NOTE: This article was originally the lesson plan for the TellOurLifeStories.com and NewspaperARCHIVE.com co-sponsored teleconference on using archival newspapers to enhance and inform your family story writing
To begin with, I want to share with you something from one of the best books, no, I take that back, THE best book about writing your life story. It is by Lois Daniel who was a librarian in Missouri. My understanding is that she died some years ago but her book lives on. She had a deep interest in encouraging people to tell their stories and her book continues to be published.
Her book is called "How to Write Your Own Life Story."
It is a wonderful and encouraging book. Here is a bit from the introduction that I am paraphrasing.
Lois writes that the idea for the book came from failure. She was teaching a creative writing class at a college in Lee's Summit, Missouri and in many ways the class was a complete success. It was designed to help students who wished to become professional writers turn their articles into salable manuscripts.
One woman in the class, when asked to state the reason for joining, said that her children had been begging her to tell her life story and she thought that coming to this class could help. She was 75 years old. The woman said "I don't know how to do it and I thought you might help me."
But Lois' suggestions as the class progressed were of no value to this woman and she finally dropped out of the class. Lois counted this as showing her failure as a teacher but at the time she didn't know what to do about it. Later she thought about how she valued her mother's story. She wanted to develop a course to help adults students write about their lives. To help them produce material that would be precious to their families, on whatever level was appropriate for each family. Perhaps in addition to serving as a link to history of the past, some of the stories could even help to resolve old differences or conflicts and promote understanding.
She also realized that even though her father had been dead for over 30 years, she had developed a great longing to know something about him as a young man. She remembered that as a child hearing him tell about his youthful experiences hopping on trains had embarrassed her. His menial work on ranches, penniless ways and how he had lived in ugly western towns. She had scolded him for telling these stories. She didn't want people to think he was a bum. But all those years later, she realized that she should have drunk in every word and that he was not a bum at all, but an adventurous young man.
Eventually, Lois devised a method of helping students to find an easy, fun and stimulating way to write about the events of their lives and the life of their family. And then her book was born.
Here is a little bit from the chapter called Ground Rules.
"In her beautiful and simply written autobiography, Grandma Moses: My Life's Story, Anna Mary Moses tells us exactly how she wrote the story of her life. She says, 'I have written my life in small sketches, a little today, a little yesterday, as I have thought of it, as I remember all the things from childhood on through the years, good ones, and unpleasant ones, that is how they come out and that is how we have to take them.'"
Lois says, one could scarcely find a better formula for writing one's life story.
I agree.
This evening we are going to consider those words... small sketches, as we think of them.
When we think about writing about our families, maybe we start thinking about history. What was going on during the time that a particular family member was young?
For example, I thought of my grandma. I was close to her as the first grandchild in the family. She doted on me and I must have drunk it right up. I adored her. She made the best apple pie you ever tasted. And her traditional German coffee cake was something that would make your mouth water just thinking about it all slathered with butter, moist, with the raisins and the crumble crust melting in your mouth. I found the recipe years later and tried it for Christmas one year. When I took the first bite, it was as though I was back in her kitchen on south 10th street with sun coming through the windows and the snow in the back yard on the washpoles and my Grandma bustling around the kitchen ready to cut off another slice with that butcher knife she insisted on carrying around to the dismay of my mom
And so I started thinking about my Grandma and about this class and about telling your family story and I wondered what life was like in 1898 when she was born.
And here's what I found out when I searched on newspapers from February 22, 1898.
In Lowell, Massachusetts, there was a strike at White's Tannery. Workers joined in from other walks of work and with the help of the American Federation of Labor, it was decided to spread the fight throughout the country.
Imagine those times. I thought of my grandfather who worked in a factory in Milwaukee. He and my Grandma were big supporters of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. My Grandma, who worked in a sewing factory, revered Eleanor Roosevelt. My mom told me that my Grandma went to work every day about 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon on the streetcar. My aunt would look for her to come home right before they went to bed because she worried about her. My Grandpa was there and gave my mom and my aunt the dinner that my Grandma had prepared in advance.
On Sunday evenings they always stayed up and listened to Jack Benny and George Burns and Gracie Allan on the radio and my Grandma sewed in her rocking chair.
As I looked further into the newspapers, I noticed that there was quite a bit of news about labor issues. It was the beginning of the 8 hour day for laborers in this country. Another article from the Lowell Sun said that a recent convention of miners and coal operators was the most important meeting of its kind ever held in this country. That the 8 hour day and an advance of 10 cents per ton for screened coal were all improvements to the conditions of life for the miners.
These were the times in which my Grandma and Grandpa lived in Milwaukee. Imagine that they must have felt, finally, some empowerment as workers. My Grandma pressed to purchase their own home, which they did, where they raised their two daughters.
Another headline was, "Purple is Popular". It highlighted the fact that this included all shades from pale lilac to dark heliotrope. "A glance at next spring's styles, the gigot sleeve will still be worn, proper attire for the house is a sensible apron."
Apparently for 1898, purple was declared "in" as the most popular color for the whole winter.
I had to look up gigot sleeve on the internet and it was the leg-of-mutton sleeve!
The Gigot or Gigot De Mouton Sleeve 1825-1833 The sleeves of the Romantic Era are the main feature and were built on an inverted triangle bodice. The bodice décolletage was so exposed by the pull of the wide sleeves that it really showed off the chest, throat and the sloping shoulders. After 1825 the decade saw sleeves billow to huge proportions by 1833. They came to typify the look we now associate with the costume of the Romantic Era.
Moving on in years, I decided on a search between 1920 and 1922 on the word entertainment to find out how people amused themselves without the internet and all the gadgets that we have today.
In the Moberly Daily Monitor from Moberly Missouri from February 21, 1905, it said that the play, The Wise Uncle was brimming full of fun and comical situations and the cast of characters was certainly the best that could be found in Moberly.
Meanwhile, in the Las Vegas Optic, from Las Vegas, New Mexico, the Society section said that there was an Autumn Festival given by the ladies of the West Side Catholic Church October 8, 1910, featuring an entertainment under the direction of the Sisters of Loretto and excellent music by local talent and dancing to add to the enjoyment of the evening.
The Deming Headlight from Deming New Mexico, exhorted a few boys from discourteously persisting in smoking during the movies. The newspaper said, "This is the only seeming restriction and certainly ought to be complied with. One hour is not long to forego the individual pleasure for the safety and benefit of the whole."
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