Life Story Links: March 16, 2021
“Memoir begins not with event but with the intuition of meaning—with the mysterious fact that life can sometimes step free from the chaos and become story.”
—Sven Birkerts
Today would have been my mom’s 74th birthday, so in her honor I am sharing a vintage photo from her teen years—in curlers, on hammock, jokingly giving a drag of her ever-present cigarette to…a youngster. (Yup, I wish I could ask her who all the players in this picture are.)
Helpful Tips for Anyone Who Values Memory-Keeping
HOW TO INTERVIEW SOMEONE IN HOSPICE CARE
When someone I never met wrote to me asking for advice on interviewing their dying mother, I spent some time researching before I answered her. Then I realized that other people might be looking for similar help.
“WHEN DISASTER STRIKES”
“The more we can do now to prepare for an eventual disaster the better off we’ll be—both in terms of safety as well as in protecting our irreplaceable family treasures,” archivist Rachael Cristine Woody writes. This helpful post includes handy checklists for preparing your family treasures for the worst.
CAPTURING FAMILY LEGACY IN VIDEO
In this engaging conversation with video biographer Steve Pender of Family Legacy Video in Tucson, Arizona, he explores topics including putting your family’s story in context of broader world history, and what to do it you think your own stories aren’t interesting enough to save. Listen in below, and click through to discover past episodes.
Our Stories, Our Selves
“A MEMORY PLAY”
“It’s through the film’s specificities that Minari depicts a family like any and no other. And it’s through preserving memories of love, heartbreak and sacrifice…that Chung’s excavation of his own childhood hits on achingly resonant truths about the fluid, formative essence of family.”
ON MEMOIR & FLUID STORYTELLING
“We’re all yearning, thwarted, loving, losing, grieving, laughing, crying, hoping. Our selves matter when we write stories that illuminate the human condition.” Beth Kephart in conversation about her new book, Wife | Daughter | Self: A Memoir in Essays, and on the process and value of memoir.
AN OPPORTUNITY TO SHARE
When Mira Rosenblatt, 97, went for her second shot of the Covid-19 vaccine, a nurse asked her if she was nervous. “I’ve been through way worse,” she said, proceeding to share her life story—including surviving the Holocaust and going on to have eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
“A YEAR LIKE A LIFETIME”
Whitney Myers, an Austin–based video historian, reflects on some of the universal themes she sees “over and over in the interviews I’ve done and year after year throughout the stories of our lives.”
LETTERS FROM—AND TO—THE TROOPS
Legendary comedian Bob Hope, who Congress officially named an “honorary veteran,” uplifted thousands of GIs—not only through his USO tours, but through letters he answered over the years. That correspondence is now collected in a book, Dear Bob: Bob Hope's Wartime Correspondence with the G.I.s of World War II.
...and a Few More Links
Toronto–based historian Dustin Galer, founder of MyHistorian, is featured on CBC.
Archivist hopes to reunite personal photos with tornado victims a year after storms.
How people are writing the history of the pandemic through everyday journals
A writer on her love affair with libraries (including the joy of discovery)
Teaching resources from Facing History and Ourselves for helping students reflect on the past year
Fun read: The untold history of the Barbizon Hotel for Women
Digital archivist Zoe Morrison, based in Florida, shares a friend’s old photo collection—and how clues to stories emerge from the pictures themselves.
The Home Edit and Ancestry share tips for storing your sacred keepsakes.
Short Takes