Tag Archives: memories

Monday’s Link Roundup.

Posted on January 23, 2012 | 2 Comments

More gems in this Monday’s Link Roundup. As someone who lived and worked in Ghana for two years, I was drawn to this article, In Africa, the Art of Listening.  I highly recommend it. Another story that touches close to home is Mourning in a Digital Age. How do we find new mourning rituals in a world that is increasingly secular? And for those of you looking for online time tracking, take a serious look at Paymo. I did and was impressed.

  • The 10 Most Expensive Books in the World. “To help you brush up on your knowledge of the very old and very valuable, we’ve compiled a list of the ten most expensive books ever sold — no white gloves necessary. Click through for an overview, and then head upstairs to check your attics for any forgotten dusty tomes — you could be a millionaire and not even know it.”
  • Supreme Court rules Congress can re-copyright public domain works. “Congress may take books, musical compositions and other works out of the public domain, where they can be freely used and adapted, and grant them copyright status again, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday. In a 6-2 ruling, the court ruled that just because material enters the public domain, it is not “territory that works may never exit.”
  • How Film Was Made: A Kodak Nostalgia Moment. “Before pixels there were silver halide crystals, and before memory cards, film. Little yellow boxes cluttered the lives of photographers everywhere, and the Eastman Kodak Company was virtually synonymous with photography…To indulge this nostalgia–and perhaps learn something new about an old technology–we offer a fascinating 1958 documentary from Kodak entitled How Film is Made.”
  • Paymo.  “I thought you might like to know about a software package that has really changed the way we keep track of our time and bill our clients. I have no affiliation whatsoever with this company, but it has made such a difference in our organizational habits that I think it would be great for other personal historians…Before Paymo, … trying to keep track of how we spent our time was a nightmare…Now we have a Paymo widget on our desktop computer (Mac and PC), in which we can click on the project we are working on, hit the Start button, and go…The report functionality is amazing – you can look at your data from almost any conceivable angle and get a clear picture of how you are spending your time and how much money you are making.” [Thanks to Alison Armstrong Taylor of pictures and stories for suggesting this item.]
  • The story of the self. “Our ability to remember forms the basis of who we are and is a psychological trick that fascinates cognitive scientists. But how reliable are our memories?”
  • In Africa, the Art of Listening. “What differentiates us from animals is the fact that we can listen to other people’s dreams, fears, joys, sorrows, desires and defeats — and they in turn can listen to ours. Many people make the mistake of confusing information with knowledge. They are not the same thing. Knowledge involves the interpretation of information. Knowledge involves listening. So if I am right that we are storytelling creatures, and as long as we permit ourselves to be quiet for a while now and then, the eternal narrative will continue.” [Thanks to April Bell of Tree of Life Legacies  for alerting me to this item.]
  • Mourning in a Digital Age. “Grieving has been largely guided by religious communities, … Today, with religiosity in decline, families dispersed and the pace of life feeling quickened, these elaborate, carefully staged mourning rituals are less and less common. Old customs no longer apply, yet new ones have yet to materialize.”

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Marge Curtis, May 1,1918 ~ December 18, 2011

Posted on December 19, 2011 | 24 Comments

Mom at twenty-three

Those of you who are regular readers of my blog know that every Monday is devoted to Monday’s Link Roundup. This Monday is different. Yesterday Mom died at Victoria Hospice at the age of ninety-three.

Mom always believed that when she transitioned to that other side, she’d be met by my Dad,  Ed Curtis, who died in 1990. I like to think she was right.  And whether by coincidence or design her death took place on their seventy-second wedding anniversary. They were married December 18, 1939.

Throughout my life Mom was one of my biggest fans and supporters. In many ways she introduced me to story telling at an early age. An avid reader, her favorite activity before going to sleep was to read a few pages from her latest book. Every morning I would eagerly run into her bedroom to sit by her bed. There, she would relate the latest installment – no doubt censoring some of the racy bits for the ears of an eight-year-old.

She also regaled me with stories from her teenage years when her family homesteaded in the wilderness of northern British Columbia.  Eagerly absorbed by a young boy were tales of encounters with grizzly bears, hunting, and snowy winter nights, hunkered down in their log cabin.

People have remarked that it’s sad that Mom’s death came so close to Christmas. In part that’s true. I certainly haven’t had time in the past few weeks to think much about the holiday season. But central to this time of year is the message of peace, comfort, and joy. And I’ve experienced all of those in a personal and profound way. Mom and I were surrounded at Victoria Hospice by loving and compassionate care. Her final days brought her comfort and her death was blessedly peaceful. And we had joyful moments – reminiscing about Christmases past, enjoying cups of her favorite tea from her favorite cup, and laughing at this comedy called life. One of the last things she said to me, opening her eyes briefly was, “Having fun?”

I miss her dearly. My world has changed forever. But surrounded and supported by my loving partner, friends, and colleagues I’ll carry on doing honor to those values she tried to instill in me – kindness, loyalty, grace, and a good sense of humor.

Thanks, Mom.

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Posted in End of life, Holidays, Inspiration, Palliative care

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Posts That Got You Talking.

Posted on November 16, 2011 | Leave a comment

Thanks to all of you who took the time to comment on my articles. Here’s my  yearly roundup of the posts that generated the most comments. These aren’t necessarily the articles that received the largest number of viewers but clearly they got people talking.

For those of you who may have missed them, here’s your chance to see what caused the flurry of comments. If you’ve already read them and didn’t comment, it’s not too late to join in the discussion! ;-)

  • The Cluttered of The World Unite!   “We seem to be inundated these days with exhortations from neatness mavens to declutter and organize our lives for a happier and better tomorrow. The implication seems to be that a cluttered existence is a sign of failing.”
  • The Power of “No”. “The “N” word has a bad reputation. It’s seen as negative and mean. Many of us find it hard to say. But saying No will help you not only with your work as a personal historian but also with your life in general.”
  • Why Are You a Personal Historian? “I came across this Annie Dillard quote the other day: “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” It got me thinking.”
  • 12 Key Tips for Successfully Working Alone. ” I’ve been self-employed  for twenty years. I’ve loved being my own boss. But it hasn’t been all sunshine and roses. There have been some real challenges and some hard slogging. Over time I’ve learned some things about working alone  and I’d like to share them with you. “
  • If You Don’t Like What I Charge, Too Bad! ” Those of you who’ve been following my blog know that I periodically  have the need for a good “old-fashioned” rant. It’s kind of therapeutic. And I like to think that perhaps I voice some of the same frustrations that you experience. So hang on to your hat, here’s my latest!”
  • Eight Lessons My Mom Taught Me About Marketing. “My mom is ninety-two and a wise woman. She never had much schooling but she earned her doctorate at the university of life. She has a homespun wisdom that on reflection has taught me some vital marketing lessons. Here they are:”
  • How Old Letters and Recovered Memories Bring Satisfaction and Hope. “Last week I was doing some spring cleaning and came across a collection of letters I had written to my parents some forty-five years ago. At the time, I was a young man teaching in Ghana. After University I’d joined CUSO, a Canadian voluntary organization similar to the Peace Corps, and had been assigned to the West African country for two years. I’d asked my mother to keep these letters as a partial record of my experience.”

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Monday’s Link Roundup.

Posted on November 14, 2011 | Leave a comment

In this Monday’s Link Roundup, don’t pass up Affirmation, Etched in Vinyl. It speaks passionately to why personal historians do the work they do. As someone who loves a pen in my hand, I was intrigued by Why creative writing is better with a pen. For a little blast of nostalgia, take a look at What Record Stores Looked Like in the 1960s.

  • How Do You Spell Ms. “Forty years ago, a group of feminists, led by Gloria Steinem, did the unthinkable: They started a magazine for women, published by women—and the first issue sold out in eight days. An oral history of a publication that changed history.”
  • Getting Ready for Next Year–Now. “While the end of the year is likely not in the minds of many, it’s closer than you may think.So before the ball drops and that tax deadline gets even closer, it’s a good time to think about the many things you can do to prepare for the end of the year–and the promising year ahead.”
  • Why creative writing is better with a pen. “In a wonderful article published on the New York Review of Books blog the poet Charles Simic proclaimed “writing with a pen or pencil on a piece of paper is becoming an infrequent activity”. Simic was praising the use of notebooks of course, and, stationery fetishism aside, it got me thinking about authors who write their novels and poems longhand into notebooks rather than directly onto the screen.”
  • Affirmation, Etched in Vinyl. “For years I tried to construct a viable idea of my long-gone father by piecing together scraps of other people’s memories. I was only 6 when he died,…My father’s death stole many things from me, including the sound of his voice. For instance, I have tried to remember his laughter from that final night — its timbre and roll — but my mind is an erased tape. I possess the knowledge of his laughter and of Angie and Johnny’s bubbly white noise but have no memory of the sounds themselves. It’s as if I have garnered these details by reading a biography penned by a stranger.” [Thanks to Pat McNees of Writers and Editors for alerting me to this item.]
  • 7 Little Things That Make Life Effortless. “Life can be a huge struggle, most of the time, and for years it was a struggle for me.I’ve gradually been learning what causes that struggle, and what works in making life easier, better, smoother.Life can feel effortless, like you’re gliding along, if you learn to swim smoothly, to glide, to stop fighting the waters of life and start using them to buoy you up.”
  • What Record Stores Looked Like in the 1960s. “Just think: kids being born today will probably never see the inside of a record store. And why would they? Buying music used to involve wandering around a store browsing, picking things up based on cover art, putting them down based on scornful glares from record store employees, and generally being outside your house. Now, buying music usually amounts to nothing more than a click of the mouse from the safety of your couch.”

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Monday’s Link Roundup.

Posted on November 7, 2011 | 2 Comments

This Monday’s Link Roundup has a site that will thrill the Über Grammarian. If that’s you, don’t miss The Online Dictionary of Language Terminology.   If you’re a Joan Didion fan, you’ll want to watch Joan Didion Reads From New Memoir, Blue Nights, in Short Film Directed by Griffin Dunne.  My favorite this week is How Friends Ruin Memory: The Social Conformity Effect. For personal historians it’s another reminder that the stories we record may have little to do with what actually took place.

  • 6 Ways to Sell Without Selling Your Soul. “Sure, you want to build a successful business, but not if it means losing who you are. Somehow, someway, you have to figure out how to make money without abandoning your values, and yet a part of you wonders … Is that really possible? The answer: Yes.”
  • The World Memory Project. “The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has gathered millions of historical documents containing details about survivors and victims of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution during World War II. Ancestry.com has spent more than a decade creating advanced technological tools that have allowed billions of historical documents to become searchable online. Together, the two organizations have created the World Memory Project to allow the public to help make the records from the Museum searchable by name online for free.”
  • Joan Didion Reads From New Memoir, Blue Nights, in Short Film Directed by Griffin Dunne. “A mere twenty months after Joan Didion’s husband, John Gregory Dunne, died of a heart attack, Didion’s only child, Quintana Roo Dunne, contracted pneumonia, lapsed into septic shock and passed away. She was only 39 years old. Didion grappled with the first death in her 2005 bestseller, The Year of Magical Thinking. Now, with her new memoir Blue Nights, she turns to her child’s passing, to a parent’s worst fear realized.”
  • Framing a Creative Elevator Pitch. “The aim of an elevator pitch should not be to make a sale, get a job, or nab a sack full of money from a venture capitalist. Rather, it is to start a conversation. The ideal outcome of an elevator pitch is for the other person to look at her watch and say, “I’ve got a free hour. Let’s go have a coffee and talk about this.”
  • A Woman Of Photos And Firsts, Ruth Gruber At 100. “At the age of 100, Ruth Gruber is responsible for a lot of firsts. When she was just 20, she became the youngest Ph.D. ever at the University of Cologne in Germany. She was the first photojournalist, much less female journalist, to travel to and cover both the Soviet Arctic and Siberian gulag. She documented Holocaust survivors and the plight of the ship, the Exodus 1947.” [Thanks to Pat McNees of Writers and Editors for alerting me to this item.]
  • How Friends Ruin Memory: The Social Conformity Effect. “Humans are storytelling machines. We don’t passively perceive the world – we tell stories about it, translating the helter-skelter of events into tidy narratives… But our love of stories comes with a serious side-effect: like all good narrators, we tend to forsake the facts when they interfere with the plot. We’re so addicted to the anecdote that we let the truth slip away until, eventually, those stories we tell again and again become exercises in pure fiction.”

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Monday’s Link Roundup.

Posted on September 5, 2011 | Leave a comment

In this Monday’s Link Roundup two of my favorite items are Tracking Personal Histories Across Time and a Granata essay by Mavis Gallant, Memory and Invention. Gallant, one of the world’s great short story writers, raises challenging questions for all of us involved in helping others recall memories. And Tracking Personal Histories is a meticulous recreation of a present day portrait from one taken years ago. The pictures are shown side by side and the effect is totally absorbing.

  • Hospice patients put life stories on CD, video for loved ones. “David Bishop heard his mother’s voice on the way to her funeral last year. It was coming over the car’s speakers, and she was talking about what a beautiful day it was as she sat in her kitchen…Eileen Bishop told her story to volunteers as part of the “Life Legacy” service offered through Florida Hospital’s HospiceCare. The program, one of several in Central Florida, is free and is offered to all patients willing and able to participate.”
  • Story sharing to educate. “Hoping to foster better understanding of the everyday lives of LGBTI people, the founder of digital story-sharing site Rainbow Family Tree is urging community members to share their tales of “life, love, family and loss” online.”
  • All-TIME 100 Best Nonfiction Books. “Politics and war, science and sports, memoir and biography — there’s a great big world of nonfiction books out there just waiting to be read. We picked the 100 best and most influential written in English since 1923, the beginning of TIME … magazine.” [Thanks to APH member Catherine McCrum of alerting me to this item.]
  • Tracking Personal Histories Across Time. “Sander Koot’s series Back from the Future is a pairing of new portraits of the individual with an older picture of that person from years past.. he only photographs individuals after interviewing them. “In this project, I ask people to find old portraits of themselves, of which they have good memories,” says Koot. “When talking to them about the picture, you see them reliving the happy moment. Only after I know all the details about the past of that picture, (do) we start the shoot.”
  • Life Itself: A Memoir by Roger Ebert [release date September 13, 2011] “I was born inside the movie of my life. The visuals were before me, the audio surrounded me, the plot unfolded inevitably but not necessarily. I don’t remember how I got into the movie, but it continues to entertain me.”
  • Stationery’s New Followers. “Social-media fans are embracing paper. While United States Postal Service sees a decline in mailed letters overall, tech-savvy paper-lovers—in frequent contact via blogs, Facebook and Twitter—are giving rise to a host of small stationery makers.” [Thanks to cj madigan of Shoebox Stories for alerting me to this item.]
  • Memory and Invention: An Essay by Mavis Gallant. “Imagination, all invention, will occur spontaneously – occur or interfere. ‘Interference’ means it is false, mistaken, untrue. Although I have kept a journal for years, I never look anything up. A diary is not a dictionary or the record of a meeting. Sometimes a sharp, insistent image caught in one’s mind, perhaps of a stranger glimpsed only once, will become the living source of a whole story.”

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Encore! Remember When. Songs That Recall Our Yesterdays.

Posted on August 25, 2011 | Leave a comment

Remember When. Songs That Recall Our Yesterdays. Music can evoke strong feelings and memories. It’s one of the ways we personal historians can help  clients unlock stories from their past. Not long ago some of my colleagues in the Association of Personal Historians began compiling a list of their  favorite songs that brought back memories. I’ve included some of them here and added some of my own. To listen to these selections, just click on the title. Here are four songs that resonate with me: … Read More


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Come to Your Senses and Unlock Childhood Memories.

Posted on June 8, 2011 | 5 Comments

Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains.

                               ~Diane Ackerman

How much do we remember from our childhood? This is one of the questions examined recently by Canadian research scientists.

I’ve just finished reading Blanks for the Memories  which highlights aspects of the research originally published in the journal Child Development.

Neuroscientists believe that there are different kinds of memories, stored in many different neural circuits. “We can’t go to a particular spot in the brain to see where our third birthday party is stored,” says Dr. Hudson….

Scientists think the brain’s prefrontal cortex processes experiences, using sensory input from the eyes, ears, nose and mouth, sorts them into categories, and tags the various memory fragments with specific associations (smells of home, friends from camp, bugs, a pet, for example).

Reading this made me realize how important the senses are to unlocking childhood memories. I must admit I could do a better job of incorporating sensory questions into my interviews. To get me pointed in the right direction, I’ve written a few sample “sensory” questions below.

I tested some out on my mother and she had great fun. It turns out that a taste she strongly associates with her childhood is jelly beans. Her mother would carefully count out five each for her and her two siblings. Today this may not sound like much but during The Depression jelly beans were a real treat!

How much do you incorporate sense-related questions into your interviews? Do you have a favorite “sensory” question?

Sight

  • What do you remember most about your mother’s appearance?
  • Paint a picture for me of where you lived – the weather, terrain.

Sound

  • What sounds do you associate with your childhood? What memories do they evoke?
  • What piece of music  do you remember from your childhood?

Taste

  • What was your favorite food when you were a child?
  • What tastes do you associate with your childhood?

Touch

  • What do you recall were things you loved to touch as a child,?
  • What do you remember liking to run your hands over or through?

Smell

  • What are some of the pleasant smells  you associate with your childhood? What memories do they bring back?
  • What smells from your childhood weren’t pleasant? What memories do they evoke?

Photo by h.koppdelaney

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Posted in How to, Interviewing, Life stories, Personal historian, Questions, Tips

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Monday’s Link Roundup.

Posted on April 25, 2011 | Leave a comment

This Monday’s Link Roundup includes two excellent essays not to be missed. Living life is by a student at the University of Virginia who appreciates the great value of recording lives before they’re lost. In the second essay, Paying Grandma’s nest egg forward, the author Peggy Morrison writes, “The week in Winnipeg taught me that families and their rich legacies endure for a long time, and it is important to discover the past in order to learn about – and appreciate – the personal sacrifices made.”

  • Living life. “TRAVELING is defined not only by the places you see, but also by the people you meet along the way. While traveling this Spring Break, I happened to sit next to an elderly woman who quite unexpectedly taught me an invaluable life lesson.”
  • The 3D Type Book: A Typographic Treasure. “After months of anticipation, The 3D Type Book by London-based design studio FL@33 is finally here. Dubbed “the most comprehensive showcase of three-dimensional letterforms ever written,” the book is nothing short of stellar: With more than 1,300 images by over 160 emerging artists and iconic designers alike, it spans an incredible spectrum of eras, styles and mediums.”
  • I’ll Have a Short Story to Go, Please. “Want to enjoy short stories on your iPhone and Android? Award-winning short story writer Tessa Smith McGoverns has the solution. She’s the creative brainpower behind eChook, an app that delivers bite-size fiction for online consumption.”
  • A race to document the mysterious history of 1000 English words. “At the University of Minnesota, a linguistics professor is racing against his own mortality to finish a dictionary that will explain the origins and history of some of the most mysterious words in the English language. If he completes it, it will be the second time any language has had its linguistic history documented in this way.”
  • Rare Footage: Home Movie of FDR’s 1941 Inauguration. “This silent color movie was shot by FDR’s son-in-law (Clarence) John Boettiger, who was then working for the Motion Picture Association of America, and the quality of this rare footage is quite outstanding. Watch the full 14-minute version here.”
  • Paying Grandma’s nest egg forward. “My brother, Jim, my cousin Janice, who is the daughter of my uncle, and I were meeting at my brother’s home to begin to pull together the history of our Finnish grandparents, Andy and Katri Jacobson.”

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How Old Letters and Recovered Memories Bring Satisfaction and Hope.

Posted on April 20, 2011 | 14 Comments

We lay aside letters never to read them again, and at last we destroy them out of discretion, and so disappears the most beautiful, the most immediate breath of life, irrecoverable for ourselves and for others.

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Last week I was doing some spring cleaning and came across a collection of letters I had written to my parents some forty-five years ago. At the time, I was a young man teaching in Ghana. After University I’d joined CUSO, a Canadian voluntary organization similar to the Peace Corps, and had been assigned to the West African country for two years. I’d asked my mother to keep these letters as a partial record of my experience.

Dan and the staff at Sefwi Wiawso Secondary School, Ghana

Last week was the first time I’d looked at them in over four decades. As I read through these tissue thin blue aerograms, covered in tightly composed script,  I was deeply affected.  My younger self was speaking to me across the years not only about his wonder at this new place and culture but also about his hopes and dreams.

I feel that I want a role in life where I can work to benefit those among us who are not so privileged. I have long given up the idea that I alone can solve world problems. But I do feel that I have something and that I can contribute a little to working out some of our problems.

In a powerful way I came to see that the life I had hoped for has been lived. The values I held then are still close to my heart. It gives me encouragement as I look ahead to the “third chapter” of my life. I suspect it will be  a time  every bit as challenging and eye-opening as my days in Ghana.  And I hope I’ll face the future with the same degree of passion, curiosity, dedication, and openness as that young man did all those years ago.

The letters also confirm how much detail and texture of our past is simply lost unless we have journals or letters to refresh our memory.  I was surprised at the events, people, and places that had faded from my mind.  In fact, it turns out that the Ghanaian secondary school compound where I lived and taught wasn’t exactly how I remembered it at all!

My letters home illustrate the great value that memorabilia play in unlocking the stories of our life. But not just the stories.  Those letters also helped me understand something of the person I am today.

Here are a few random thoughts:

  • Start a journal. It’s never too late. Begin recording the details of your life. One day you may want to write your life story and these journal entries will be invaluable.
  • Preserve old letters. Make sure that you keep your correspondence safely stored in acid free archival boxes.
  • Search for original documents. If you’ve been hired to produce a personal history or you’re doing your own, make sure to uncover any letters, journals, or photographs that will help trigger memories.
  • Use archival documents to reveal values and beliefs. While memorabilia can aid in triggering a recall of past events – go further. The stories that emerge from the past can provide powerful clues to the essence of a person and the things that person holds dear.

Photos from Dan Curtis collection

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