Life Story Links: January 21, 2020

 
 

“What is truer than truth? The story.”
—Hasidic proverb

 
Luke Weldon, small farmer, and his son using an ancient Buick (transformed by cutting down the chassis) as an improvised tractor in New Bridgeton, New Jersey, 1936. The automobile was bought in a second-hand car lot for a cost of fifteen dollars. Ph…

Luke Weldon, small farmer, and his son using an ancient Buick (transformed by cutting down the chassis) as an improvised tractor in New Bridgeton, New Jersey, 1936. The automobile was bought in a second-hand car lot for a cost of fifteen dollars. Photograph by Edwin Rosskam, courtesy Library of Congress.⁠

 
 

Discovering Our Stories as We Go

PEN TO PAPER
“I didn’t know when I started to write a memoir my handwriting would unlock the story only I can tell,” Gita Brown says. “Using my hands and a pen, there is no delete key and no option to erase an idea before it starts.”

WRITING AS DISCOVERY
“You can write to a scripted conclusion, and it will be easier. Maybe no one will even notice. But why on earth would you?” Jennifer McGaha on putting pen to paper without a destination in mind and getting to the story behind the scenes.

MIDDLE CHILD
“I’ve known all my life that their story isn’t mine to tell, but that doesn’t stop me from visiting it like the ruins of a dead civilization...” Natalia Rachel Singer entwines the fragments of her parents' story with her own in this poignant brief first-person piece.

SHIFTING TENSES
“Implicit, procedural memories pose less of a problem for me than facts, concepts, names, and dates. Those automatic how-tos live in my fingertips and tongue,” Clare Nauman writes in this exquisite exploration of the overlapping past, present, and future of a survivor of abuse.

WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT
“‘My story is about me.’ Not if you want anyone to read it, it’s not. It’s not about you. You’re there. You’re present. We could not do this without you. But you are not what the story is about.” Marion Roach Smith on finding your universal theme (the comments on this piece, by the way, are worth a read, too).

 
 

Lasting Legacies

HISTORY, PERSONAL AND GLOBAL
A brave group of Jews secretly chronicled their daily existence in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust. Only one who knew where the archive was buried survived.

SOMETHING OF LASTING IMPORTANCE
A memoir recently ushered into the world by personal historian Pat Pihl includes a woman’s recollection of her time at a tuberculosis hospital in Southwestern New York State and her family’s turbulent years during the Great Depression.

“NOT JOSEPHINE, JUST JO”
“Now that my parents have both passed away, I’ve had faint pulls of longing for the name they chose for me. What does it mean when we untether ourselves from one of the first manifestations of our parents’ love?” Allison Gilbert, author of Passed and Present, on the significance of changing her given name.

IN HINDSIGHT
“Like most of us, Carl Gustin realized too late that he had missed the opportunity to hear his father's life story. He’d do anything to go back and have just one more day with his dad,” says Michigan–based personal historian Lauren Befus.

 
 

...and a Few More Links

 
 

Short Takes




 

 

curated roundupsDawn M. Roodedigital story sharingComment