My wife and I recently saw the show, ‘Australia;’ we had heard that it was very entertaining. Going to movies is a rare occasion for us anymore, but we were glad we saw this movie. One of the very first lines spoken by the male actor made the movie worthwhile. He said: “In the end, the only thing you really own is your story.” How true that statement is! Generally speaking, a person is forgotten after only two generations unless their story is written down. It is said that: “When a man (woman) dies, they bury a book.” We can write our books before we die or put it off hoping that a descendant will exhume our book.
That is probably an unlikely scenario but if they do they will only get part of your story correct. Benjamin Franklin wisely said: “If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.” All of these wise statements should move a person to realize, at least, the importance of writing their personal and family histories.
I’ve been teaching a one hour class on writing your personal history once a month for several years at the Ogden Family History Center. The average attendance has been one to five students. I usually start the class by asking how many of them have started writing their history at one time or another? A few have and some just have no clue as to how they should start. Using the suggestions from a humorist, I say, you should never start like this: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Several years later, my grandfather was born in Des Moines,” or this: “The story of our family begins in a tiny village in northern France—or possibly Ecuador,” or like this: “My father, Mr Smith, was probably between eighteen and forty-eight years of age when he met his future wife, Mary. (Selected from the: “The ten worst ways to begin your personal history.”)
How do I suggest a person start?
I believe everyone has some exciting, interesting and memorable events happen in their life. You may get a few clues by reading other biographies or just by reminiscing with your friends or other family members. When you are reminded of an event that is interesting, funny, educational, unique or even catastrophic, write yourself a note to remind you later about that particular event.
As you start writing down these brief reminders more and more will start coming to you. They don’t have to be in any order, such as chronological, by type or anything else. All you are doing at this point is writing yourself reminders of events that you will write about later. After you have several events written down, select one of them that you remember well and begin describing it. Your first written event may only be a paragraph, or it may be a whole page. It doesn’t matter, nor does it matter whether the punctuation, spelling etc., is correct. All you are trying to do is get your idea down, as a start. Each one that you eventually write about can be added to and corrected grammatically later. The key is to start writing as soon as you become excited about one of your listed events. After you have written your first event story you will be energized to start on the next one and so on. As you write each story, you will be reminded of other such events as they have a synergistic effect on the mind.
One should avoid day to day detail, i.e., “About 7:30 A.M. I got up and brushed my teeth.” Nobody will read your story, not even your children, if it puts them to sleep as soon as they start reading. Your story should be about your challenges, important accomplishments, exciting things that happened to you or your family. You should even include those events that were a little embarrassing to you, as that brings out your humanness. Tell about what made you sad, that made you cry, that made you angry and most importantly what made you happy. The events you write about should include your emotions.
How did the event make you feel, and was it a learning experience for you? Your stories should include spiritual experiences, as your personal history is scripture for your posterity. It is a means by which you can teach them, even for centuries, after you have gone. Don’t be embarrassed to brag a little about what you have done or to use ‘me’ or ‘mine’ where appropriate. However, remember that you did not live your life in a vacuum. Write about the people in your life that you cared about and why they were important to you and in what way they impacted your life?
After you have written several of these events, you will get better and better at expressing yourself. Soon you will see your history begin to emerge and when you have many of them completed you can start putting them into chronological order.
If possible, write your history on a computer so that you can go back to it and easily change things without starting all over on a new sheet of paper. With a computer, you can change the font size, the type, insert words or paragraphs where ever and whenever you like, etc. I wrote my history on a Power Point system, so that I could easily insert pictures or even cartoon type characters.
When you have finished writing all of your stories, bring them together in the order that you feel appropriate. They may then be tied together with a short bridging sentence or paragraph. It’s not necessarily important to do this, but it will give greater continuity. The finished document can be saved and/or printed, even copied onto a CD for distribution to family, etc.
Below I have inserted one of my events from my history as an example. The event was, “My first remembrance.” In my classes, I ask the students if they could recall the very first thing that they remember, and most had never even thought about it. Usually, it is either a very traumatic experience or a very loving and comforting experience. As you can tell by reading my first remembrance that it was a very traumatic experience for me.
“In the mid 1930’s, our family always had about 30 chickens and during the day they roamed around the yard pecking at whatever they could find to eat. At night we would put them in their coop behind the house to keep them safe from predatory animals. They were coaxed to come in by throwing chicken feed into their coop and calling, “Here Chicky Chicky, Here Chicky Chicky,” and they would all come running. They would be asleep on their roosts as soon as the sun went down. One day, when I was between two and three years old, a big rooster jumped up on me and knocked me down. He stood on my chest, flapping his big wings while trying to peck me in the face, and I was crying and swinging my arms and feet trying to protect myself. All of a sudden I saw the rooster flying through the air. My Dad had grabbed it and thrown it as high and as far as he could. Dad was my hero that day; he had saved me from the rooster.”
As you begin writing, or if you delay writing your story, remember how I started this article: “In the end, the only thing you really own is your story.” So true! The antitheses of that, is of course, if you have no story, were you? We all have a story to tell, and most of us love our children enough to want them to remember us the way we saw ourselves. We will want our grandchildren and great grandchildren to know us, as well. Something from our life may be told many generations after we are gone, if they have our story. Maybe, because of the way we lived our lives, according to our story, our descendants will be encouraged to live better lives themselves. “Your life, is an unwritten book that only you can write.” (Nietzsche)