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BREATHING LIFE INTO ANCESTORS |
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by Ted Pack tedpack@thevision.net |
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Biography Outline There is a navigation bar for the rest of my web site (Peace Corps stuff, Web Page Writing, Beginning Genealogy) at the bottom of this page. You can bail out now if you want. There are almost 2,000 words below, and no pictures. There is a navigation bar to sections within the page after each section. This page is a series of questions. The answers will make a short biography. You can use them to interview your older relatives, or to write your autobiography. There are more tips and suggestions on a second page. The link to it is at the bottom too. Introduction When I was younger I could never think of enough to say. I can remember sitting in the 4th grade classroom after a long summer, sweating over the annual essay assignment, "What did you do over the summer vacation?" Miss Perry, who tried valiantly to develop my prose style and handwriting, would not accept the simple answer, "Played." Now that I'm a geezer, my problem is just the reverse; I ramble on for pages at the slightest excuse, while my children yawn elaborately. I was surprised to find that some adults still have problems thinking of enough to say. In the course of gathering genealogical information I've asked my older relatives to write a short memoir. Some of them asked for a guide - "Oh, what sort of things do you want to know about?" The short answer comes from putting yourself in someone else's shoes. What would you have liked your great-great-grand parents to have written about themselves for you? I sometimes stop, when I'm tracing some ancestor who was married at the age of 16 in 1809, six ridges to the west of civilization, and wonder - what their life was like? Did they dance at the wedding? Did friends and neighbors gather in the hard-packed dirt between the house and the barn, to make merry with a couple of jugs and a fiddle? Or was it a solemn religious service, as quiet and subdued as a Quaker meeting? What was it like to start keeping house at 16 in a log cabin with a dirt floor? What was it like for the groom, to be 16 or 17 and expected to provide for his wife, with plow, ax and musket? What follows is a long answer. These are some things I would like to know about my ancestors. They are just a guide; no one will want to answer all of them. For almost any category (occupation, schooling, religion, courtship, military service) or any age (child, teenager, young adult, young married, middle aged) you could ask yourself first, what was an ordinary day like? That might seem boring now, but might not be to your great- grandchildren. My grandmother didn't think hitching up a horse and buggy to go into town for supplies, or helping her mother cook for the threshing crews, was all that interesting. When I tell my children the stories she told me, they are hearing about what life was like 100 years ago. After the ordinary part, and again for each period and category, what was the most exciting thing that happened, the proudest moment, the funniest event, the saddest moment? Don't forget those anecdotes that were horribly embarrassing at the time but funny when you look back on them. The sections below have more specific questions. Childhood and School Days Where and when were you born? In a hospital? At home? In a taxi cab? (I remember my parents telling me that my twin and I were a week overdue, so Dad took mom for a car ride on a bumpy road.) Where and when did you go to school (elementary, high school, college, trade school, graduate school) What were your favorite subjects? Why? What were your favorite hobbies, sports, amusements, youth groups (Scouts, 4-H, etc.) as a child, teenager, young adult? What would a typical school day, Saturday, Sunday have been like as a child, teenager, young adult? Chores, for instance, have changed a lot since children had to fetch water, chop kindling and hold a leg while Dad butchered the elk. I know a man whose teenager has to delete all the temporary files from the family's computers once a week, since his younger children "draw" a lot but aren't trusted with the file manager. If you had an after school or summer job, what did you do? What did you like about it? Dislike about it? What was the funniest thing that happened on the job? How much did you earn? What would that buy in terms of candy bars, movie tickets, toys, or other things you were likely to buy at that age? Where did you live as a child, teenager, young adult? What was the house like? What was the town like? What do you remember liking and disliking about it? As an adult, why did you pick the places you picked to live (Specific apartments, neighborhoods, cities, regions)? What was the most exciting thing that happened to you as a child, teenager, young adult? Or, what were the three most, five most, seven most exciting things? Romance, Work, Play and History How did you and your spouse meet? What attracted you to each other? Do you have a favorite incident from your courtship that was either funny in the ordinary way or embarrassing then, funny now? (My cousin told me that when his parents, Bill and Dorothy, were courting, they often played tennis. Dorothy would make tuna sandwiches. After they were married Bill told Dorothy he hated tuna fish sandwiches; he just ate them to please her.) What was your wedding like? Where and when was it held? Was this typical for the time? (Not everyone gets married while skydiving.) Did you dance? What did people wear? (Those of you who changed out of a rented tuxedo into a powder blue polyester leisure suit for the reception will want to skip this one.) Military service - When and where did you serve? Why did you choose it, if you had a choice? What was the most exciting thing that happened to you in the service? Funniest? Most frightening? This particular section can get intense if you are interviewing a Vietnam vet. Try to be sensitive. If your subject is willing, ask about his reactions to the furor at home while he was fighting. There will probably not be many funny anecdotes here, no matter what war they fought in. Occupation - what did you do? Why did you choose it as a career? What did you especially like and dislike about the job(s)? What are some of the things your are proudest of? How much did you make to start with at your first full-time job? How much was that in terms of a "starter" home, or a good second-hand car? (Inflation being what it is, most of us started working at wages that seem ridiculously low now. Asking how much a car, house or whatever cost back then balances it out. I only earned $2,000 a year at a variety of part time and summer jobs while I was in college, but it was enough to cover room, board, tuition, books and living expenses.) What did you do outside of your job as an adult? Why do you do it? What did you like or dislike about it? Funny, proud, sad events? Not just volunteer work, but hobbies, recreation, travel, and so on. Do you bird watch, water ski, play the banjo, teach Sunday school, volunteer at the library, fly fish, collect stamps, refinish antiques, rebuild hot rods? What historical events have you witnessed in person? Via radio or television? How did you and your friends and neighbors react to them? Religion, Children, History again Religion - Why did you choose your particular denomination, if you did? What do you like about it? Dislike? What was the funniest thing that ever happened to you in church? What was the most awe-inspiring thing? What was your proudest moment? What was your saddest moment? What was the top church event in that elusive class, "Things that were horribly embarrassing then but funny now that a few years have passed"? Children - where and when were they born? How did you pick their names? What were they like as infants and toddlers? Most of the questions above are as open and optional as I could phrase them, Each parent doing this has to come up with at least one anecdotes about each of their children, for the grandchildren to chuckle over. Larger events, personal perspective - what do you notice is the biggest (three biggest, five biggest) change in the world today from the world you knew as a child? What one, three, five things can you remember being invented in your life which people today take for granted? (The first time ever I saw a television set the horizontal hold was off; it was showing a boxing match. The top half of the screen showed the boxer's legs, the bottom half their heads, arms and chests. I thought there was a special double-decked boxing arena, and the TV was showing two matches at once.) Eating - Holidays and Hard Times Food makes memories and binds families together. How did you celebrate Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas? What did you eat, and how did you cook it? (Some people in Texas deep-fry their turkeys for Thanksgiving. I barbecue mine, with mesquite chips.) How did you decorate the house? Did you do anything special for breakfast, lunch or dinner on your birthday? If you are writing an autobiography, and you are an American between 25 and 50, there is a good chance Super Bowl Sunday is one of your major holidays. Don't forget to describe it. Did your family celebrate any holidays that were special to your religious or ethnic heritage? If, for instance, you are Jewish, Muslim or Sikh, how did you feel when Christmas rolled around? How did your parents help you cope? This would be a good place to ask about heirloom recipes, too. What was your favorite meal, apart from the holidays? Not everyone had steak every Saturday night when they were growing up. I don't think anything brought the reality of the Great Depression home to me more than my mother's description of eating corn meal mush for dinner. When I was substitute teaching for $75 a week, I used to eat boiled wheat instead of rice. The wheat was seven cents a pound, down at the feed, store right next to the layer mash. Rice was 29 cents a pound. Describe your hard times; maybe your kids will appreciate what they have. (Maybe they will pick up their room without being told, too.) The Unknown Side The next question is one I ask at dinner parties a lot. "What have you done that no one would guess you'd done, to look at you"? People are surprising. I met a small, quiet grandfather at Girl Scout camp. He'd lied about his age and gone to Guadalcanal with the Sea Bees. He told me he'd never forget the smell of a Japanese pillbox that had been wiped out by a flame-thrower. I knew a thin, scholarly piano teacher who, as a boy, climbed Mt. Whitney, the tallest peak in the continental United States, in a single (long) day. I knew an accountant who SCUBA dived all over the world with her husband. They dove on every vacation for fifteen years. An eigth-grade reporter from the school newspaper interviewed me once. I wanted to tell him about being tear gassed by riot police or tattooed by headhunters. He asked me what my favorite food was. Your deed doesn't have to be a grand, death-defying stunt; just something to make your grandchildren say, "Wow - I never knew that!" There are a lot of subjects that don't fit any of the above very well. Many of them are what I call the "est" questions. What is the best meal you've ever eaten? Worst? (What are the ten best, for that matter, and three worst?) What was the best vacation you've ever taken? Worst? What was the nicest act of human kindness you've performed or benefited from? What was the most beautiful sunset (sunrise, waterfall, rolling hillside covered with wildflowers) you've ever seen? Fanciest party you've ever been to? Most fun you've had in a single day? |