Interview with Barbara (Babs) Perkins
Date17 July 2025
Mediumborn digital audio file
DimensionsDuration: 57 Minutes, 55 Seconds
ClassificationsInformation Artifacts
Credit LineCommunity History Project Collection
Description(a) Audio file of interview with Barbara (Babs) Perkins. She was interviewed by Samantha Hass on 17 July 2025 in Winsted, Connecticut. (b) Photograph of Barbara Perkins provided by Babara Perkins.
Babs Perkins was interviewed as part of the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History's Community History Project discussing moments of change in her life.
Over the course of the interview, Babs tells her life story and how her career path completely shifted after she was in a serious car accident in the 1990’s. Driving home one night after an important work meeting, Babs fell asleep at the wheel, and her Jeep veered into a pole. The vehicle's front was crushed, and the car lacked airbags. Babs ended up in the hospital, the soft tissue in her lips and legs severely damaged. As a result of the accident, Babs was sent in a wheelchair from her current residence in North Carolina back to the state she grew up in, Connecticut.
She experienced tremendous anger and frustration after the accident, and it took her several years to truly feel better, both emotionally and physically. During her recovery period, she recognized that she could not go back to her previous career of being a chef. She eventually came to the conclusion that this accident was an opportunity for her to let go of any sort of doubt or uncertainty she held before. She decided to fully pursue anything that seemed of interest to her because, as she stated, the fact that she is alive right now must be for a reason.
Babs is now a full-time creative; she is a proud photographer, writer, and documentarian. In the interview, she speaks on her work and her travels and explains that none of it would have happened if not for this significant moment of change in her life. As a photographer, Babs had traveled to multiple Balkan countries in the past to document traditional cheese-making processes. She recounts that she would go door-to-door to civilian’s houses just to learn about different kinds of cheesemaking. This is something that Babs never would have guessed she would be doing, pre-accident.
As a result, Babs views change as something that prompts discoveries, and she fully encourages anyone to take that leap of faith and explore whatever it is that they want to do.
Babs Perkins was interviewed as part of the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History's Community History Project discussing moments of change in her life.
Over the course of the interview, Babs tells her life story and how her career path completely shifted after she was in a serious car accident in the 1990’s. Driving home one night after an important work meeting, Babs fell asleep at the wheel, and her Jeep veered into a pole. The vehicle's front was crushed, and the car lacked airbags. Babs ended up in the hospital, the soft tissue in her lips and legs severely damaged. As a result of the accident, Babs was sent in a wheelchair from her current residence in North Carolina back to the state she grew up in, Connecticut.
She experienced tremendous anger and frustration after the accident, and it took her several years to truly feel better, both emotionally and physically. During her recovery period, she recognized that she could not go back to her previous career of being a chef. She eventually came to the conclusion that this accident was an opportunity for her to let go of any sort of doubt or uncertainty she held before. She decided to fully pursue anything that seemed of interest to her because, as she stated, the fact that she is alive right now must be for a reason.
Babs is now a full-time creative; she is a proud photographer, writer, and documentarian. In the interview, she speaks on her work and her travels and explains that none of it would have happened if not for this significant moment of change in her life. As a photographer, Babs had traveled to multiple Balkan countries in the past to document traditional cheese-making processes. She recounts that she would go door-to-door to civilian’s houses just to learn about different kinds of cheesemaking. This is something that Babs never would have guessed she would be doing, pre-accident.
As a result, Babs views change as something that prompts discoveries, and she fully encourages anyone to take that leap of faith and explore whatever it is that they want to do.
Object number2024.79.48a-b
NotesSubject Note: The Connecticut Museum of Culture and History’s Community History Project (CHP) is a public-facing initiative, focused on contemporary collecting, gathering items of the recent past as well as from events happening today. This program developed community historians to identify, document, and preserve their experiences as residents of Connecticut, and to share these experiences during a series of community presentations. The project focused on the theme "Redefining Moments of Change." Conneticans share stories of people or events who have changed their lives or how they have sparked change in the lives of others.Cataloging Note: Digitization and access to this collection is supported by a Congressionally Directed grant through the U.S. Department of Education.
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