Why Wait? Save Your Family Stories NOW

This was a guest post today on Simple Marriage.

Four years ago, I took some creative writing and memoir writing classes, joined the Association of Personal Historians (APH) and became a Personal Historian. As I started to get more clients, I noticed a disturbing trend: my subjects had a tendency to die.

Most of the life stories I’ve written have been about elderly people. I learned very quickly to determine the most important topics to be covered before staring any interviews, and then address them first. Obviously, none of us know just how long we’ll live, but older people most likely have less time remaining. However, we can lose anyone at any age.

By the end of my first year in business, I was becoming discouraged—not because I didn’t have enough clients, but because the majority of them had passed away. To be honest, I almost felt like the Grim Reaper. For a while, I contemplated whether this was the right field. During the interviewing and writing processes, it was easy for me to get involved with my subjects, through the good and the bad in their lives. When they died, it was heartbreakingly sad.

One of my clients died very suddenly, but peacefully, while watching her favorite television program. I had just completed the interviews and written her story; all that remained was to finish pulling in the scanned photographs. After talking to the daughter who had commissioned me, we decided to complete her mother’s story in a booklet and give it to the family members, which I did two days later.

At the wake the next day, the family made me feel that my efforts were not only worthwhile, they were greatly appreciated. Without the stories I had preserved, the children and grandchildren would never have known some of the details from the woman’s life.

I continue to write life stories for people and encourage them to write their own. The important thing is to preserve those precious family stories before they are lost forever. None of us know exactly how much time we have. Here are some suggestions to help you start saving your own family stories now, while you still can.

Record Them
When you start working on your own family stories, I do strongly recommend getting a digital recorder, which is small, unobtrusive & fairly inexpensive. Mine is a Sony ICD-P520, which is less than $50 on Amazon.com. Another nice feature is that you can use the USB to load it to your computer and create CDs. Once you have a recording, you can also transcribe it into a Word document.

Prioritize Subjects
If you want to capture stories and folklore from the elderly, I urge you to start right away. You never know when they (or perhaps just their minds) may be suddenly taken away. Whenever you get a group of people together, encourage them to talk about their experiences. If possible, record them talking, but if not, then take notes to expand later.

Writing Journal
Keep a writing journal to remind yourself of stories you want them to talk about, or events you recall yourself. Use photos & memorabilia to help them reminisce. That often has a starburst effect - one memory leads to three others and each of them to several more. It is a wonderful way to keep expanding their legacy.

Helpful Websites
Here are some of my favorite websites to help you get started. And of course, my book has some excellent ideas on how to capture your family stories.

About.com: Genealogy website has a list of 50 questions to help on interviews.
www.genealogy.about.com/cs/oralhistory/a/interview.htm

Ancestry.com: This website says, “Feel free to print and distribute” a Script for Video or Audio Interviews with Family Members. www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~lineage/famhist.htm

Bethlamie.com: My website, where you can sign up for a free monthly newsletter (via email) with tips on writing family history.
www.bethlamie.com

One Story at a Time.blogspot.com: My blog with writing suggestions and examples of family stories.
www.onestoryatatime.blogspot.com

Association of Personal Historians (APH), which offers an anthology of personal stories.
www.personalhistorians.org/

Cyndi’s List.com: More than 200,000 website links to help with genealogy and family history.
www.cyndislist.com/

Grandparents TLC.com: This site offers “Technology to Help Loving Grandparents Connect with Grandchildren!”
www.grandparentstlc.com/blog/

Smithsonian Institute: This booklet in PDF format explains how to get started with interviews, sample questions and additional resources.
www.Folklife.SI.edu/Resources/pdf/InterviewingGuide.pdf

Story of My Life.com: Free private website to easily gather all your family stories from friends and family and invite participation from around the world.
www.storyofmylife.com

However you decide to start your own family stories, please start sooner rather than later. When something happens to one of your loved ones, you’ll be glad to have a keepsake of them.

Do the ill & the elderly make us feel mortal?

Barbara Sher posted this as a comment to my previous post: "I have a question about interviewing elderly people. I wonder if some of us avoid the people we love when they grow older because it's painful to realize we'll lose them one day. Someone I know told me he was often short with his mother and didn't realize why until one day it hit him that he was angry and hurt that she was getting old and would leave him. He said he was embarrassed about having such a childish feeling, but the realization made him stop being angry at her, so he was glad it happened.

"Have you ever heard of or felt anything like this?"

Barbara,
That is an excellent question & I am glad your friend recognized the reason for his behavior. In fact, I see that happening right now with my husband and his Mother. She is 90 and some days she does not know who he is. That bothers him so much that he almost doesn't want to see her.

I see the same thing happen with people who are seriously ill. Family & friends may be reluctant to go see them, either because they don't know what to say, or because they want to "remember them as they were." In addition, circumstances like that tend to remind us of our own mortality - if it can happen to them, it can happen to us.

Those reasons are understandable, but unfortunately, that tends to leave our loved ones alone when they need us the most. When we do go to see them, it is important to carry on as normal a conversation as possible. Sometimes it helps to bring along favorite photos or memorabilia as a nudge for reminiscing. Especially with the elderly, they may have better recall of events from many years ago than they will of last week.

Recently, a friend of mine died from cancer. Although it was a bittersweet experience, I was able to spend considerable time interviewing her to capture her life story before she passed away. Her dying wish was to leave a written legacy for her adopted daughter.

I was honored to help make her wish come true.

For more about the experience with my friend, please see this blog post: http://onestoryatatime.blogspot.com/2008/08/bittersweet-blessings.html

Bittersweet Blessings

Today I closed a bittersweet chapter on an old friendship. Three weeks ago, a friend of mine called and asked if I had time to write her life story. Being a Personal Historian who writes individual stories for people, I welcomed the opportunity. Little did I know what a blessing this one would be.

Let’s call my friend Melissa, to protect her privacy. We had gone to High School together, but we had lost touch after graduation. I happened to run into Melissa’s sister Karen last winter and mentioned my writing business. She shared with me that Melissa had cancer and that she was moving back to our area for treatments.

Over the next few months, I seemed to meet Karen by chance on a semi-regular basis and always asked about Melissa, who was responding to treatments. I planned to go visit her when she was stronger, but that never came to pass.

In response to her call, I told Melissa I could stop by to see her the next week, but she wanted to know if I had time that day. Hearing the soft urgency in her voice, I decided to change my schedule to see her that afternoon, and I was glad I did. She was adamant that she wanted her story written for her daughter, with whom she sometimes had difficulty communicating, and for her family, who were always there for her.

When Melissa answered the door, I was appalled by how unwell she appeared. I would never have recognized her if we passed on the street, based on the ravages of her illness and treatments. However, once we started talking, we quickly reconnected as she reminisced in response to my queries about her life. In spite of the serious nature of our visits, we shared a few good laughs and some delightful memories.

I left her home that first day feeling pleased that we were already making progress on her life story, but wondering how much time she had left in her brave battle. We scheduled interview sessions to meet on alternate days, which gave me time to transcribe my notes and listen to the recordings to capture the finer points of our conversations. On each return visit, I brought along my roughly drafted chapters for Melissa to read and clarify as needed.

It was wonderful to catch up on all the things that Melissa had done over the last forty-some years, which included growing up on a small farm in central Illinois, very much as I had. I never realized just how similar our early lives had been, but the nostalgia from reminiscing was extraordinary.

Each time I went to interview Melissa, it was apparent that her condition slowly and inexorably declined. In the span of barely more than a week, she regressed from answering the door herself, to remaining in her chair, to lying in bed and finally to calling in Hospice.

From previous experience interviewing people, I knew how difficult it can be to relate some portions of their lives. Strategically sequencing questions allowed us to cover a difficult time, such as her illness, followed shortly by a joyful time, such as adopting her daughter. I was careful to limit the time for each session and always ended on a positive note to minimize wearing her out.

When I first heard that Melissa was meeting with Hospice, I was almost overwhelmed to know that she was nearing the end of her struggle and that our time was very limited. This was a bittersweet experience. It was great to get to know her again, but terribly sad that she was dying at such a young age.

As we continued to meet and Melissa’s story unfolded, I began to feel an intense compulsion to complete her story this week on Wednesday. Working late the night before and all that day, I finally had a first draft ready to print. I carried the story on a portable drive to a local office supply store and waited impatiently while they printed and bound just a few copies.

When I arrived at Melissa’s home that evening and saw almost a dozen cars parked in front, I was afraid it was too late. In fact, her house was filled with relatives, and she was barely hanging on.

I quietly walked into her bedroom, where she was lying in a hospital bed and holding her grown daughter Alexandra’s hand. She smiled when she saw the picture of her and Alex on the front cover, ran her hand over it and said, “That’s good.” Then Alex read a few vignettes from the book and added some comments of her own. Melissa was too weak to speak more than a few words, but she smiled and nodded her head in response. I went home that night feeling I had accomplished my task.

Melissa passed away the next morning. In my heart, I believe she was waiting for me to deliver her story so she could rest knowing that her daughter would understand how she felt. I am grateful that I could help fulfill one of her dying wishes. It has also reinforced for me the absolute importance of preserving family stories before it is too late.

Everyone has a story to tell and they are all precious memories. In this case, I shed many tears in the process of writing, but it was truly a bittersweet blessing to comfort my friend at the end. Now she can rest in peace.