Memoirs and those who write them

I have fallen behind with posting on my blogs.

Teaching two classes each week on Zoom is keeping me very busy. I work at making the sessions new and interesting for my students so I spend hours making my lesson plans. With beginning writers, I don't want them to feel overwhelmed so I make sure to keep that in mind.

One student said, "There is so much to learn. I didn't know there would be so much information to take in."

He reminded me of the beginning writer I was in 1995 when I took my first writing class with Nancy Simpson who would become my mentor and friend. I took classes from Nancy for years and while I heard some things over and over, I realize that I needed to hear them over and over. That is how I learned.

No matter if we are filled with a natural talent for any kind of art, we still must learn the craft of making our art appeal to others. We must learn about paints and brushes, about the tools that help create our images, and all the tips we can only learn from an accomplished artist if we want to be a very good painter.

The same is true for writers. We must learn how to put the words on the screen or on paper in such a way that readers will be enthralled by our stories, feel they are in the scenes, or hearing the characters we want them to know.

Many of my students never planned to be writers, but they want to leave a legacy for future generations of their families. They want their grandchildren to know what life was like sixty or seventy years ago.

My responsibility is to prod their memories and help them remember the little things, the details that bring the past alive. My students are not likely to write a best-selling book for the public, but their motivation is to leave part of themselves for the people who come after them.

Having compiled a family history with true-life stories of my ancestors and my siblings, I know the joy of having family tell me they want my book or tell me how much they enjoyed the book. After all these years, I still get orders from distant relatives who want to read about their family history.

Profiles and Pedigrees, The Descendants of Thomas Charles Council

1858 - 1911

I began working on that book ten years before it was finished. I combined my interest in genealogy with my love of writing a good story and created a blue, hard-backed book that will be in my family for generations to come. It is filled with photos of family. I even have a picture of my great grandfather, John Cecil Council, my great grandfather John Monroe Robison and my grandfather, William Henry Robison, and his wife, Lula Jones Robison. The main characters in this book, however, are Tom Council and his family of ten children. These children became my father, my uncles, and aunts. Most of them had died when I began my research, but I know my cousins who contributed much of the history of their families, loved the book.

I hope my students will discover the satisfaction of writing their life stories and the joy of passing them on to their loved ones. 

Everyone has a story, an individual unique story no one else can tell. How many of my readers have written about their past? Perhaps you don't have children or grandchildren and you don't feel the need to tell your story. But someone would enjoy hearing about the place where you grew up, the family you remember, and the ups and downs of your life. We all enjoy a good story. 

I urge my students to first, entertain their readers. But they should inform by making sure the facts are correct and be sure to enlighten the readers with new information the reader has never heard.

Read any good memoirs lately? I can recommend two. One is the life of Jimmy Carter and was written after he hit ninety. The other is the latest book by Barack Obama. I listened to it on Audible and it was even better because he read the book.

I love to hear from you and maybe one day you will take a class in writing if you aren't already a writer. With Zoom everyone can register for classes and take them at home in front of their own computer. 

Take care and get vaccinated for COVID. I have had both my shots and had no reactions other than an itchy arm for a day or two. Even those who had a 24 hour reaction say it is much better than having the virus and much, much better than dying from the virus.

Find my books here.

What do you know about your family history?

Family History

In 1998, I published a compilation of stories about my grandparents, and ten aunts and uncles on my father's side of the family. The project took me ten years to complete and could not have been done without the careful and painstaking penning of memories by my cousins, Monteen Council Hayman, Omie Gilreath Baker, Patricia Daharsh, Vivian Gant, Kathryn Council Buckingham and Mary, her daughter. My mother's memories shared with me over the years were vital to this book as were my father's stories of his youth.

Two of my Council cousins Monteen Council Hayman and Charlie Council

In this book, we tell the family history of Tom and Sallie Council who lived in Wakulla County, Florida and raised their kids on a farm. Life was hard, but like most of the people in that community, they enjoyed family gatherings and accepted the work that kept them housed and fed. They hunted deer and other wild animals for meat and grew vegetables in gardens. They were self-sufficient in the late 1800s and early 1900s. To buy other necessities Tom and his sons hauled farm goods to Tallahassee, Florida and sold them to merchants. The trip from the farm was usually an overnight venture by horse and wagon. 

Each of Tom's and Sallie's children have stories, but that of John Henry, the oldest boy, was short. He died when he was only fourteen years old. Still, he has his chapter, and we learn what kind of young man he was.

I wanted the book to include facts of birth, location and death, but also I wanted this book to be entertaining. For the basic facts, I included the genealogy of the family, the complete names, birth dates and place, marriages and divorces, and the children of each of my aunts and uncles. The genealogy was researched for proof, but the stories of the people come from memories and oral accounts passed down through generations.

No family is perfect, no person is perfect, and no life is perfect. Nine of the Council children grew up and married, moved away from home which had become Pelham, Georgia at the turn of the century. Tom Council died and left Sarah a widow with children at home. The older brother, Charlie, became a father figure for the younger siblings and helped his sisters and his younger brother, my father, Coy Lee Council during very hard times.

Both Charlie and his brother Horace took active parts in the first world war.

Family photographs were shared by my cousins and are included throughout the book. I treasure those images and often thumb through the book just to look at them.

I fell in love with this family of hard working, determined and persistent men and women who never gave up. They cared for their families and never stopped even when life knocked them to their knees. I saw what love can do when it seems there is no hope. The children of these ten brothers and sisters grew up with the same values of their parents and grandparents.  I am proud to be a descendant of Tom and Sallie Council, Coy and Lois Council and grateful I grew up with the love of family and appreciation for my ancestors.

The family history book, Profiles and Pedigrees; The Descendants of Thomas Charles Council (1858 - 1911) is a hard back book compiled by Glenda Council Beall in 1998, published by Genealogy Publishing Service, Franklin, NC.

The book can be purchased by contacting me, Glenda Beall, gcbmountaingirl@gmail.com. I am offering discounts. It regularly sells for $35.00 but at this time:  $20.00 plus shipping costs. 

Have you researched your family history or written about your grandparents and their struggles and successes? What do you actually know?

Old newspaper clippings about my family made for interesting reading today.

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.

Looking for Old Stones in hot south Georgia

On my recent trip down to south Georgia where I was born and lived half my life, my brother Max and I, along with two second cousins, Latrelle and Rob, visited a couple of cemeteries. One was in Pelham, Georgia where my grandfather and grandmother Robison are buried. That is also where my grandfather and grandmother Council are buried, but we were only looking for Robisons on this trip.

We arrived at Pelham Cemetery around noon and it was hot as I expected it to be. What I didn’t expect was my reaction to the heat. After only a short time while Max and my cousins stood out in the hot son discussing family,  I tried to find a place in the shade where I could sit down. There was no place. Inside the car was even warmer. I found a short stone wall and sat down hoping the dizzy feeling I was having would disappear. For a few seconds I felt I might pass out and fall right there on a grave. I leaned over and put my head down as far as I could without tipping off the wall and breathed deeply. Would they ever stop talking? How could I get them to take me out of that heat?

I called out, “Can we go now? I need to find a bathroom.”

That was as good as calling  Fire when you need Help. Everyone turned and headed for the car. The AC saved my life, or at least saved me from keeling over. I just can’t take heat anymore.We found a Hardee’s and went inside. A cold drink helped immensely.

Soon we were back on the road searching for the tiny little town of Whigham, Georgia, the birthplace of my mother and most of her family. There we would search for Providence Cemetery near Providence Baptist Church. My grandparents attended the Tired Creek Methodist Church, I think, but my great grandfather, John Monroe Robison and his wife Idella Cooper Robison are buried in Providence Cemetery. I don’t think John Monroe was a Baptist, but he is there. Between Rob’s memory and my memory of visiting there over twenty years ago, we found the old cemetery, but what a different place.

When last I was there, the graveyard was overgrown and unkempt, as though it had been forgotten.  It was a long way from the church. But on this day we found the place looking peaceful and serene surrounded by farm land and forests. Only the sound of birds broke the silence as we approached the green field with the modest grave stones.  

No one was there but the three of us. I headed to the right side where the oldest stones laid weathered and gray. Rob agreed with me that this was the area where he had seen John Monroe’s grave when he visited with our cousin Peggy many years ago. But we could not find it. We found Ida Jones Robison, the first wife of my grandfather William. We found George Jones, the father of Ida, and some others of the Jones line.

I began to wonder if we were in the right place or if somehow the stone of the one we sought had been removed. I walked down past all the Merritts and the Waldens who were also distant relatives, descendants of our John Robison, their graves newer and shinier than the one I was looking for.

I was hot and ready to give up on my search when Latrelle called out. “Here is a Robison. Is this the one we want?”  

We gathered around the grave and read the words carved into the stone. It was our ancestor, John Monroe Robison, who served in the Confederate Army as a blacksmith. He survived the war and lived a long life.

Beside him lies his wife whose name was not spelled out. I.F. Robison is carved into the stone of Idella Frances Cooper Robison. Women were not as important as the men in the world where she worked hard and bore children, cooked and cleaned and met her husband’s needs.

John Monroe Robison in chair with his five sons and five daughters. Third from left is my grandfather, William Henry Robison

In a letter to the editor of a local newspaper, someone wrote about this large family and how important Mr. and Mrs. John Robison were to the community. The writer said he remembered the family sitting on the porch in the evenings and singing together. I am not surprised that my mother came from a musical family. She loved to sing and listen to music, especially the singing of her four sons.

Latrelle who lives in Franklin, Tennessee and Rob who lives in Arkansas, made pictures of each other at the grave sites. I’m sure they want to share them with their families who have never been to south Georgia.

It was a long day, but one I will not forget. I enjoy Rob so very much. He reminds me of my mother, open and friendly and interested in everything. My day with Latrelle, who is also a writer, could not have been more fun for me. I feel like we are old friends. Maybe there is something to this DNA thing. Perhaps our connection is strong because the same genes run through our blood. Perhaps it is because we all care about our ancestors and their life stories.

We agreed that we would get together next year at my house in North Carolina. I look forward to that time. 

When kids worked for their money, I earned half of a quarter for a nasty job.

A blog post I read today reminds me of some of the jobs I’ve held in my life. 
A job, to me, is anything I have been paid to do. Therefore, my first job was when I was about eight years old and my sister Gay was six. 

The work was tough and gross, but we were promised a quarter. Not a quarter each, but one quarter for both of us, for doing a job no one else wanted to do.

We lived on a farm. 

Chickens lived in and around the barn. Hen nests hung on the walls, and we gathered eggs there every day. On a hot summer day, my daddy asked Gay and me to take a dead chicken down to the woods where we would leave it for wild animals to devour. Yes, there are animals that eat such things. I guess you could say this was recycling. 

Mother and Daddy standing behind Glenda, with braids, and Gay.This is about the ages we were when we earned our quarter.

Daddy saw our faces when he first mentioned it, and I’m sure he could tell it did not appeal to either of us. Then he said something that caused our ears to perk up.

"I'll give you a quarter," he said.

For two little girls who never had any money of our own, a quarter meant ice cream, Cokes, and candy from Hancock’s store. Gay looked at me, as she usually did, to see what I would say. We wanted the quarter, and I knew if Gay and I worked together, we could do it.

“OK. Where is the dead chicken?”

“Behind the barn, in the lot,” Daddy said.

Gay and I headed out to the barn. From outside the fence we could see the feathers of a white leghorn hen, and it was obvious, by the smell, she had been dead a few days. 

Holding our noses, we took a shovel into the lot and approached the decaying mass. The overpowering stench made me gag. I knew I was going to throw up. But I needed both hands to push the shovel under the hen and carry it. How could I do that and hold my nose, too?

After a few tries, Gay and I came up with a plan. I don't know who had the idea, but we have always worked well together, and it was the only way we could take care of this chore.

While I wrangled the heavy round-pointed shovel under the mess that was once a laying hen, Gay pinched my nostrils together with two fingers and held her own nose with her other hand. That was the beginning of a great working team. 

My father watched us that day. 

He laughed many times over the years as he told what became a family story, of how the two little girls carried the stinking dead chicken all the way to the woods with Gayholding both our noses and me hauling the heavy remains on the shovel. 

Thank goodness I never had such a bad job again, although I had some that I hated, and people I worked for who disgusted me. I’ll write about them in the days to come.

If you want to write stories about your life for your family why not start with the first time you worked to earn money. You will enjoy recalling the memories and telling the story.

I was inspired to write about my jobs by the blogger, roughwighting. She tells quite an interesting story. 

 http://roughwighting.net/2016/01/22/a-tongue-twisting-time-in-a-transmuted-ivory-tower/#more-3744 

Do you remember your first job? 

Old Age is a treasure-house of history - share it.

While reading The Gift of Years by Joan Chittister, I found a section I want to share with you.

“Old age is a  treasure-house of history – personal history, family history, national history, world history. But what do we do with everything an older generation knows in a culture that does not seek answers from that generation? Every elder in every community is a living story for the people to whom he or she will someday leave the Earth to guide as good, as better, than they did in their own time.

Family tales have always been the parables one generation handed down to the next to tell us who we are and where we came from. Funeral rituals, the interment of ancestors, became the art form that preserved the values and ideals of the past in special ways. Meant to remind the clan of their connections in both life and death, funerals were a tribal event. Telling the stories of those who passed away made the family the bridge to both past and future.

Even in our own times, in the not so distant past, the deceased were laid out in the family homes. But while it was prayer time for the soul of the dead in the parlor, in the rest of the house it was story- telling time for the living….In those moments children learned the history of their parents’ own childhood. Most of all, the young came to realize what stood to be lost forever in one last breath if the next generation did not take responsibility for maintaining it.”

 I encourage people to  write or record their living history, their story, even though the younger generation is not now interested in our stories. One day they will realize that our stories are their stories and they will wish they had listened. They will read our stories.

Recently a man told me he wants to write his parents’ story, but they are both gone and so were others who knew them.  He has no oral history or written history of his mother and father.

I spent ten years researching and writing a family history book. I published the book in 1998. Some of my siblings never read the book. Some of their children did read the book and found it interesting. After all these years my last living brother has been reading the book. 

I am happy I was able to record the stories of my grandparents on my father’s line and the lives of his ten children. Often it is not until a parent or loved one dies that the children begin to long for more knowledge about that person’s life. I can’t begin to count how many times I've heard the words, “I wish I had asked my mother or my father about what their lives were like when they were growing up.”

One man told me he doesn't have family and is not sure for whom he would write his life story. I responded that he has friends and extended family he is not close to now that would like to read his story someday. Our stories have value to future generations. As elders we pass on the family history to  those who will carry on where we leave off. 

As a genealogist, I know the thrill of finding written information about an ancestor or distant relative when searching my family tree. To find a book written by one of them would be like discovering a gold mine. I have no children, but I have a family with many, many stories that I hope to record for those who will want to read them one day.

Here are a few titles: The Day My Father was a Hero, Frog Gigging with my Brothers, The Council Brothers go to Dallas,  Pop-up Camping across the USA, and others. 

Do you have some unusual family stories you can share with others? Give us some titles to  ponder.

My Favorite Computer and Why I Love it

January 10 already. Christmas came and went and suddenly we are into 2015. My calendar's white space is filling too fast. I have enjoyed my down time this winter--no pressure, no deadlines unless you count the deadlines of poetry contests I was determined to  make.

For two days I found myself organizing my documents on my old laptop. I  have done my best to go paperless, but I have problems finding what I filed. Maybe it is the way I title my files. Or, maybe it is the way I change the title several times before I'm finished with it. 

My problem might be that I use three different computers - my Windows 8 desktop, my small Dell basic laptop, and my older laptop where most  of my writing is stored. I had hoped to transfer all my work to the new desktop, but I hate that system - Windows 8. I now  hear there  will be another system coming out  in the fall, hopefully  like Windows 7 or XP,  because the majority of the people who use Windows hate Windows 8. It is a poor combination of the popular tablet method and a computer. The genius who thought this up should find another  line of work.

Also,  my new desktop computer has become inhabited by gremlins that pop up and freeze the page when I try to use Google Chrome or try to get into my blogs. Now I avoid using that computer for blogging.

There was a time when I felt I was on top of new technology, when I urged my peers to use the Internet to promote their books and help them build a platform for their work. I even garnered the admiration of a young nephew who was impressed that a person my age, and I was much younger then, administered a couple of blogs. 

I have a Facebook and a Twitter account and a  Pinterest account and a LinkedIn account and a Google plus account. But  there is no way I have time to use all those things. I try to get to Facebook once or twice a week. That is all I can or want to do.

Recently it dawned on me that my favorite computer in my house is the old dinosaur that sits in my studio. It is not connected to the Internet at all. My genealogy program and my Word program is all I use on that old relic, and it faithfully opens and endures for as long as I can sit and use it. I also have a good photography program to use with my scanner. I spend hours scanning old family photos stored in albums that are falling apart, hoping to save them for future generations, and hoping they will care. 

I don't remember when we bought this computer, but I smile when I sit down to use it. It is like an old friend that I know will not fail me. No viruses, no mal-ware, no danger of being hacked. Like an old pair of shoes that are slightly out of style, it feels comfortable to me.

Writing is a way to learn about ourselves. Often when I begin, I don't know where I will end up. 

The lesson I learned today by writing this post is that it is the Internet that stresses me, that gives me a headache. Less time on the Internet and more time on the word processor is my  goal from now on. 

The following poem comes from my interest in family history and many trips to old cemeteries. Tell me what you think.

A Southern Family Cemetery  

by Glenda Council Beall      

The creaking wrought iron gate

breaks the silence on the hill

like thunder warns of summer storms.

I feel the breath of gentle winds

that nuzzle long leaf pines and leafy oaks. 

They surround sleeping ancestors

lying in the dust of caskets facing East,

buried deep, blanket green. Lichen-covered

crumbling stones etched with family names

are barely seen through overgrown azaleas.

My great grandfather, John, veteran

of the War Between the States lies

bordered by two wives; Fanny,

dead at fifty-three, worn out

from birthing seven children.

Missouri half his age, presented 

seven more to complete his second

round before he passed away at seventy-five.

My family men are strong

and woman-wise.

This deathwatch lends my mortal

soul continuum. Strung together

by our veins, like roads on a map,

century to century, suffering the same

finality, enduring the same foreverness.

(Previously published in a different version in Stepping Stone, 2000)

A Trip to Palmetto, Florida and family history

You know it is Florida when begonias are blooming in February

Monteen, 99 years old, in a lobster bib, and Beverly, her lovely daughter

Cousins, two resilient Council family women, took me on a tour of their home town, Palmetto, FL.  Monteen celebrated her 99th birthday in January, 2014. I enjoy talking family history with her. I asked that I be invited to the 100th birthday party next year. She asked me for a copy of Profiles and Pedigrees, Tom Council and His Descendants, to give to her son. I was glad I had one with me.

Beverly lives at Shady Acres, her mother's peaceful and beautiful home, where the moss drips off the old oak trees and a swing awaits her to sit and watch the sunset. She recently lost her beloved husband Tom. My heart aches for her pain on this grief journey. I'm happy she still has her mother. I remember how much I wanted my own mother when Barry died, but she was no longer with us. I wonder if we ever get too old to want our mothers when we hurt.

Charlie, Tiger's first person, treated me and others to a delicious meal at the Crab Trap in Palmetto. I kind of like his new beard. He is now a great grandfather of twins, Cash and Cabot! Charlie always picks up the tab. He won't let anyone else pay a cent. He has a kind and generous spirit. Quiet and soft spoken, he makes me smile with his dry humor. He is with his family where he wanted to be for a long time and they are seeing that he has the best of care. 

Second cousin, Diane, recently lost her mother who was 92. Diane was a devoted caregiver for her parents. She lives on the land that her grandfather, my uncle Charlie Council, bought many years ago in Manatee County. Charlie and other Council family members settled in the area in the early 1920s.

Diane is Monteen's niece. They are a close and loving family much like my own in south Georgia. 

Pelicans rest along the Manatee River

The mossy trees, the quiet river and the stillness of a winter day

Any angle of the Skyway Bridge is an artist's delight. This was a foggy day, no sun.

Writing About Your Life

I had the pleasure to speak to some interesting and nice folks who will be starting a writing group soon. We discussed how we all have stories to write. Some are painful to revisit. Some are parts of history our families will be happy we took the time to record. Pat Daharsh, award winning haiku writer, brought this group together.

Bill, who sat to my left, said he and his wife have written a book of memoir but he has little idea of how he might push his book out the door to reach others. That is the part of writing that boggles the minds of most of us. However, Bill has a large family with many children who will cherish that book as the years go by.

A former student and a friend, Lynne Sparrow, author of a most interesting memoir, Patchwork, is not promoting her book to the public. She only had ten books printed, she said, and she is giving them to friends and family. It is not her purpose to sell copies, but to tell her story her way. And what a great story she tells. 

It is Never Too Late 

I told the group I spoke to this week about the many senior writers I know. Some of them write fiction and some of them write memoir. A. J. Mayhew published a first novel, The Dry Grass of August, in 2011 at the age of seventy-one. Nadine Justice published a page- turning memoir the year she turned seventy. Susan Snowden turned out a thought-provoking novel, Southern Fried Lies and Celia Miles wrote Sarranda's Heart, another of her Appalachian novels, about an independent strong woman character. Maren Mitchell published her self help book, Beat Chronic Pain, an Insider's Guide, a book for anyone who lives with daily pain or knows someone who does. G.W. Newton who is housebound due to health issues has sold several hundred copies of his book Bunches of Wild Grass mostly to residents of the south Georgia area where Newton grew up. 

Even if the writers I met this week never publish a book, I hope they will record the important events of their lives for their families. Each of us owns something very special, something that the younger generations will not ever have -- our memories of our lives. 

"public officials quarantined the business"

A student in one of my classes said he knew it was time to write down the truth about his life when one of the young ones said, "I know about your life, Grandpa, back when you rode in covered wagons and fought with the Indians."

I will be teaching a writing class for adults at Tri-County College in Murphy, NC beginning Tuesday March 5. This class is for anyone who enjoys writing true stories, not fiction, who ever wanted to write about their life for their family. This class is also for those who are beginning to realize their grandchildren don't really know much about their past. And this class is for anyone who has been writing about his/her life and wants to be motivated with prompts, with ideas from others, and wants to have their work read for feedback. This is also for those who want to publish their stories in magazines and journals.

On a recent trip to Florida, I visited with cousins, and we told stories about growing up, about our parents, our grandparents. We were fortunate to hear our parents and aunts and uncles tell about the history of our family. But in today's world, a man's children might live in New Mexico while he lives in Blairsville, GA. Families are not always close enough to share those stories of youth.

One of my uncles lost all he had invested in a store in St. Petersburg when another of my uncles, a young man, worked in this store, and contracted small pox, an epidemic at that time before a vaccine had been found. Because he worked in the store where fresh meat and vegetables were sold, public officials quarantined the business. No one was allowed to enter. All the meat rotted, the fresh fruit and vegetables decayed as well.  The owner had to walk away with nothing.

This took place in the early 20th century. The uncle who lost the store packed up his four kids and moved back to Georgia. That same family had lost their home in a flood and escaped in the night to higher ground. We wonder how some of our ancestors kept going.
Today a young man with a contagious disease would not be relegated to live in a storage house or barn away from the family with food delivered to him twice a day -- not in this country we hope. But that is what happened to my uncle with small pox.

These stories teach a kind of history not found in text books. And the fact that these events happened to people in their family, they create more impact on the younger members.

Every family has interesting stories to pass down to the next generation, and beyond.

March 5 - April 9: Write stories about your life with instructor, Glenda Beall, published writer and poet, at Tri-County Community College, Tuesdays, 3-5 p.m.

Call Lisa Long at Tri-County Community College in Murphy to register. 828-837-6810

Glenda Council Beall - author of Profiles and Pedigrees, Tom Council, and his descendants.

How Do You Want to be Remembered - Re-visited

A couple of years ago I wrote an article - How Do You Want to be Remembered? - which is one of the most often read page on this blog. Every single day it is in the top three page views.

Can there be that many people wanting to read how someone wants to be remembered? At the time I posted that article, the thought hung heavy over me. I wondered about my legacy.

Looking back to when I was young, I wanted to be a woman with great talent and ability. I wanted people, certain ones in particular, to recognize me as someone special. But I have never felt that I was someone of special qualities, someone who would be remembered for years and years to come. That's why I wanted to write a book. People have always respected books - at least I have. I would often pick up a book in the library and read about the author. I marveled that this person who had been dead for a century or more was still leaving his imprint on the world by the words he had written in the book.

When I decided to write a family history book back in the eighties, I didn't think then of my lasting legacy so much as I did the people I documented in that book, Profiles and Pedigrees, Tom C. Council and his Descendents. My beloved aunts and uncles where passing on and their stories I'd heard all my life would soon be forgotten, I thought. I dedicated the ten years I cared for my mother to collecting those stories for a book. My cousins were happy to help me with research and photographs. The book was well received by family. Even the youngest ones mentioned have asked for their own copy and want to know if I will continue with the next generations.

I didn't have the technology we have today, no Ancestry.com and no access to records on the Internet. But I did have the benefit of oral history passed down to me. My book is a family history with genealogy listings, not a memoir or a biography. Because the stories of Aunt Oleo's house being flooded, and another home being burned to the ground, and her husband being shot by his brother-in-law, were part of the fiber of the family's oral history, I can't swear that every word is true. But my story gives the essence of who Oleo Council was, her perseverance and tenacity during a lifetime that rivaled Job's for patience.

My story of my parents was the story told to me by my mother and father, my sisters and brothers, cousins and from my own experience growing up in a large family. I have always had a curiosity. I asked questions.  I want to continue that story now with the family history including the lives of my siblings. Somehow, I hope that writing their stories and having them printed on paper in a hard cover book, will keep them alive in the minds of the next several generations.

How would they like to be remembered? I don't know for sure. I think I will find that as I write about them. Just as I learn about myself from writing, I will learn how I remember them and how I want them to be remembered.

GENEALOGY - WE LOVE THE PUZZLE

Many of us are involved in researching our genealogy, finding our ancestors and learning about their lives. At Writers Circle next Wednesday, Mary Mike Keller will begin a series of classes called Bones to Flesh. She takes the dead ancestor and fleshes him/her out with all she learns about this person through research. She is very good at this, and I want to find some of my Council and Robison ancestors in her classes. 

I have traced my family back to my great, great grandparents who lived in the eighteen hundreds. 

Great, great grandpa John Cecil Council lived a long life, two wives and two families, in north Florida. But no one I  know has a clue to his father's name. His mother was Temperance Council, no maiden name. 

On my mother's side, I know the name and some other information about her grandfather, John Monroe Robison. He served in the Confederate military and I have papers showing his records. But who was his father? 

These are some of the questions I hope to answer in the class Bones to Flesh. 

First Five Things to Do Before Writing Your Life Stories

What is the difference between autobiography, memoir, family stories, family history, or stories about your life? In my classes, we write family stories or stories about our lives.




Five Things to do before you begin Writing Stories about Your Life

1. List the most outstanding events that changed your life beginning with your birth.

2. Label folders with each of these life changing experiences and dates.

3. For each folder make a list of memories from that period of your life. Keep this list in the appropriate folder and update the list as you remember more stories or events in that time period.

4. Research – Locate photographs, certificates, articles, letters, diaries, and anything that pertains to your memories. File these in appropriate folders.

5. Choose one folder with the most memorable events. Choose from that folder one vivid memory that brings back smells, sounds, colors or feelings you can express in writing. Try to think about how you would tell that experience in a way to keep the interest of your child or grandchild.

Neil Armstrong, Vietnam, Woodstock

Pat Daharsh sends me wonderful online sites. Today she sent this one.

Forty years ago in 1969, I was practically a newly wed.
On July 20th, while I was home on summer vacation from my teaching job, one of the greatest achievements of all time occurred when American Astronaut Neil Armstrong made the first step on the moon.
"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

Opposition to the Vietnam war increased this year as antiwar demonstrations and demands for the withdrawal of United States troops swelled.

Music of the time included the Doors, Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin and the Beatles.
A music festival, "WOODSTOCK" took place on a New York Farm on August 15th to August 17th with 400,000 plus music fans attending.
The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Crosby Stills Nash and Young and others performed live.

The anti-war sentiment was reflected in the fashions worn at Woodstock.
The long haired anti-establishment youth wore military jackets adorned with peace signs. That was some of what was going on in this country in 1969.

When we write about our lives, we want to include historical events as well. While I was not at Woodstock, I did see Neil Armstrong's first step on the moon thanks to television. I remember how I felt and what people were saying about this phenomenal happening in space. Some skeptics said it had not really happened. They didn't believe it because they did not see it with their own eyes. It was on TV, but folks knew many things on TV were not true.

I did know the horrors of the Vietnam war which we saw every night on television, because I knew a neighbor who was killed there. Our lives are shaded by historical events and what is happening in our country and in the world at the time.
Let me make a suggestion. If you are writing about your life, make
a list of ten historical events that have taken place in your lifetime.
As you think about these events, try to remember what you were doing at the time or where you were when it happened. Do you remember when you heard that JFK was killed? Do you remember where you were when the Challenger exploded? How did it make you feel?

Click on this site and learn about your history. http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/

Why Do We Write Our Life Stories

Stories add leaves and flowers to the branches of your family tree.—Gloria Nussbaum, Real to Reel,Beaverton, Oregon

A life story is a gift one generation bestows upon another, a legacy people have been giving from the beginning of time.—Denis Ledoux, Turning Memories Into Memoirs, 1993 Soleil Lifestory Network, Lisbon Falls, Maine
What do you wish you knew about your grandfather or great-grandfather? Shouldn't you preserve that kind of information for your grandchildren and great-grandchildren?—Terry Mullins, Professor of Management, Jacksonville University, Jacksonville, Florida

There's something very special in even the most meager details about one's ancestors. This, I believe, is the ultimate purpose of family history, and it is not selfish or egotistical at all. It is a gift to future generations who happen to be connected by blood ties. I remind people that they have lived in a world that is entirely foreign to their grandchildren, and while their memories may seem mundane to them, their descendants will be fascinated by the differences in how they lived. These descendants will also thank them for conveying something about family members who would otherwise remain complete strangers to future generations of the family.—David Harding, Second Story, Omaha, Nebraska

If we don't preserve people's stories, they will disappear after two generations. Every story we preserve is a piece of someone's family history that would otherwise be lost.