By Kathy Harlan
“It is important that we keep track of the
stories of who we are and where we have
come from and the people we have met along
the way . . .To lose track of our stories is to be
profoundly impoverished.” – Isak Dinesen
Some years ago I went through a phase of videotaping elderly
people telling about their lives. Most prefaced the interview with a
disclaimer, “I haven’t done anything very interesting.” And then they
proceeded to tell touching, heartfelt, thoughtful, and amusing stories
from real life.
One white haired woman, who claimed she would not have
anything to talk about, recalled being roused out of bed as a child,
put in a wagon with a change of clothes and a doll, and leaving home
in the middle of the night. Pancho Villa was marauding in South
Texas and her family was never able to return to their home. They
never discussed the event, hoping to minimize the trauma for the
children, and she had kept the questions and the fear inside her for
70 years.
A friend of mine asked that I interview her mother, but not talk
about a child that had died at an early age because it would make
her mother sad. When the subject was skirted, I asked about that
child anyway. The mother spoke eloquently about her daughter,
who had died of polio before vaccines were available. She told me
about the sweet personality, the lovely hair, and the humor of the
girl, ending with, “No one talks about her anymore. Thank you for
the memory.”
For two years in the early 1960s, I worked for a great statesman –Senator John Sherman Cooper of Kentucky. As I drove him around
Washington D.C. he told me about growing up in Kentucky and
about famous and infamous people he had known. He introduced
me to India’s Prime Minister Nehru, Colonel Sanders, and baseball
player Bob Aspromonte, and chuckled as he recounted incidents he
had shared with them.
Years later, when he was old and feeble, my husband and I visited
him in a nursing home. He asked if I had written down the stories he
had told me. I wish I had done that. Memory is fallible and a lot of
stories of a great man and his times have been forgotten.
You don’t have to be famous or to have lived an “exciting” life for
your memories to be valuable. Everyone’s life is unique and there are
fascinating facets in the story of any human. At the request of my
children I have written my memoirs. It took several years, but now
the stories they ask to hear over and over will be preserved for them
to pass along to their children. Stories they have not heard before will
introduce them to a side of “Mimi” they did not know. Family stories
connect the past, the present and the future.
Quite a few people have said to me, “I really want to write a
family history but I don’t know where to start.” It is true – starting
is the hardest part. You can’t just sit down and write a finished
memoir straight through. But you can begin to jot down incidents,
descriptions of family members you remember, stories of trips, schools,
punishments – write a paragraph about anything that comes to mind.
They can be embellished and put in order at a later time.
While an autobiography generally follows a person’s entire life,
memoirs are often made up of selected events that have special
meaning to the writer. Although exact details, dates, places and words
may be forgotten, a memoir should be essentially true and reflect your
feelings about the events.
After getting a good start with your own stories, begin to interview
family members. Rule number one is not to ask questions that can be
answered “yes” or “no.” If people give conflicting versions of incidents
that occurred, write down both.
Recording Your Family History by William Fletcher has been a help
to me. Although written in 1989, it is still available in paperback. The
book suggests a great many questions that help people, including you,
to open up. “What songs or stories did your mother tell you?” “Tell
me about your first car – your first kiss – the first president you voted
for.” “What historical event that you lived through made the greatest
impression on you?” “Who was your favorite teacher and what did he
teach you?” It is an exciting moment when a person’s eyes light up
and you realize you have uncovered a precious memory.
Other highly touted books to help with this adventure include:
For All Time (Charley Kempthorne); Turning Memories Into Memoirs
(Denis Ledoux); To Our Children’s Children (Bob Greene and D.G.
Aulford); and Keeping Family Stories Alive: Discovering and Recording
the Stories and Reflections of a Lifetime (Vera Rosenbluth).
At the end of every interview I ask the person, “How would you
like to be remembered by your grandchildren?” It is not an easy
question. It goes to the essence of a person and reflects his values,
ethics and personality. But every single person has given me a
thoughtful, reflective answer. We all want to be remembered as we
are, but seen through eyes of love – like photographing a wrinkled
face in soft focus.
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