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One Memory at a Time: Inspiration & Advice for Writing Your Family Story
A wonderful companion to the best-selling To Our Children's Children , One Memory at a Time offers indispensable guidance and encouragement on writing family and personal histories.
Family history isn't hard. We do it every day without thinking about it. Our minds travel in that direction. Our minds are always going home. Family stories are our points of reference in every situation. They are involuntary responses, like sneezes. We see a hat worn by a man on an old movie channel and our minds jump to grandfather; his hat, his chair, his Scottie on his lap. We roll our cart by the butcher case at the grocery store and a passing glimpse at cubes of stew beef transports us momentarily to mother's kitchen, where she reaches for her blue-speckled roasting pan, the one with the lid.
When you give your stories, you are giving yourself. You are giving your parents, your grandparents, your great-grandparents to future generations. You are allowing the past and the present to shake hands with one another.
Your family history is not meant to be painted in broad brush strokes, summing up the meaning of the millennium. It is a description of your living room, of your grandmother's living room-your life.
Family history isn't hard. We do it every day without thinking about it. Our minds travel in that direction. Our minds are always going home. Family stories are our points of reference in every situation. They are involuntary responses, like sneezes. We see a hat worn by a man on an old movie channel and our minds jump to grandfather; his hat, his chair, his Scottie on his lap. We roll our cart by the butcher case at the grocery store and a passing glimpse at cubes of stew beef transports us momentarily to mother's kitchen, where she reaches for her blue-speckled roasting pan, the one with the lid.
When you give your stories, you are giving yourself. You are giving your parents, your grandparents, your great-grandparents to future generations. You are allowing the past and the present to shake hands with one another.
Your family history is not meant to be painted in broad brush strokes, summing up the meaning of the millennium. It is a description of your living room, of your grandmother's living room-your life.
- GenresWriting
160 pages, Hardcover
First published October 17, 2000
16 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 18, 2016
This book referred too much to the author's previous book To Our Children's Children. I should have just read that book instead.
Most basic information about starting to write a family history (use paper and pen, tape recorders, organize file folders, etc.). I personally didn't gain any useful tips from this book.
Most basic information about starting to write a family history (use paper and pen, tape recorders, organize file folders, etc.). I personally didn't gain any useful tips from this book.
April 3, 2022
For Mother's Day last year, both my mother and I received subscriptions to Storyworth.com where you get a questions every week for a year (52 questions) that are then published in a book.
Around Thanksgiving we decided the questions were becoming repetitions so I started coming up with my own questions for both of us. I have the companion book and got this and Note on the Kitchen Table from the library. This trilogy of books has been very helpful as we complete the project.
Around Thanksgiving we decided the questions were becoming repetitions so I started coming up with my own questions for both of us. I have the companion book and got this and Note on the Kitchen Table from the library. This trilogy of books has been very helpful as we complete the project.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews