How can you engage your children or grandchildren in family stories? Give them paper and crayons and let them illustrate the story as you tell it. I’ve been writing fictionalized accounts of my dad’s tales so that his posterity could know him. Having my grandchildren in town gave me the chance to tell them the latest story in his saga and see their creativity. We marveled at his surviving so many adventures. So far I’ve written...
Sometimes a gem of story can be discovered from clues in our family histories. My parents recorded my grandfather telling his life history in the 1970’s. After relating the basic facts of his life story, Grandpa began to loosen up and with his memory jogged, he started to tell some of the most memorable events of the early years. His tale of the snake and my dad’s bluetick coonhound should have been one I recognized,...
Do you have a memorable family story that your mother or father likes to tell? Is there some truth to the “walked uphill both ways in ten feet of snow” tale? Tracking down the source of a story and doing some research to put yourself in the time and place can yield surprising results. In this new addition to my series, “The Adventures of Cowboy Bob” I give a fictionalized account of a story I heard many...
Memories are fleeting. Why do we remember some things in vivid detail and others not at all? As I’ve been writing stories based on my dad’s memories, I’ve realized that the stories he recorded were those that made an impact on him. Enough of an impact that 70 years after the event, he still recalled them vividly. Seeing the wonder of snow through my Arizona grandchildren’s eyes, I gained insight into my dad’s memory of...
My mom has been writing a series of short stories to share with our family about her dad. I decided to illustrate one of the scenes using StoryBoard That. Eventually I’d like to illustrate each of the scenes and short stories she is writing so I can read them to my kids at bedtime. The scene I did was about picking cotton in Texas when my grandpa was a boy, in the 1930s. The software...
How do you write a family history that your family might actually read? Turning your pedigree chart into a sentence is a sure way to turn them off. Instead, think about writing a scene to enliven your story. I had heard my dad talk about “pickin’ cotton” as a boy. He didn’t leave a written record, but I created this scene from my memories of his stories. My dad passed away six and a half years...
Have you thought about what it must have been like for your ancestors who lived through the Great Depression of the 1930’s? My dad’s family experienced the Dust Bowl, the era of incredible dust storms that choked the plains of Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Kansas from about 1932-1938. He told of the drifts of sandy dirt on the roads and breathing through a damp handkerchief in the midst of a dust storm. The third in...
Why do some stories stand out in our memories more than other? Is it in the content or is it in the telling? Today I’m sharing a fictionalized account of one of my Dad’s favorite stories. Without fail he would start laughing so hard he could barely get the words out. I think we asked for this story mostly just to see him laugh. Second in my series, The Adventures of Cowboy Bob, enjoy this step...
Do you have a great family story, one that passes Bruce Feiler’s campfire test with the emotion, the passion, and the pain to endure? Reading and writing about Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls inspired me to try my hand at writing my dad’s stories. Growing up during the depression in Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, and California he had plenty of adventures. My dad found the humor in every story and usually told them with tears running down...