Life Story Links: September 29, 2020
“Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.”
—Oscar Wilde
Vintage postcard of “A Northern Autumn, Birch Drive” (originally issued by Detroit Publishing Company, 1898 - 1931), courtesy The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library Digital Collections.
On Memoir
A MEMOIR ROOTED IN PLACE
“Life moves in strange and marvelous patterns,” Rebecca McClanahan says in this interview for Brevity magazine. “The memoir runs panting behind the life but can never catch up.” Her new book, In the Key of New York City: A Memoir in Essays, was released this month.
A LIFE BETWEEN TWO WORLDS
“Twenty-one years later I am close to finishing the memoir,” George Clever tells personal historian Patricia Pihl. “I owed my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren information about my Lenape life, information I could not receive from my parents, grandparents, or great parents.”
Stories Untold, Discovered Anew
SACRED STORIES
“All anyone really wants is to be seen and heard, and yet we avoid seeing and hearing others every day. Even among families, there are limits to what we can expect to receive from others. Sometimes we’re left carrying our own stories, like oceans inside of us.” Sarah Kasbeer on sacred stories.
ARTIFACTS OF A LIFE
William Lamb’s mother, who died in 1992, still finds ways to speak to him through the objects she left behind. Read how a lamp unraveled the story of a life Lamb never knew his mother had.
Family History Finds
FEAST OF MEMORIES
For anyone who’s ready to begin capturing the stories that make up your food heritage, I created a list of food-themed questions that you can use for either family history interviews or writing prompts.
LOOKING TO THE PAST
This pandemic year will be remembered for sure, but it’s also important to keep in mind that, “like our ancestors, we can come together and overcome the difficulties ahead. These U.S. census records offer signs of hope of what is to come.”
LIVING THROUGH THIS HISTORIC TIME
Lock down these days with a family memoir, suggests Joss Carpreau of Elephant Memoirs in Manchester, England: “You may not want to write about it yet [if] it’s all too raw, and maybe you think the worst is yet to come. These, however, are the thoughts and feelings that will most be interesting in years to come.”
SUMMONING COMPASSION
“After writing this piece, I received my great-grandfather's death certificate and discovered he…died in the State Hospital for the Insane from Dementia Paralytica, which may well have been a factor in the sad choice of allowing his son to perish.” California–based personal historian Lisa O'Reilly on an ancestor’s heartbreaking decision.
Personal Notes from Personal Historians
CLASSICS FOR THE SEASON
The partners behind NYC–based Remarkable Life Memoirs share a few of their favorite fall recipes, including a sweet kugel “best [eaten] when you’re standing in front of the fridge with your coat still on.”
(COUGH, COUGH)
“N95 masks are de rigeur, not the pretty cloth masks that are my everyday pandemic wear. (I can’t believe I miss them!).” Personal historian Trena Cleland provides a fire update from the West Coast.
“THE STRANGEST START TO COLLEGE”
Nancy West, a memoir coach in Western Massachusetts, says she was well-prepared to help her daughter through the challenge of going off to college—but she wasn’t prepared for what happened next.
Bearing Witness to the Holocaust
LESSONS OF THE PAST
“The results are both shocking and saddening, and they underscore why we must act now while Holocaust survivors are still with us to voice their stories,” an expert says in this piece revealing the dreadful results of a survey about Holocaust awareness among U.S. adults.
THE LAST GENERATION
Witness Theater: The Film takes viewers behind the scenes of an intergenerational program which brings together Holocaust survivors and high school students to elicit and memorialize stories of the Holocaust. “These [survivor] communities are dwindling,” film director Oren Rudavsky told The Times of Israel. “It’s an action to create another generation of people who can tell their stories.” Watch a trailer below, and check local PBS listings for an upcoming air date.
Notable Losses
REMEMBERING HIS FATHER
“People used to ask my dad if he was the real Bill Gates. The truth is, he was everything I try to be,” Microsoft founder Bill Gates writes in this tribute to his father, William Gates, Sr., who died on September 14. He honors him as well in this brief video posted on his blog:
JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG REMEMBERED
“Born in Depression-era Brooklyn, Justice Ginsburg excelled academically and went to the top of her law school class at a time when women were still called upon to justify taking a man’s place. She earned a reputation as the legal embodiment of the women’s liberation movement and as a widely admired role model for generations of female lawyers,” reads the obituary in The Washington Post. The New York Times also ran a lengthy tribute that details her early family life in New York City as well as her history-making career; watch a video remembrance below.
MORE PERSONAL TRIBUTES FOR RBG
Nina Totenberg, friends with Ruth Bader Ginsburg for 50 years, shares stories of “her extraordinary character, decency and commitment to friends, colleagues, law clerks—just about everyone whose lives she touched. I was lucky enough to be one of those people.” And her fellow Supreme Court Justices also wrote moving tributes honoring their “dear friend.”
...and a Few More Links
The latest issue of Brevity magazine, with a focus on experiences of disability
A look at the history of personal food writing
New books in October include biographies of Sylvia Plath and Malcolm X plus Lenny Kravitz’s ghostwritten memoir.
Podcast episode: “Lisa Lisson on How Knowing Your Family’s History will Benefit Your Family”
This Modern Love column by Heather von Rohr is a fine example of writing about your relationship origin story.
Reminder: If you missed any of the short video classes from Save Your Photos Month, they will be available to watch through November 1.
The World Mother Storytelling Project, to be livestreamed on October 25, teaches us to listen to and tell our mothers’ stories.
Short Takes