Some time ago I started doing that and I keep adding new paragraphs whenever I feel like it and have time on my hands. As a retiree it's not that difficult. I hope that I will end up leaving the stories of my life to the family for them to refer to and to form a more complete picture about me than I had about my parents and grannies. Reading my memories will help them fill in the blanks they may have had about me and my life. Being 63 it's about time. Why have I decided to embark upon that? The main reason was that I realised there had been a major misunderstanding in my family and I would have loved to ask my mother about it. Unfortunately, she passed away before I was ready to do that. It was only due to my own research that I found out what the truth was. I now wish I would know more about her but, caring as she was, she was not really the person to open up and talk a bit more about her inner self, her motivations, etc.. That inspired me to make sure something like that won't happen again. I want to leave a legacy based on my own experiences, stories, turning points, important decisions including what motivated me to take the decisions I took when I was at a crossroads rather than leaving it to the interpretation and speculation of others. In that way I'll make sure they get it straight from the horse's mouth. Among other things, they will learn that they have (unknown ) ancestors and relatives in the US. After all, it is not the most boring time in which we have been living, for, in my case, it was not just one between millennia but also between systems. Who has had a similar experience? Well, the generation of my grandparents, of course, who had to make sense of three different political systems: a monarchy, a republic, a dictatorship and then either another republic or another dictatorship. Yet they did not live in different millenniums. Anyone else?
That's a great idea Thomas, really is. How wonderful if our parents and Grandparents had done this. I have so many questions unanswered. I've often looked back and wondered why, I didn't ask ……..
Yes, some of them but those were lost when lightening took out my hard drive. Now I've changed my mind. Don't think I want to.
No.... #1 I'd have to be able to remember half of what I've done. #2 The Statute of Limitations is still probably in effect on the half I'd prefer to forget.
Nope. I feel that many of my memories should remain forever: "Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past." - James Russell Lowell. I would participate in an interview with a younger person and try to answer questions about my day to day life and my past that were of some interest to them. I would find it very interesting and much more important to hear what young people of various ages and backgrounds were most curious about the past.
I started a small blog several years ago, because my oldest son asked me to write about some of the experiences that I remember from growing up, and just information about his grandparents that might otherwise be lost . I also wish that I had asked my mom about more things, but my mom and dad really didn’t talk a whole lot about those things, except occasionally when we looked at some of the old pictures that they had, and they would tell me where it was and who was in the pictures. Now that we are doing the ancestry dna thing, I am even more interested in things I don’t know about the past. My present project is going to be to go through the old pictures yet again, and see if I can scan them and upload them to a shared family album. I did this once before, but need to label the ones I shared, and now try and add more to it.
Thanks @all for sharing your experience. Tbh, I have just started and really don't know what I will end up getting nor what I'll do with it. Will depend on several factors but I'm determined to give it a try. Yes, Yvonne, I'll definitely include photos. Incidentally, why should scanning them be a challenge theses days? You could also photo them, couldn't you? I also think that I'll be selective as to what to include and what to leave out. It's not going to be a full soul striptease but I guess there'll be a lot of things to be said and explained. I'll just be following Kleist's idea of the "gradual formulation of thoughts while speaking" and will apply it to writing, I assume. Beatrice, I don't know either what I'll be able to remember, how detailed I will be or should be - that's the thrill. First memories, scents of the time ?, etc. Bill, sorry to hear that. It's really unfortunate that lightning seems to have destroyed your backup as well. I wouldn't want to rewrite it all from scratch either.
I don't think you have to write every detail do you …… Your thoughts are so precious to loved ones and any experience that you can pass on is also invaluable Maybe it was my turbulent childhood that stopped me conversing as I wanted to, its a big regret
I have kept a journal for many years...started it when my daughter was born, then forgot about it for many years, then many years ago after reading the Mass observation diaries, written during the war, and what a fantastic piece of history they are in their minutiae, I decided, for the same reasons as you, because I knew very little of my grandparents and parents, because they just didn't talk much about the past, that I would write and leave something for the future generations to read... I write something most days, whether just a line or 2 , to sometimes 8 pages as I did yesterday... from what I bought that day and how much it cost to what's going on politically...and even the cost of fuel etc... !!
I can't draw upon any journals or records. I've never noted anything down. You are right in saying that any personal story is a contribution to social history. Just think of all the diaries and journals left by people in the past which are invaluable, as Patsy put it, even though one's life may have been quite uneventful.
Yes but you do have to write it down for it to become part of the future and history...no point in keeping it in your head!! I tell you what..I have read some journals and diaires of mine in recent months that were written several years ago...and you know even I had forgotten about some of those details, and it was fabulous to revisit them. Some seemed like they'd been written by someone else... they were like somethin' that had happened a hundred years ago, in fact on 10 years ago... or less... but in my mind they were new, and some of it was fabulous memories I'd forgotten...
I never knew my paternal grandfather, John. He was born on February 2nd, 1888....a year after the first official groundhogs day. He died in 1947 at the age of 59. One story my Dad shared was that Gram did not get up early in the morning to see Pop off, so she left the cold coffee in a jar, and when he woke up, he re-heated the coffee in a pan, on the stove....before leaving for work. He was a teamster, when they drove horses, to haul stuff. He never complained.