Like most children, Ellen Ternes didn’t display much curiosity about her elders’ past, even her grandfather’s missing arm. Only as an adult did she realize how much she’d missed out on by not asking or listening. Now, she realizes, it’s time we tell our stories, so the next generation can better appreciate the past.
I’d always known my grandfather was called the one-armed man, that he’d lost his left arm in an accident when he was young. But, of course, I didn’t ask him questions about it when I was a kid, or even in my 20s, when I was too busy thinking about my own life.
Then, one day recently, when going through a crate of stuff that had been sitting untouched for years, I came across a copy of a story from a 1901 issue of the Gibbon Reporter, the weekly newspaper in the small Nebraska town where Grandpa grew up. And there it was. The heart-wrenching story of his arm. I was stunned. It hit me how much we had missed out on by not asking him about what happened.
As you look at old family photos these days, how many times have you wished you’d asked a parent or grandparent about something when you had the chance? Now we are the parents and the grandparents. It’s time to tell our stories for our kids and grandkids. One day, they will be glad we did.
Tips to help us tell our stories
What’s a story?
I’ve interviewed lots of people about their lives and experiences. I’ve found that people from all walks of life have stories to tell, memories or reflections on their lives that are really interesting.
Your story doesn’t have to be about your whole life. You can describe some things about growing up in a time very different from where we are now. When my daughter was in middle school, she interviewed my mom about the everyday life of growing up in the Depression. Not only was it an eye-opener for my daughter, when I read it now, decades later, I’m struck with how different life was just a generation before mine.
It can be a memory of an important event or time in your life. How you ended up doing what you did for a living. Something memorable about your military service, or where you were on 9/11.
How do I do it?
Talk
Talking to other people is a great way to jog the memory. Sit down with family members, including grandchildren, and have them ask you some questions. They might want to know about things you hadn’t even realized would be interesting to them. If they don’t live near you, you can FaceTime or Zoom or Google Meet online. You also can meet with friends and ask each other questions. Chances are it will turn into a conversation about “back in the day,” but that’s part of your story.
You can record the conversations or your own thoughts on a small digital audio recorder (lots of versions available online) or on your phone if you have a recording app. To get a print version of the recording, you can send the audio file to an online transcription service. (Feel free to ask your kids/grandkids to help with the tech stuff.)
Write
Sit down and write out some memories whenever something strikes you. If you work better on a schedule, set a specified time. Share your writings: send a computer file to a family member or friend, or save it on a sharing app like Dropbox or Google Docs. If you’re writing by hand, put your notes in a file folder or envelope that you or your family can easily find.
Related: Keeping a Journal – An All-Ages Activity
Web
A popular method of collecting memories these days is a web-based subscription program like Storyworth. They email you a question every week or so and you answer on the website, where it’s saved. Search “tell your story services” to see what’s out there.
What to Ask
Especially if someone is interviewing you, it can help for them to write out and share some questions beforehand. A good way to start is with an open-ended question, something that can’t be answered with just “yes” or “no.” Other specific questions no doubt will follow as you remember, or the person asking wants to know more.
Some good starting questions
- What was it like where / when you grew up? What was your high school like?
- What did you like best about your job?
- What world event do you remember most? Where were you when it happened?
- What is one of the best things that’s happened in your life? What is one of the hardest things?
- What’s the biggest difference between when you were young and life today?
For military veterans, Thor Ringler, National Program Manager for the Department of Veterans Affairs My Life, My Story program suggests, “If you are a veteran, let your interviewer know about the sample interview questions provided online by the Library of Congress Veterans History Project.”
There might be things you would rather not talk about. Says Ringler, “The goal of telling your story is not to make you feel uncomfortable. Share what you want to share and no more.”
Grandpa’s arm: The rest of the story
According to the Gibbon Reporter, on Oct. 3, 1901, when Grandpa and his brother were riding on a wagon full of cornstalks, the shotgun Grandpa was holding went off under his arm. The article goes on: “The boy was brought at once to town to Dr. Miller and it was decided best to amputate the arm … The boy’s parents had just left the day before for a visit in Indiana and it was thought best not to let them know of the accident as their knowledge of it would in no way help to relieve the boy of his very unfortunate accident.”
So much I wish I’d asked.