Memories Matter
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Life Story Links: May 5, 2020
A plethora of stories about storytelling in the age of Covid; musings on what we pass on to our kin; plus video and biography links worth your time.
“Nothing can match the treasure of common memories…”
—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
What We Pass On
THREADS OF TIME
“Necessity prompted me to pull out my fabric and sewing machine to create cloth face masks for our family, but Mom, gone 20 years now, was right here with me as I stitched, and remembered lessons she taught me,” Marjorie Turner Hollman writes in this reflection on her family’s sewing traditions.
AN INHERITANCE OF VALUES
It’s Leave A Legacy Month in Canada, and Scott Simpson of Heirloom Videos by Cygnals encourages everyone, wealthy or not, to leave a legacy beyond financial gifts: “What gets recorded gets remembered.”
STORYTELLING SCHOOL
The Moth has created a weekly educational blog with family-friendly stories and activities for children of all ages: Engage the hearts and minds of the young people in your lives through storytelling.
The Covid Diaries
LIVES INTERRUPTED
A window pane. A hospital ID. Unfolded laundry. When a history professor in California challenged his students to choose an artifact to represent their experiences during this pandemic, some of their responses moved him to tears.
A CASE FOR CORONAVIRUS JOURNALING
We are experiencing “a period that historians will debate for decades, even centuries to come. Our chance to control some of that narrative is in our hands.” And when it's safe again, “we will want to be able to look back at how far we have come and celebrate one another—together, knowing the story of our experience will live on.”
“REMEMBER WHEN…”
Memory researchers say these months will eventually become a blur for those of us isolating at home. A look into how memory works, and which memories may prove more lasting.
A VALUABLE INTERGENERATIONAL RESOURCE
Let us remind ourselves of the many positive roles that our grandparents typically play: as kin-keepers, caregivers, storytellers, and moving reservoirs of social histories. Of grandparents, memories, and the pandemic.
PRESS PAUSE
I can feel overwhelmed by all the ways I “should” be spending my newfound time at home. It’s okay, though, to get lost in our memories or stare out a window.
PRESERVING THEIR ‘PIECE OF THE EARTH’S DIRT’
The recent stay-at-home directive has led personal historian Pat Pihl to think about the role that home plays in developing our character. Here she shares one client’s reflections on 50+ years “at the farm” and the impact it has on three generations.
The Writers of Our Lives
THE ACCIDENTAL BIOGRAPHER
“She was an unknown writer with no experience in biographies when she wrote to the elusive Samuel Beckett. To her surprise, he wrote back.” This obituary for award-winning biographer Deirdre Bair entices me to read her work. Here, she is remembered as a friend.
THE MEMOIR IN ESSAYS
“An author’s ability to forgive that earlier version of herself is especially prevalent in the memoir-in-essays, perhaps because of the extended time period covered as a writer composes essays across years or even decades.” LitHub offers up a reading list of recent autobiographical essay collections.
ART AND OBJECT
“I believe that work like mine...can be inspiring to anyone who’s ever felt undervalued or unheard, or anyone who’s inherited material related to someone interesting but unknown,” Eve Kahn says. Her biography of American Impressionist Mary Rogers Williams used a trove of personal letters to recreate a life.
In Video
“DEAR DIARY…”
Hat-tip to personal historian Michelle Sullivan for sharing this video, which she so aptly captions “Kent State: a child’s perspective...or, the importance of encouraging journaling by children.” It’s a fine example of a personal history in the guise of a public radio news report.
“THE MAN WITH A BEAUTIFUL SMILE”
“New York’s elderly population need extra special care. Their stories should also be celebrated,” editors at Untapped New York say as they introduce this documentary project about an almost 100-year-old New Yorker and Holocaust survivor, George Sachs.
...and a Few More Links
Have you heard of The Mass Observation Archive?
How looking back at our old photos boosts mood and relaxes the mind
Amid the pandemic, a family learns their neighbors are their long-lost relatives.
Short Takes
Let’s be kind to ourselves
I can feel overwhelmed by all the ways I “should” be spending my newfound time at home. It’s okay, though, to get lost in a good book or stare out a window.
My news and social media feeds are filled with articles on how to maximize my time at home. How to make the most of home-schooling. How to revive old hobbies, finish abandoned projects, take part in viral video challenges and bake bread and educate myself more and more and more. Zoom calls and Google Hangouts and radical self care (huh?).
I’m feeling a sense of overwhelm. There are days I ride the waves of productivity and move forward with ease, and others where I walk around the house unfocused and feeling a sense of unidentified dread.
Can you relate?
These are strange times, indeed, and there is no precedent in our lives for how things “should” be, how we “should” feel.
Press pause
I just wanted to say: Let’s be gentle with ourselves.
Let’s allow for days where not “enough” gets done.
Let’s allow for days when, rather than organizing our photo archives (a project on my list, for example), we browse our old photos and get lost in the memories they stir.
Let’s skip the journaling for a day to escape into the pages of a long-favorite novel.
Let’s take time to honor our feelings, and to allow ourselves to just be—no judgment, no expectations.
Personally, I will continue to jot down ideas on my own to-do list, and professionally, to offer up family history activities and memoir writing tips on this site, just in case you’re ready for them.
Just remember: It’s okay for some items to remain on our to-do lists indefinitely, and to bookmark activities for later.
I’m here as a personal historian to listen to your stories when you feel ready to share, to move forward with a legacy project that’s been on your mind for ages, and to offer wisdom for your DIY projects, too. And I’m here as a fellow human navigating this new normal with vulnerability and good intentions—let’s do our best, together.
❤️❤️❤️
Life Story Links: April 7, 2020
Lots of advice for preserving personal history during the coronavirus pandemic, plus recommended videos & tips for capturing family stories and writing memoir.
“One voice has the power to forge connections and create a better, more empathetic world.”
—Dr. William Lynn Weaver, StoryCorps participant
In this time of sheltering-in-place and extreme social distancing, maintaining connections by good old-fashioned telephone calls is one way to go. Photograph of American Telephone & Telegraph Exhibit at New York’s World Fair, 1939, courtesy Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library Digital Collections.
In the Time of Covid-19
THE QUARANTINE DIARIES
“What makes history is people who write some stuff or keep some pictures,” Mr. Herron said. “This is how we communicate across centuries.”
PERSONAL HISTORY QUESTIONS
I created this guide, 56 Essential Questions to Ask Your Parents Before It’s Too Late, in hopes that more people will use their housebound time to forge meaningful connections with their older loved ones.
ACTIVITIES FOR ALL AGES
Family Search has compiled myriad in-home and online family history activities for families to do together “designed to bridge the distance between loved ones.”
ASKING QUESTIONS
This pandemic is the time to preserve your family’s stories, writes Ellie Kahn, a personal historian in the Los Angeles area. And Arizona–based Olive Lowe of Life Stories by Liv offers four easy steps to use Google Voice to record those story-sharing conversations.
‘RAPID RESPONSE COLLECTING’
“As a historian, you’re always thinking about what’s missing, of what you want to know more about. I think what people will want to know about this crazy time is what everyday life was like, what it was like to live through.” Museums scramble to document the pandemic, even as it unfolds.
FROM AN ARCHIVIST’S PERSPECTIVE
Hat-tip to New York–based archivist Margot Note for highlighting the following articles in her always informative newsletter:
“Write it Down”: Historian Suggests Keeping a Record of Life During Pandemic
Presentation: Archiving COVID-19: A Guide
Consider joining Margot’s Facebook community for news of upcoming webinars (she recently hosted the popular “Close Together/Far Apart: Creating Family Archives While Social Distancing,” for example).
Ah, Memories
IN PICTURES
“Photo albums make me think of family: the big, bulky leather-bound behemoths that Mum whips out at Christmas. They’re time portals I can peer through to see my dad looking like Morrissey in the ’80s,” Meg Watson writes. “Making one for myself was a totally new, and surprisingly emotional, experience.”
ADOPTION JOURNEY BOOK
For adoptive parents interested in preserving memories of their journey, here is a road map for what to save, how to record memories, and when to begin compiling everything into a book.
HOME & AWAY
In her new memoir, Always Home, Fanny Singer writes about her “uniquely delicious childhood” as daughter of food icon Alice Waters. Now she ponders the future of her mother’s restaurant, Chez Panisse, and “what can make us feel grounded and sane…at a time so pregnant with precarity.”
Watch List
TIME TO LEARN
The free video archive of 2020 RootsTech sessions includes discussions about copyright, DNA, genealogy research techniques, and tackling difficult chapters of our family history.
THE WRITER’S LIFE
“I had no idea when I taped this…class that it would be released during a time where we’re living in a great deal of isolation and searching for ways to grow, witness, help, find peace within the chaos,” memoirist Dani Shapiro says. Watch “Writing for Inner Calm: A Mindset, Methods, and Daily Exercises for All” with a two-month Skillshare trial.
STREAMING TREASURES
The Library of Congress “has an extraordinary trove of online offerings—more than 7,000 videos—that includes hundreds of old (and really old) movies,” writes Manohla Dargis, among them this lyrical slice of life in 1948 New York City, “In the Street.”
A few other videos that might be of interest:
Survivors Testimony Films Series from Yad Vashem
And a 29-second advertisement with a message from Shaquille’s mom Lucille to “Preserve What’s Priceless”:
History Made Personal
REMEMBERING OUR SOLDIERS
A 41-year-old bricklayer from the Netherlands turned his childhood passion for World War II history into an act of remembrance lovingly tending the graves of Allied soldiers.
SALVAGING A MUSEUM’S ARTIFACTS
On Jan. 23, a fire gutted the upper floors of 70 Mulberry Street in Manhattan, where the Museum of Chinese in America’s collection was housed. Now, as workers sift through what survived, families are celebrating hundreds of boxes of heirlooms that were unloaded from the building’s scorched interior.
...and a Few More Links
Nick Flynn on making collages from found ephemera as “an atlas of my journey”
Invisible life lessons from war in a peacetime house
Review: The Memory Book: A Grief Journal for Children and Families
Rawpixel has curated a collection of vintage images of the Spanish Flu and historical medical images.
Short Takes