An heirloom from stories of a lifetime

Like most people, Hedrick Ellis grew up listening to his parents and grandparents tell family stories. As a teenager, he tuned them out.

But this year, eager to keep memories alive, he hired a historian to interview his father and mother, Elizabeth Blanchard.

“You hear these stories over the years, but nobody ever really gets around to writing them down,'' says Ellis of Arlington, Massachussetts.

“This seemed like an easy and practical way of capturing them.''

In this age of the memoir, not all fascinating lives belong to notable individuals.

Across US, people like Ellis form a growing cottage industry of amateurs and professionals eager to preserve the experiences of older generations.

Armed with notebooks, tape recorders, and video cameras, they are coaxing a lifetime of memories from beloved relatives.

Paula Stahel, president of the Association of Personal Historians, attributes much of the interest to changing family structures.

In the past, she says, “We'd see our aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins regularly. .... Today's retirees pick up and move someplace else, or their children take jobs in distant cities, so we don't have the experience of living the stories together.''

Some families hire a professional who is skilled in asking questions and shaping responses into a cohesive narrative. Others take a do-it-yourself approach.

“It's always a baby boomer who has children and ageing parents,'' says David O'Neil, a personal historian in Newton, Masschussets.

“They look at their parents and their children and wonder, ‘What are my children going to remember about my own parents, and how do I capture and preserve their life stories?'
"As the Second World War generation is passing away, there are a lot of efforts to record their stories.''

In addition to audio and video formats, people preserve memories in books, ranging from simple bindings to leather editions.

Others use the internet, answering questions online to create an “instant autobiographical book''.

Donna Gold of Stockton Springs, Maine, discovered family stories she had never heard when she travelled to California to record her great-aunt's memories of pogroms in Ukraine and the family's journey to the US.

Gold offers this advice: “I urge people to turn on a tape recorder and ask questions. They will never regret it.''

Pointers

Telltale tips

Dennis Stack, founder of the StoryKeeper Project, offers these tips: