edu. Also, please let us know if you are using our interviews in scholarly work, as we like to keep track of this data and promote the use of our collection.
When citing our interviews, we recommend following The Chicago Manual of Style’s guidelines for “unpublished interviews,” such as in this example:
- Noah Jackson Jr., interview by Mark Firmin, May 28, 2009, transcript, Baylor University Institute for Oral History, Waco, TX, https://digitalcollections-baylor.quartexcollections.com/Documents/Detail/oral-memoirs-of-noah-jackson-jr.-series-1-transcript/2066141.
- Noah Jackson Jr., interview by Mark Firmin, May 28, 2009, audio, Baylor University Institute for Oral History, Waco, TX, https://digitalcollections-baylor.quartexcollections.com/documents/detail/2066108.
Using This Resource In Your Research?
Scholars are welcome to use our interviews under the Fair Use doctrine of the US copyright statute. If you have questions about whether your intended use qualifies as “fair use,” please contact us at BUIOH@baylor.edu. Also, please let us know if you are using our interviews in scholarly work, as we like to keep track of this data and promote the use of our collection.
When citing our interviews, we recommend following The Chicago Manual of Style’s guidelines for “unpublished interviews,” such as in this example:
- Noah Jackson Jr., interview by Mark Firmin, May 28, 2009, transcript, Baylor University Institute for Oral History, Waco, TX, https://digitalcollections-baylor.quartexcollections.com/Documents/Detail/oral-memoirs-of-noah-jackson-jr.-series-1-transcript/2066141.
- Noah Jackson Jr., interview by Mark Firmin, May 28, 2009, audio, Baylor University Institute for Oral History, Waco, TX, https://digitalcollections-baylor.quartexcollections.com/documents/detail/2066108.