“To acknowledge our ancestors means we are aware that we did not make ourselves…We remember them because it is an easy thing to forget: that we are not the first to suffer, rebel, fight, love, and die.”
—Alice Walker

Why Preserve Our Stories?

“I WISH I KNEW”
“As significant as parents are in life, their adult children often don’t know what shaped them and what they were like before they became mom and dad.” There is a growing interest, though, in understanding our parents’ lives, and capturing their stories for the next generation.

MEETING LONG LOST FAMILY
“It may be just a few iPhone videos, but it’s treasure to me. And it’s a start,” writes adoptee Jon de la Luz of the oral history recordings he took of his biological mother’s only living sibling, 87-year-old tia Maria Antonia, whom he only recently learned of and met.

Grief & Remembrance

A DEEPER PURPOSE
“The point of all this is to make a difficult thing like dying or loving someone who is dying less difficult. In that sense, creating a When I Die file is an act of love,” and the authors of A Beginner’s Guide to the End: Practical Advice for Living Life and Facing Death here offer some concrete tips for how to do so.

THE GIFT OF MEMORIES
During the grieving process, “all attention is on trying to understand the loss, remembering your loved one, and figuring out how to move forward. All other sounds are now muffled in the background, things that seems to matter before often seem frivolous.” Noelle Rollins on ways to remember our lost loved ones and honor this sacred time.

THE BIG GAME
“For emotionally stunted straight men in the suburbs, sports are one of the few arenas in which one has the freedom to get hysterical. You can yell, you can cry, you can throw a remote across the room, and all will be forgiven as manly, heteronormative devotion.” Chris Ames writes with a sharp, fresh voice about the intersection of father time, basketball, family, and loss—a most magnetic read.

Family History Finds

DISCOVERING HER FAMILY HISTORY
As part of a monthly resolution challenge to learn more about her family's past, journalist Kelsey Hurwitz gathered wisdom from genealogy gurus, and in the process found a stronger sense of self.

#NOTATROOTSTECH, TOO?
RootsTech 2020 ended a few days ago, but if you missed the big family history conference, you can still benefit from many of the presentations. Here I highlighted sessions, available on video, of interest to life storytellers of all kinds.

VAST RESOURCES REPOSITORY
For the first time in its 174-year history, the Smithsonian Institution has released 2.8 million high-resolution images from across its collections onto an open access online platform for patrons to peruse and download free of charge.

A MULTIGENERATIONAL CONNECTION
Taneya Y. Koonce had a broad notion of why her family saved bits and pieces about a pastor her family was close to, but would descendants wonder what the items were doing in the family archive?

Ancestors’ Voices

ARTIFACTS LEAD TO PERSONAL DISCOVERY
In 2017, 13 drivers’ licenses that had been confiscated from Jews during Kristallnacht were discovered in a government office of a small German town. Last month, one of the descendants recounted how the high schoolers got in touch with her, and how she traveled to Germany to unveil a lost chapter of her family history.

FROM FARM BOY TO FEARSOME WARRIOR
February 19, 2020, marked the 75th anniversary of the start of the Battle of Iwo Jima. The last surviving Medal of Honor winner (out of 27 sailors and Marines so honored) recalled his story.

LOVE LETTERS
When Helene Stapinski reads a stash of love letters from her young father to her mother, she discovers a man she never knew: “Now that I knew him better, I missed and grieved for him even more. I wanted him here to draw him out and laugh with. And cry with. I dried my eyes and read on.”

THE TAPESTRY OF AMERICAN IMMIGRATION
The Tenement Museum’s “How to Be an American” podcast returns for a second season, with eight new episodes and stories from the history of stickball in New York City to historic trash to an “out of this world” immigrant success story. Listen to a preview here:

...and a Few More Links

• She calls her numerous journals her “mind turned inside out.”

• Should there be a code of ethics for archivists?

• The Augusta Chronicle shines a light on preserving family history through biographies.

• Technology uncovers forgotten graves in Maryland.

Short Takes