Life Story Links: October 13, 2020
“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