During the iron-cold winter of 1944-45, Steve Kepchar camped under a grim exhortation.

"Dig deep," his sergeant said as Kepchar grubbed out a foxhole during the Battle of the Bulge. "That might be your grave."

But it wasn't.

The decorated World War II veteran survived his Army days. He sailed home to New York Harbor and started a family back in Pennsylvania. He used his carpentry skills to build his own house and worked as a supervisor at Landis Valley Museum for 27 years.

He's had a full life. And now, thanks to an oral history initiative launched by Homestead Village, more people can find out all about it.

Kepchar is the first star of the new program spearheaded by the Rev. Dave Longenecker and volunteer Heather Ritchey.

Ten more multimedia recordings are in various stages of completion. Eventually, Longenecker said, he and his self-made documentarians hope to create and archive profiles for all 450 residents of the East Hempfield Township retirement community.

Each recording will run four to five minutes and be burned to a DVD.

Kepchar's history features still photos with a voice-over and background music by Longenecker.

Future productions will incorporate video segments. They will be narrated by relatives and friends and, when possible, include recorded interviews with the subjects.

"The families really appreciate it," said Longenecker, who noted that Kepchar's wife, Irene, is planning to send copies of the DVD to the couple's sons in Illinois and New Jersey.

But residents and staff also will be able to view the histories and get to know the subjects more fully, Ritchey said.

"It'll help the employees understand that the people who live here have been places and done things."

Preserve memories
Oral history projects are one aspect of the "culture-change" trend sweeping the older-adult services industry.

The movement aims to make retirement communities homier and confer greater respect and dignity to elders.

Ritchey, whose grandfather, Harold Eckenrode, lives at Homestead Village, said she began riding that wave a few years ago while helping mental-health patients record their experiences.

She stopped perceiving her charges simply as clients, she said. "I was blown away. ... It changed my life and career."

Longenecker, the Homestead Village chaplain, broached the oral history idea to Kepchar several months ago.

"I said 'sure!' " Kepchar recalled.

His wife began combing through family albums.

"They gave us oodles of pictures," Longenecker said.

Ritchey expertly handled the assembling of information and photographs, he added. "Heather's the motor. She really cranks it out."

Still, the project hit snags this summer.

For one thing, Longenecker, in an unrelated accident, fell off a ladder and broke six ribs.

Then, too, the Homestead team was feeling its way technologically.

Synchronizing the audio with the photos was the hardest task, according to Longenecker, who said he and Ritchey mostly used basic computer programs.

Ritchey, who previously worked in radio, said she "had to play around with [the software] and learn it."

Kepchar's friends at Homestead, under the tutelage of resident writing coach Peg Atkins, helped with interviewing and script-writing.

Chronicling Kepchar required more than 40 hours and four or five drafts; Longenecker and Ritchey hope to streamline the process to about 15 hours.

"Boy, were there kinks" in the debut project, Longenecker said with a laugh.

Not that you can tell.

Recently at Homestead Village, Kepchar, Longenecker and Ritchey pulled chairs in front of a computer screen to review the fruit of their labors.

The slideshow gracefully blended scenes from Kepchar's life. One snapshot from his younger days in Windber, showed him with his foot jauntily propped on the shiny bumper of a 1936 Ford. Others brought to life memories of wartime: a screened-in porch built by Kepchar, vacations to Europe.

The viewer learns that the retiree's happiest moment was when he met his wife.

Nowadays, intones the voice of Longenecker, "Steve is an early bird" who likes to watch "This Old House" on TV.

The project taught him much about Kepchar, Longenecker said.

"I knew Steve was in World War II. ... Then his wife brought in this display of different medals and I thought, 'Good grief!' "

Kepchar's son, Stephen Kepchar Jr., of Lititz, said the documentary offers an intimate glimpse of personal history — set in a global context.

"Our families have enjoyed the stories many times," the younger Kepchar said, but, "He doesn't talk about the war much outside the family.

"We're all proud of our dad. One of the great Americans."

The enlightenment continues on many levels.

"The first time I tried to videotape a resident," Longenecker said, "I didn't know about light." The footage was backlit and unusable.

Drawing out folks who frequently are reluctant to toot their own horns is a skill unto itself.

People from Kepchar's generation are "kind of used to working hard and being quiet," Longenecker said.

Ritchey said she recently was wrapping up a history of another resident when his family sent in a photo, almost as an afterthought.

The print showed the man sitting on the back porch of the White House, drinking coffee with former President Jimmy Carter.

"How did this happen?" Ritchey exclaimed in astonishment. "I'm looking at the picture thinking, 'Holy moly.' I can't wait to hear about this presidential thing!"

She and Longenecker said the oral history project is unfolding with some sense of urgency; residents in the skilled nursing center will be interviewed first.

One of the women they were documenting died in the middle of the project.

"We're going to finish it anyway," Ritchey promised.

"One story at a time," Longenecker said.