Memories Matter
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Life Story Links: October 27, 2020
An array of reads for memory keepers, life story writers, and family history preservationists including celebrity memoirs, photo stories & adoption narratives.
“Here’s the deal. The human soul doesn’t want to be advised or fixed or saved. It simply wants to be witnessed—to be seen, heard, and companioned exactly as it is.”
—Parker J. Palmer
Vintage “Jolly Hallowe’en” postcard, courtesy The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library Digital Collection.
Beyond Celebrity
YOU MATTER TO ME
“Unexpected praise, like a gift given ‘just because,’ can be even more powerful—and make an even bigger impact…So do it now. Before it's too late.” How Eddie Van Halen’s death inspired this decree for telling those who matter to you that they are appreciated. Tribute time, anyone?
“EARLY LIFE ISN’T EVERYTHING”
The brother of comedian Mike Nichols writes a heartfelt letter offering a counterpoint to the way a reviewer characterized his mother, “dismissed with the single word ‘nightmarish,’ and I will attempt in this letter to relate some information that might allow a fuller and kinder understanding of her.”
AND IT’S NOT GHOSTWRITTEN
“I had been threatening, daring myself to go open my treasure chest of diaries for the past 15 years but never had the courage to do it,” actor Matthew McConaughey says. The milestone of turning 50 was the impetus he needed, and the resulting book—“a love letter to life,” he calls it—is out now.
Saving Our Photo Stories
TOO MANY PICTURES?
“It’s a lot of ‘I’ll do it later.’ And really, you could do years’ worth of later. And then you’re kind of faced with this insurmountable project before you.” Why you shouldn’t put off that big digital photo organizing project.
PHOTOS & STORYTELLING
I’m a personal historian, so it should come as no surprise that I think a photo book with no stories is, as my grandmother would say, for the birds. I offer up three themes that elevate your photo book to heirloom, and make adding your personal stories easy.
All History Is Personal
RACE, IDENTITY & THE STORIES WE TELL
“If we truly want Mississippi to advance, we have to embrace all of its stories, even the ones that make us uncomfortable.” University professor W. Ralph Eubanks discusses why he teaches Southern identity and memory, and how “memory is not a passive repository of facts, but an active process of creating meaning about the past.”
HOW THEY VOTED
Have you created an archive of your family's voting history? Pam Pacelli Cooper of Massachusetts–based Verissima Productions.offers some questions to consider as we celebrate National Archives month and head into the November elections.
WHERE IS THE BLACK BRITISH HISTORY?
“I’m privileged in that my Grandma took it upon herself to commit her life story to the page, which means our entire extended family can learn about our shared personal history by reading her book. Most Black Brits aren’t nearly as lucky,” Almaz Ohene writes—and so she shares her story so they may, too, see themselves and “and the collective importance of their histories.”
Life Story Work
FOR THE ADOPTIVE FAMILY
“Life story work is vitally important and is about giving adopted children a narrative that they can understand about their early life experiences.” All families who adopt through this UK–based agency are offered one-to-one sessions with a life story support worker.
IN THE GRIP OF MOURNING
Can you write someone’s life story if they are still deep in the throes of mourning? Should you? Seattle–based memoirist and ghostwriter Bruno George ponders these questions, and turns to Roland Barthes’s Mourning Diary for added insight.
In First Person
IN CONVERSATION
Alisson Wood on “the myth of catharsis in memoir, redistributing power, and the tales we tell ourselves in order to both justify and survive the situations we find ourselves in. And how, by retelling these stories, we reclaim our own power.”
“1,000 ARABIAN NIGHTS”
When Umber Ahmad brought friends to her childhood home in Michigan, she dreamed there would be Little Debbie cakes in their perfect plastic wrappers. Her mom had other plans, as she shares in this story on the latest episode of the Schmaltzy Podcast
...and a Few More Links
a selection of items from the historic Waldorf Astoria Hotel auction
Did you know that the RootsTech 2021 all-virtual conference is free?
FISHstory uses historic photos which illustrate the past to benefit future science.
Short Takes
Life Story Links: October 13, 2020
A roundup of recent stories for anyone interested in life story preservation, memoir writing, and personal history—this one’s got a little of everything.
“When a story is told, it is not forgotten. It becomes something else, a memory of who we were; the hope of what we can become.”
—Tatiana de Rosnay, Sarah’s Key
Vintage postcard (1907-1918) depicting Forest Avenue in the Bronx, New York, courtesy The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library Digital Collection.
Of Hearth and Home
WHAT WE COOKED
“Someday I imagine having grandchildren...and I imagined them asking me, ‘Mimi’ (or whatever they might call me), ‘what did you do during the quarantine?’ And I thought there ought to be something better to say than, ‘Watched Netflix and ate popcorn.’ ” Sam Sifton on (not yet) keeping a Covid food journal.
A MOST UNUSUAL CELEBRATION?
Musings on Thanksgiving, togetherness, and making (and preserving) holiday memories this year... How will you manifest gratitude and spend the day in 2020?
WELCOME HOME
“How do you create a storied home when your family's story is just beginning in it?” Kim Winslow on using your family’s new home as a canvas for family storytelling.
Keeping Track…
NEW APP FOR RECORDING MEMORIES
“The mounting death toll from coronavirus led innovator and entrepreneur Yehuda Hecht to ponder the regret many are feeling at not having paid more attention to the stories of parents, grandparents, and other loved ones.” So he created a family history app, SelfieBook, to help people record the stories of their lives.
SEALED FOR LATER
“While many of us would rather forget 2020, we’re living through a historic moment that we may eventually want to remember.” A brief guide to making a 2020 pandemic time capsule.
Telling Our Stories
EXCAVATING OTHER PEOPLE’S LIVES
Biographer Robert D. Richardson believed “life-writing should be gripping, vivid, and intense, while giving a sense of the person’s daily existence that ‘links the reader’s life with the subject’s.’”
“THIS THING CALLED LIFE”
“I didn’t quit Prince, I just quit writing about him or hanging around his world. I still don’t know if I was brave or an idiot to walk away from the only real scoop rock and roll had to offer in those days,” Neal Karlen writes in this excerpt from his new book.
CHROMOSOMAL BREADCRUMBS
“My mother must have known long before I figured it out that motherhood is, at its core, a series of unanswered letters. Some tucked into envelopes. Others tucked into our cells,” Amory Rowe Salem writes in this first-person piece on breast cancer and family.
COMMUNITY & CONVERSATION
When her town went into lockdown, 60-year-old Jinny Savolainen wanted to do something meaningful with her time—so she began interviewing neighbors, which, she says, “gave me a sense of purpose and meaning that I badly needed.”
Oh, Personal History!
THIS BIZ OF OURS
Bethesda–based personal historian Pat McNees updates a 2008 article on the business of personal history, including what types of projects connote “personal history,” and how to find a market for such work.
BACK TO BASICS
Many folks want to preserve their life stories for the next generation but don’t know where to start. Here are three steps to finding the best personal historian to help (including, ahem, a note on what a personal historian is).
...and a Few More Links
First photos of enslaved people raise many questions about the ethics of viewing.
“The honor was all mine,” reporter says of telling this spy’s story.
Auschwitz survivor and memoirist Ruth Klüger has died.
Read the September/October issue of Archival Outlook.
A new season of Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., returns October 13.
Short Takes
Life Story Links: September 29, 2020
This week's roundup, heavy on video content, features stories on the nature of memoir, moving tributes for deceased, and an array of family history finds.
“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
Life Story Links: September 15, 2020
From memoir to mini stories, from family photos to family history, this roundup is chock-full of new reads & learning opportunities for memory keepers everywhere.
“If you don’t grow and change in the telling of your life, the reader will not receive your hard-earned wisdom. It’s what editors call ‘the payoff.’ We call it good storytelling.”
—Brenda Peterson and Sarah Jane Freyman, Your Life Is a Book
On this day 57 years ago, September 15, 1963, four young Black girls were murdered as they prepared for their Sunday School lesson at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, in a bombing by the Ku Klux Klan. This photograph shows Emma Bell, Dorie Ladner, Dona Richards, Sam Shirah and Doris Derby—workers from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee—outside the funeral of the girls, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, Addie Collins, and Cynthia Wesley. Photograph by Danny Lyons, courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.
Book Craft
DON’T CALL IT A MEMOIR
Sometimes the idea of telling our “life story“ is overwhelming. If we think of memoir as a series of smaller life narratives, though, the way in becomes clear.
MEET THE EDITORS
“There’s no such thing as the ‘best editor’—there’s only the best editor for you,” writes Samantha Shubert of NYC–based Remarkable Life Memoirs in this piece busting three myths about editors (and no, they’re not judgy grammar police).
ONE STORY AT A TIME
Ten seniors met with Nancy West for one hour each to share a story from their lives, and the results were fruitful and lively (and absolutely in line with the mission to help alleviate seniors’ loneliness and isolation). Now Nancy is offering mini-memoirs as part of her services at her Massachusetts–based personal history business.
Memoir & Memories
ON GROWING OLDER
“This memoir is alive with the urgency of a man in his seventies still yearning to achieve a realized life,” Vivian Gornick says of Lee Gutkind's My Last Eight Thousand Days, due out on October 1. Listen in on a virtual conversation between these two legends of the genre on the book’s release date.
WARTIME MEMORIES
“History is most authentic when you have participants telling you what happened to them, their own personal experiences…. Our core focus is preserving stories that are otherwise going to be gone and forgotten.” As the 75th anniversary of World War II’s end approaches, local interviews preserve war stories for future generations.
OF FOOD AND LIFE
Whether it’s being cooped up during this pandemic and cooking more often or just the warmth our food memories bring, folks have been asking me for tips on preserving their food heritage more than ever. While a few posts are planned, up first is this one with an overview of how to begin.
Photo Inspiration
PICTURES AND WORDS
“Writing from Photographs” is the title of a four-week self-guided online course being offered by Creative Nonfiction, which will include writing prompts and inspiration exploring “the rich possibilities of the space between photograph and experience.”
30-MINUTE DOSE OF INSPIRATION
While the above course caters to those intent on writing their memoir, the free mini-course I created for Save Your Photos Month this year is designed for everyone, non-writers included: It’s called “Save the Story of Just One Photo,” but I can’t fathom you stopping at just one.
A NEW YORK ORIGINAL
“He pulled out old photographs and told of his tales. He read passages from the memoir he wrote nearly twenty years earlier—a memoir to his grandkids. And, in typical Joe fashion, he made us martinis to clink to what was truly a meaningful day.” Meet Joe.
Remembering 9/11
TEACH THE CHILDREN
With the 19th anniversary of the horrific 9/11 attacks just passed and many families home-schooling their children during the pandemic, I thought I would share these interactive lesson plans for students in grades 3–12 from the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, including one that teaches how first-person accounts and multiple perspectives deepen historical study.
TINY TRIBUTES
Can a remembrance really mean anything when it’s just a little over two minutes? Watch this moving video from the StoryCorp September 11 Initiative, and you tell me…
…then listen to this one-minute-and-24-second audio clip of Ester DiNardo recalling how her daughter Marisa brought her to Windows on the World atop the World Trade Center the day before she perished in the attack:
You may also read the full transcript of Ester’s testimony, or listen in to other recorded oral history accounts from the 9/11 Memorial Museum’s oral history collection.
...and a Few More Links
New research into how the brain manages to safeguard our memories
She “accidentally accumulated the world’s largest achive of ’80s Esprit merch”
Old-fashioned scrapbooking as an artistic form of memory-keeping
Compelling short first-person read: “How to Eat Crabs with Your Mother-in-Law”
Short Takes
Life Story Links: August 31, 2020
A wealth of reading on the value of family photos for prompting memories and stories, plus memoir writing tips and how to leave a meaningful legacy.
“One thing I have learned about remembering is that it is a social process: it happens in collaboration with other people. [My grandmother’s] memories with me may not be the same as her memories with others. The reality of remembering is always contextual.”
—Charles Fernyhough
Ah, if only the back-to-school season were as carefree as past years… Kids in an unidentified school circa 1913. Photograph by William Davis Hassler, printed from original glass plate negative, courtesy New-York Historical Society, New York Heritage Digital Collections.
Kitchen Confidential
THE STORIED RECIPE
Last week I interviewed Becky Hadeed, the story- and food-loving host of the inspiring podcast The Storied Recipe. Read about a few of my favorite episodes here (probably unsurprisingly, they’re with everyday folks about their most cherished food memories).
A LIFETIME’S WORTH OF FADED RECIPES
“My recipes tell stories. If they were pared down, edited and orderly, my memories would be, too.” Joyce Purnick makes a case for revisiting your old, grease-stained recipes every once in a while (even if you no longer cook from them).
The Power of Photographs
A PLACE FOR PICTURES
“There’s nothing wrong with storing your favorite snapshots on Instagram or in the cloud, but digitally browsing through your memories will never feel as special as taking a photo album off the shelf and physically flipping through the pages.” Amen. The Strategist showcases 10 great photo albums for every occasion.
SAVE YOUR PHOTOS MONTH
September is Save Your Photos Month, and among the 40 free virtual classes available are a few by personal historians including my own, Share the Story of Just One Photo, as well as Martie McNabb’s live Show & Tale: Where Were You On 9/11? Pre-registration is required, but you are free to watch the videos at your convenience through November 1, 2020.
SORTING YOUR FAMILY PHOTOS
“The difference between 3,000 unlabeled photos versus 300 photos organized by category can be the difference between your child learning their history or not,” Eric Niloff of photo organization company EverPresent says in this piece that provides a basic framework for getting your own mass of family photos in some semblance of order.
TREASURE HUNT
“Through experience, I have learned what does and doesn’t work when it comes to reaching out to long-lost cousins” in an effort to get family history photos that aren’t online, Melissa Knapp writes in this post with concrete tips for using descendancy research to find new (old) photos of your relatives.
“REBOOTING MEMORIES”
“People are forgetting wartime memories. We need to revitalize those old memories by using the latest method of expression and delivering it to the hearts of many people.” In this case, “melting frozen memories” via colorized photographs.
Personal Iconography
BELOVED STUFF, REBORN
“It’s so satisfying to give new life—and new purpose—to old stuff. You get to keep the memories while renewing your home.” Susan Hood of NYC–based Remarkable Life Memoirs shares some inspired ideas from her own life.
POSTER GIRL
“Even before I’d seen a single episode of Sex and the City, I was versed in the art of performative self-reflection. And then Carrie Bradshaw sashayed into my life. She didn’t just make auto-documentary look glamorous. She made it look like a job.” Brittany K. Allen uses touchstones of popular culture to walk us through her journey as a writer.
On Nonfiction Writing
ELEVATE YOUR MEMOIR
National Association of Memoir Writers is running a six-week virtual Memoir Boot Camp starting September 22 with a different teacher each session, including Jacqueline Woodson, Claire Bidwell Smith, and Larry Smith.
AN INVITATION FROM HISTORY
“The pandemic is only one of the seismic forces that converged on American life this year,” Oregon–based personal historian John Hawkins writes. “There is a certain advantage to being the one using the keyboard or the microphone instead of relying on others to record their thoughts.”
TRUTH OR DARE
“I’d done my best to get the facts correct as I wrote, but I had thousands of pages of archival documents, photos, trial transcripts, and newspaper clippings, as well as hours of interviews.” Emma Copley Eisenberg thoroughly and thoughtfully dives into the topic of fact-checking nonfiction writing.
STORY SHARING FOR NON-WRITERS
The experts at the Biographers Guild of Greater New York this week share three basic approaches you can take to ensuring your life stories are told and preserved for the next generation, even if you do not consider yourself a writer.
Legacy through Stories
A LETTER TO THE DEAD
I often tell people who are struggling to craft a meaningful tribute of their lost loved one to write a letter to them—tell the deceased directly what you loved and admired about them. This letter to John Lewis in the wake of his recent passing is a sublime example of this approach.
“MY FAMILY’S SHROUDED HISTORY”
“Inhibited by the silences in our families, we turn to books. But here was something rare: the answers to questions I hadn’t known how to ask, and a way to map my family’s stories into what I had learned of this history, each illuminating the other,” Alexander Chee writes.
THEIR PAPU
Ricardo Ovilla “lives on in his granddaughters’ stories. To them, he will always be the tender hearted, marimba-loving, menudo aficionado who stopped at nothing to see his children laugh. They knew him simply as ‘Papu.’ ” Listen in below:
DIASPORA, RECONSTRUCTED
“My Kashmiri grandmother is illiterate. I wonder what she’d say if she knew her progeny wrote her unsent letters, wrote so she wouldn’t be lost to history. My grandmother, all four feet and nine inches of her. Housewife. Teen bride. When she video calls, she stares at my father and she cries and she cries.” High school student Yasmeen Khan on her fractured provenance.
...and a Few More Links
Photographs of generations of Black suffragists crafted narratives and became “decidedly civic currency.”
A look at an array of services for creating a digital legacy for a lost loved one
Watch Thomas Allen Harris in dialogue with Marci Brennan, a professional photo organizer, followed by a Labor Day–themed community photo share.
Colorful murals help prompt memories for people with dementia.
Short Takes
Life Story Links: August 11, 2020
On the craft of life story writing, commemorating lives lost, enticing memoir excerpts, digital preservation tips & more recommended reads for memory keepers.
“We have become a generation of unstorytellers…. We need to return to the campfire. And we can. It’s as simple as saying to someone, Tell me the story of your life. And when they’re finished, say, I’d like to tell you mine.”
—Bruce Feiler, Life Is in the Transitions
Postman, 1896. Photograph courtesy The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library Digital Collections.
Saving Family Stories
A LITTLE MYSTERY
If you are unsure about an ancestor’s real life, don’t flesh out their story with conjecture and imagination, suggests Patricia Pihl, a personal historian based in Western New York. “Transparency will bring clarity to the picture of our lives, a true gift for future generations.”
(NON)TRADITIONS
Nashville–based family historian Taneya Y. Koonce wonders “I don’t have family traditions. Or do I?” Her take: “Recording facts and snippets about relationships and values for future generations can add as much to your family story as passing down the ways your family celebrates the holidays or other more conventionally considered traditions.”
Gone but Not Forgotten
LIFE CELEBRATIONS
As part of StoryCorps’ efforts to help people commemorate lives lost during the Covid-19 pandemic they have put together a two-page guide with genuinely helpful advice for setting up and recording a memorial conversation.
STORIES FROM POST-LOSS LIFE
“Before [my mom and grandmom] died I hadn’t even thought to attempt making a brisket or kugel or kasha and bowties, but afterward I felt this deep urgency to learn how to carry the tradition forward.” Rebecca Soffer talks to Allison Gilbert about keeping lost loved ones’ memories alive.
Inside the Issues: Recent Magazines & Books of Note
LIBRARY LOVE
The new issue of Broadside, the magazine of the Library of Virginia, includes an array of summery images from their digital collections, the intriguing ancestry of former football player Torrey Smith, a behind-the-scenes look at their Conservation Lab (with tips for preserving family papers), and a spotlight on a new book that finds the untold stories—“real-life human dramas”—within historical records.
IN A TIME OF WAR
Coby Blom-de Groot was 15 years old when her parents brought home a baby to shelter during the German occupation of Holland in 1943. She kept a diary about the child, including photographs and anecdotes, for her parents to read when they could be reunited. “That precious diary confirmed for me that Ria…was deeply loved,” her sister Sonja said. Read the whole issue of Yad Vashem Jerulsalem magazine, in which this story appears.
MEANING-MAKING THROUGH STORY
We’re in the midst of a collective “lifequake,” and author Bruce Feiler has help for how to navigate the uncertainties that come with all this change (hint: there might be some storytelling involved). Why you should read Life Is in the Transitions.
Recommended First-Person Reads
MARRIAGE STORY
“He was in New York, and I was in Seattle, but we had credit cards. We’d deal with the consequences later. The first time we kissed was in the kitchen of my apartment, against the closed door of the dishwasher in mid-cycle. Everything whirred.” Read an excerpt from The Fixed Stars: A Memoir by Molly Wizenberg
POETIC LICENSE
“Dad hadn’t been surprised when I’d told him I was interested in reading through his letters; he assumed everyone would be.” Read a brief yet enticing excerpt from Gretchen Cherington’s memoir of growing up with poet laureate Richard Eberhart as her father.
In Pictures
“WHO IS THAT?”
Bill Shapiro has shelf upon shelf of found photos sorted into archival boxes. “I love these pictures,” he writes. “I also hate them. They remind me of time going by. They remind me of what I had and what’s gone.” Read more about the strange lure of other people’s photos.
DIGITAL PRESERVATION
As an early supporter of Permanent.org I have uploaded photographs to their archive and am following their journey as a nonprofit dedicated to creating “a new paradigm for secure cloud storage.” I believe their mission is worthwhile—low-cost, long-term digital storage for anyone “leveraging the same funding models used by museums, libraries, and universities for centuries.” Read about how they reached their phase 1 fundraising goal; get started with a free gigbyte of storage; or add space as you need it ($10 per gig).
...and a Few More Links
In the latest issue of Creative Nonfiction: Lee Gutkind on memoir now
Why we reach for nostalgia in times of crisis.
A family historian’s process for making ancestor books
Milwaukee–based personal historian Mary Voell announces virtual guided autobiography classes beginning in September.
Milan Kundera will donate his archive to his hometown library, in Brno, Czech Republic.
Short Takes
Life Story Links: July 28, 2020
Lots about memoir (writing and reading), free learning opportunities, the complexities of family history, and, of course, recommended first-person reads.
“I will always believe that storytelling matters, that glimpses of lives different than ours—whether they come through images or stories—have the potential to change us by opening the world to us and fostering compassion. We are so much better when we listen to each other.”
—Vikki Reich
With professional baseball’s opening day pushed back from March 26 to July 23, our national pastime is getting a late start this year due to Covid-19. This vintage photo celebrates the Negro National League Champions of 1935, the Pittsburgh Crawfords. Photograph courtesy Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, The New York Public Library Digital Collections.
On Craft
THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF MEMOIR
“It was really rewarding when my 60-year-old Italian mother-in-law, who I adore, said she saw herself in parts of the book. We’re completely different, and yet, my narrative joined us.” Davon Loeb, author of the lyrical memoir The In-Betweens, addresses the idea of finding universality in individual stories and filling in the gaps of his memories without fictionalizing.
WHERE TO BEGIN?
It's important to focus your life story writing on themes that both hold real meaning for you and that you feel will resonate with your family. Last week I wrote about how to identify impactful themes for your memoir.
“THINK SPECIFIC, THINK SMALL”
“One of the most common concerns we hear from prospective clients is that first-person writing seems intimidating, maybe even overwhelming. And one of our most common responses is to break a project down into bite-size pieces,” Samantha Shubert of NYC–based Remarkable Life Memoirs advises.
Time-Sensitive Offerings
GRIEF IN THE SEASON OF COVID
The workshop series “Remembering Our Loved Ones During an Unprecedented Time” from author and grief expert Allison Gilbert continues tonight at 8pm ET with a session discussing ways to meaningfully organize your family photos; and on August 4 with a topic of clearing clutter while staying connected to heirlooms that hold stories.
LIKE HIDDEN CAPTIONS
Learn best practices for adding metadata to photos so your pictures are tagged with names, dates, and other identifying info that make it easier for you to find them when you need them (and so future generations will know who's in the pictures, too). This one-hour class is free for now ($49 value).
LIMITED FREE SHOWING
The Public Theater’s The Line, a documentary-style play, is available to watch free until August 4, 2020: Crafted from firsthand interviews with medical first responders during the COVID-19 pandemic, The Line stars Lorraine Toussaint, Alison Pill, John Ortiz and other actors who bring their stories to life. I highly recommend finding the time to view this original work by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen which has been called “immediate and urgent” and “stinging with truth.”
Lorraine Toussaint in The Line, available to view free on The Public Theater’s YouTube channel through August 4. Actors speak directly to the camera using words captured from interviews with real-life first responders to powerful effect.
Family History Finds
A CAPTIVE AUDIENCE DURING COVID
The ranks of amateur genealogists have grown during the coronavirus pandemic, and they’re boring their sheltered relatives, reports the Wall Street Journal. “Genealogy is boring. But everyone loves a good story and family history is filled with very good stories.” Personal historians suggest focusing on the scandals you unearth to drum up interest.
WRITE IT OUT
You never know how recording your own story will impact others, but you can always know that your story is important—it matters!” This short blog from RootsTech offers up ideas for journaling during hard times.
PHOTO MEMORIES
Seeing her precious family photo, damaged in Hurricane Harvey, now fully restored and framed, one woman declared that maybe “I can be restored back to new,” too. Watch students working with Adobe’s “The Future Is Yours” program return lost memories to their owners in the moving video below. (While this recording is two years old now, I am sharing (a) because it’s refreshingly inspiring to see pre-pandemic hugs and (b) because you can volunteer for the ongoing program to help others.)
First Person Stories that Resonate
BLACK AND WHITE
“When I told my father I was going to marry Jake he said, ‘If you marry that man you will never set foot in this house again.’” Mixed-race couples from four generations in Britain tell their stories.
HISTORY REMEMBERED
Only about two percent of the men and women who served in the American armed forces from 1941 to 1945 are still alive. This piece gathers stories from participants in some of World War II’s most iconic moments, including from the only surviving witness of the German surrender signing.
In the Telling
WHOSE AUTHENTICITY?
“What I know for sure is that in order to create new ways of being, Native peoples must reclaim and revalidate the truth in our stories,” Taylor Hensel writes in this piece on indigenous ways of being and the idea of narrative as power.
THE IMMEDIACY OF THE MOMENT
“The velocity of my mother’s death and my distance from it all feel like a death in brackets. There is no touch, no contact, no final conversations, no holding the hand of the dying.” Jennifer Spitzer on losing her mother to Covid-19 and reading Virginia Woolf.
UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER
“I was in Italy, having lunch with friends, and one of them brought out a volume of Borges stories—he happened to be reading them. I said, ‘Let me tell you about my travels with Borges through the highlands of Scotland,’” Jay Parini writes. His friend told him to write a book; Borges and Me: An Encounter comes out in August.
A POET TURNS HER HAND TO MEMOIR
“I took with me what I had cultivated all those years: mute avoidance of my past, silence and willed amnesia buried deep in me like a root.” Natasha Trethewey on the seven-year process of writing her mother's story in Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir.
...and a Few More Links
How to curate your family photo slideshows like a professional photo editor
Alex Trebek “has written a memoir of consummate caginess.”
Creative tributes in place of a traditional memorial service
Autobiographical writing prompt: the story of everyday things
We’re all field workers in the effort to document the (many) happenings of this year.
Local newspaper turns the spotlight on Massachusetts–based family history film company Second Avenue Video.
Maryland–based personal historian Pat McNees offers up an anti-racism reading list.
On learning to decipher her father’s past in Nazi Germany, and the nuances of family history
Short Takes
Life Story Links: July 14, 2020
This week's reading: Finding humanity and connection via story sharing; archiving your family papers; and a plethora of first-person narratives worth your time.
“Families are united more by mutual stories—of love and pain and adventure—than by biology. ‘Do you remember when …’ bonds people together far more than shared chromosomes…a family knows itself to be a family through its shared stories.”
—Daniel Taylor
Board games play a starring role in many of our Covid diaries. This vintage photo shows the Herbster youngsters in Elizabeth, New Jersey, circa 1941. Photograph courtesy United States Office for Emergency Management, courtesy Library of Congress.
Finding Humanity & Connection via Story Sharing
HERITAGE, NOT HATE
When his family gathered after a funeral to share stories, a young Andrew Taylor-Troutman made sure to stay within earshot. “Stories are some of the best prayers,” he writes in this column in which he argues for heritage, not hate: “As a white person, I have the ability to be selective about Southern history. I could focus only upon my personal history." Alas, he does not.
“CAN I ASK YOU A QUESTION, BUBBE?”
Last week I wrote about a free guide I created with my 10-year-old son at the beginning of the pandemic, reiterating that kids can—and should—connect with grandparents intentionally, even after a loosening on social distancing guidance allows them hugs (and the ability to take one another for granted likely sinks back in).
EMPOWERING KIDS
“One thing that we have learned from decades of research in The Family Narratives Lab at Emory University is that family stories provide a foundation for feeling emotionally safe and secure for children,” Robyn Fivush, Ph.D., writes in this piece on how family stories can help us cope during the Covid-19 crisis.
Behind-the-Scenes Glimpses
A DAY IN THE LIFE
Are you working from home, too? Join Samantha Shubert of New York–based Remarkable Life Memoirs as she strives to achieve work/life balance—complete with ghostwriting, Zoom meetings, and (of course) a lot of coffee.
SHOW & TALES
“It’s like Antiques Roadshow meets The Moth,” Martie McNabb says of her signature story sharing events, dubbed Show & Tales. See how she helps other legacy professionals, and how she continues to “be of service” during the pandemic with virtual live events.
FULL CIRCLE MOMENT
StoryCorps’ recent animated video short, “My Aunties” (watch it below) documents one man’s experience of the AIDS crisis. Peek behind the scenes as the illustrator shares a glimpse of how the subject’s story intersects with his own.
First Person Stories Worth Hearing
BEEF STROGANOFF
“I have a Carl Reiner story that I hold very dear to me. I figured I'd share it today, on the day of his passing, because I hope it will bring some other people some joy the way it does me,” Matthew Rosenberg wrote on Twitter. Read the full story thread here—if you’re anything like me, it’ll bring you some joy, too, just as Rosenberg intended.
A LIFE STOLEN
John Hardy was seven years old when he witnessed his uncle kill a prominent white plantation owner in self-defense in 1925 Louisiana. Decades later, as the last family member with firsthand knowledge, he was interviewed to memorialize his account. Read about this story of racial injustice and resilience here.
ODE TO THE DADS
Los Angeles–based oral historian Ellie Kahn collected a few of her favorite stories about fathers to celebrate Father’s Day for the Jewish Journal.
FAMILY MYTHOLOGY
“I will likely never know which parts of Africa my ancestors were taken from.... But some accident of history gave me a last name that's actually pretty uncommon—one that I could use to track down a small part of my family's history.” Read part one of Leah Donnella’s ancestry story here, then click below to listen in as she gets to the bottom of her grandfather’s mysterious origin story.
Passing on Family History
SILENCES DOWN THE LINE
“In 2000, the way people got bad news wasn’t so different than how they got it back in 1929 when my great-grandmother was confined to a hospital bed.” Rachel Beanland on some of her family’s secrets, and why hiding them isn’t necessarily a kindness.
YOUR FAMILY ARCHIVE
“It is hard to know what of your family’s ‘archives’ to digitize, what to hold onto, what to get rid of, or even how to get started doing any of these things,” Philadelphia–based personal historian Clémence Scouten writes in this “ultimate guide” to archiving your family collection.
...and a Few More Links
The Mandela effect: how groups of people can all remember the wrong thing
FamilyScrybe has released its second issue of articles by and for family history researchers.
A fun oral history of Truman Capote’s legendary Black and White Ball
The souvenirs of everyday life provide a head-start on your memoir.
Short Takes