Going through some boxes and folders today, I opened a manila envelope and found faded clippings from my hometown newspaper, the Albany Herald. The articles were clipped by my mother, me and my sister June over the past forty years. I enjoyed seeing a big write up when the family sold the manufacturing business, Hercules Bumpers, located in Pelham, Georgia. There were some errors but the reporter gave lots of details about our clan. Everyone was mentioned except for Mother who was the most important one of us.
I was surprised when I saw my little nephew, Sam Farkas, in his first business venture. His father had set him up with a cart at the Albany Mall where nine year old Sam sold holographs. It was a big business for a kid and he made a sizable profit, so large it made the news. Today he can be seen on television when he announces the Power Ball numbers. His day job, however, is working as a successful attorney.
I read an article about my sister Gay marrying her young navy man, Lieutenant Stu Moring, at our home in Albany, Georgia. In those days every detail of the clothing and the food was described in the Society Page of the newspaper. Stu's family came down from Chicago and Gay's friends came from far away. It was a good day at our house on Fleming Road. I had forgotten that after the wedding and short wedding trip, Stu had to go back to Guantanamo and Gay went back to college in Valdosta, GA where she was earning her masters degree.
We had a mini celebrity in the family in the late seventies and early eighties. I found several photos of my brother's granddaughter, Carrie, who was singing from the time she could talk, I believe. She used that talent and her pretty face to win a number of beauty pageants while she was in middle school and high school. Today she is married with a show stopper of her own. Her little boy is not the singer she was, but he is just as pretty and is quite a talker.
I hope to preserve those clippings and the many others, but will have to research how to do it. The ink fades badly on newsprint, so I will be careful.
I will tell my memoir writing class about this experience. Each clipping is a prompt for a story. All one has to do to find something to write about is look through scrapbooks and photo albums. The ideas and memories will bubble up like a mountain spring.
Such precious memories. Our family didn't keep photograph albums or scrap books. And I feel their absence.
ReplyDeleteYou did find some interesting material about your family in those old newspaper clippings. If you figure out how to preserve them, please be sure to let me know on here so I can do something similar. :-)
ReplyDeleteHow interesting. Looking at pictures in photo albums would be a neat group writing exercise. Maybe I'll to try it the next time it's my turn to facilitate one of my writing groups. I bet nowadays, you wouldn't find such detailed articles about weddings and other events in today's newspapers.
ReplyDeleteAbbie, I use pictures for prompts all the time in my classes. They are wonderful. Often it is not the subject that makes a good story, but what else is in the photo. What is behind the subject?
ReplyDeleteTry it.
Glenda