On With Your Story

I thought about Charlotte this morning, as I passed my dining room table, picked up a book there, and carried it back to my office, where I am writing this. I was 21 when I met Charlotte, a middle-aged women with teenage children. With blond carefully set hair and a slightly plump figure in a crisply pressed white uniform, she looked more like the 1950s than the 1970s. In 1972, Charlotte and I were both training to be respiratory therapists in a program with about 15 or so other people at the UCLA Medical Center. A wife, mother, and homemaker, Charlotte was looking for her first paid work. A recent college graduate with no immediate job prospects, I was looking for a way to pay for graduate school.

Charlotte was an object of some derision to me and the half dozen other trainees my age because she undertook to mother us. She was always ready to instruct us on how to live properly. This did not go down well—we had too recently set out on our own and were proud of our independence. She struck us as smug and over-controlling — the kind of parent we would be glad to be free of. Charlotte once gave us this housekeeping solution to clutter: Whenever her kids or husband would go from one part of the house to another, they would always carry something with them that belonged there and put it away. This practical tip earned Charlotte some smirks and rolled eyes.

I don’t know if our derision was ever obvious to her, but I don’t see how she could have missed it. Nevertheless, she was unfailingly kind to everyone, especially to those of us who were almost young enough to be her children. And when I needed help, it was Charlotte who gave it. Our stipend for the full-time training program was $160 a month. My rent for a studio apartment was $103 a month. The remaining $57 didn’t cover a month’s food and other living expenses, so I applied for and received food stamps. In those days, you had to go in person to the welfare office to pick them up, between the hours of 9 AM and 5 PM–the same hours as the training program. How could I possibly get there? Charlotte. She offered to use her lunch break to drive me to the welfare office once a month.

Given our age difference, Charlotte is probably no longer living except in memories. I don’t remember Charlotte’s last name, but I remember her and what I learned, at times like today when I carried a book from one part of the house to another and put it away.

It’s Mother’s Day.  “This I Believe” is featuring essays about mothers today. I just read one about how a girl should know her mother by a women who lost hers young.  Perhaps you heard authors read their “This I Believe” essays on National Public Radio.  The radio series ended but the program continues online.

Why not write an essay of our own today, or any other day for that matter.  As Edward R. Murrow said when he introduced the original radio series in the 1950s, “Never has the need for personal philosophies of this kind been so urgent.” You can keep it for your family or submit it for publication online. You can find essay-writing guidelines and instructions for submitting at http://thisibelieve.org/guidelines/

Last year’s Mother’s Day post.

Have you been watching the TV series, Who Do You Think You Are. I have and I’ve been struck by the almost universal response to the discovery of a family connection. When Spike Lee discovers an ancestor who worked as a slave in a Confederate pistol factory, he wonders what the man may have thought about the situation. When Sarah Jessica Parker finds an ancestor who left his family for the 1849 California gold rush and died shortly after arriving, she wonders what he must have thought about the collision of his dreams with reality. The discoveries bring mysteries that intrigue and questions that can’t be answered.

We have a mystery in our family tree, too. My husband’s father seldom spoke about his own father and mother. He spoke of an uncle affectionately, but on his mother and father he was largely silent. In searching Ancestry.com, I came across some facts that when put together provoke more questions than they answer. Fact one: My husband’s father  (we will call him John A.) was born in 1916.  Fact two: In the 1920 census, his father (we will call him John L) was living with a wife whom we will call Lucille. No other person was listed as part of the household. Fact three: In the 1930 census, John L was listed as living with a wife, whom we will call Marilyn. Also part of the household in 1930 was a 14 year old son, John A.  The questions begin: Where was 4-year old John A in 1920? How did he happen to appear in 1930? Is he Lucille’s child or Marilyn’s? What happened to John L.’s first marriage?  What was John A’s experience during those years? The facts provoke certain speculations, but we will never know the truth because the family tree can’t talk, and John A and John L took the truth to their graves. They didn’t keep journals, write memoirs or personal histories, or even tell family stories. How would I handle this mystery in a family history book?  I’ll address that next time . . . .

A friend recently shared with me the photo album his mother created shortly before dementia stole her memories. I remember meeting her only once; she gave a me recipe for a sour cream peach cobbler that I have made many times. The first page of the album is a handwritten list of the major milestones in her husband’s life, including his marriage to her in 1915. One of the last photos shows them together after 47 years of marriage. They are smiling and her head is inclined on his shoulder.  In the rest of the album, she is mostly present as a reflection. She is represented by the photos she selected, by the people she cared about. She, herself, is not in very many of the pictures. It’s as though you have to catch site of her quickly from the corner of your eye. Or you must be a detective and assemble the clues. For instance there is a clue to the woman behind the album in the arrangement of the photos. She put a photo of her son next to a photo of her husband, with the caption: “John’s first time formal 1969 and Bob’s last time formal 1991.”

When we make albums, they tend to be about the important people and places in our lives–not directly about us. People may make inferences about our loves and our values from what we select to show.

If you have ever attended a Toastmasters meeting, you know what Table Topics are: impromptu opportunities to speak for two minutes on a surprise topic. Because, among other things, April is “grilled cheese sandwich” month, the top topic at this week’s meeting of the Los Gatos Silver-Tongued Cats toastmasters club was–tah dah–how to make the best grilled cheese sandwich. I wasn’t called on to speak, but the topic sent me into the nostalgia zone. It was a special day when my mother made grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. These she often served with condensed canned tomato soup to which she added milk instead of water. This was my favorite lunch and, to this day, I resort to a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup as comfort food to warm me on a cold wet day or console me when I’m blue.

My husband also remembers grilled cheese and tomato soup as the signature lunch of childhood. It could be the sandwich that nourished an entire generation of American kids. The cheese, of course, was American cheese. It melted flawlessly and oozed out between the slices of white bread browned with margarine. Today, I make grilled cheese with the luxuries of real butter, sourdough french bread, and sharp cheddar cheese,which doesn’t melt as silkily as American cheese but has a more robust flavor.

Other foods of fond childhood memory include pigs in a blanket, pork and beans on toast, chipped beef on noodles,and peanut butter and banana sandwiches. When I made lunches for my own kids, I tried new delights such as honey-roasted turkey wraps or cream cheese and ham on banana bread. But my kids, too, only remember the grilled cheese sandwiches.

What food from childhood do you remember best?

While Superbowl XLIV (44 for the Roman numerally challenged) grabbed most of yesterday’s media attention, Stanford University students made news by updating a Depression era phenomenon—the Dance Marathon.

In yesterday’s event, Stanford students danced for 24 hours to raise money for Partners in Health, a nonprofit that provides healthcare to AIDS sufferers in the poorest parts of world. (You can read more about it at “Stanford students dance around the clock for a good cause” and see a video.)  Reconceived, exploitive dance marathons of the past are being transformed into fundraisers for good causes.

As difficult and painful as it is to stay on your feet for 24 hours, the Stanford dance-athon was a tame affair compared to the cruel endurance contests of the 1920s and 1930s. These dance marathons were staged and rigged events where people paid 10 cents for admission to watch couples compete for prize money. Dancers had to keep moving for 45 minutes out of every hour, for weeks on end. Nobody benefited but the promoters.

A dance marathon held in my hometown of Spokane, Washington, closed October 12, 1935, after 1,638 hours. That’s about two months. At that time, my mother’s parents hadn’t yet settled in Spokane. In 1935, Grandpa was working in Topeka, Kansas, for Phillips Petroleum, a job he got as a result of the 1933 National Industrial Recovery Act. I don’t know if my grandparents ever saw a dance marathon during their travels from place to place in search of work, but most likely not. They wouldn’t have wasted the dime.  While my mother was a 7-year-old child in Topeka, my father was a 10-year old boy on a small dairy farm near Gold Bar, Washington.

The marathons finally came to an end as cities and towns passed ordinances banning them and as World War II gave people something more important to do. HistoryLink.org has an interesting article on Dance Marathons.

Tip: If you are researching what life was like in Washington state for a family history, HistoryLink.org is a great resource. It’s a large and evolving online encyclopedia of state and local history in Washington state.

Photograph:  Digital ID: npcc 08260. Source: digital file from original Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-npcc-08260 (digital file from original). Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

Tip #2: Tactics for getting and keeping your writing moving.

It’s a truth: the longer things take, the longer they take. One lesson I learned while writing for companies is that delays beget more delays. If you want to get something done, keep moving at all times.  I’ll give one example. Once I worked on a short brochure that took such a long and slow route through the multiple levels of approval (department, management, marketing, and legal) that by the time it was ready to print, the company had a new logo and a new location. So it was back to the drawing board for the brochure.

In writing a personal or family history or a memoir, the same thing can happen. The longer it takes, the greater the risk of never finishing. As life continues to happen, the project can be never-ending. Here are some practical ways you can keep the work from bogging down.

I signed up for DailyWorth, “a free daily personal finance email for women,” and that got me thinking about the lessons relating to money and financial well being that I learned from the generations before me. Relationships with money are fascinating and enlightening topics for personal histories. Money is mixed up with our ideas about success and failure, freedom and security, and a lot more.

My grandparents were hardworking people who saved money and spent frugally. I remember when grandma would give me a particularly generous gift, she would ask me not to tell grandpa about it. For his part, grandpa was a savvy guy who I believe always knew and went along with her deception. I also remember a great grandfather who chewed tobacco and whom I rarely saw when I was a child, but when I did he always gave me a silver dollar. The aversion of the tobacco juice and the attraction of the shiny dollar are inextricably linked.

Did you talk about money in your family—the value of it and the earning, saving, and spending of it? We didn’t in mine. Money was a taboo subject. Did you get an allowance as a kid? How much was it and what did you do with the money? Did you have a piggy bank? Mine was actually a deer. I once shook my deer bank upside down and wiggled a table knife in the slot to get out nickel for a pack of chewing gum that I bought at the gas station on the corner. I felt so bad I went home and confessed. When did you get your first bank account? What does money mean to you? Freedom? Security? The means to do good? What’s the best investment you ever made—and the worst? Your children and theirs will be fascinated with the answers.

“We can tell our values by looking at our checkbook stubs.”  Gloria Steinem

“Money is power, freedom, a cushion, the root of all evil, the sum of blessings.”  Carl Sandburg

Mark Twain toasted women at a Washington DC correspondents’ banquet in 1868. It’s outmoded but still funny. Here’s a link to the full text (be sure and read the expurgated parts marked by asterisks, they are the funniest bits.).  In short, he says–

“Wheresoever you place woman, sir — in whatever position or estate — she is an ornament to that place she occupies, and a treasure to the world. Look at the noble names of history! Look at Cleopatra! look at Desdemona! look at Florence Nightengale! look at Joan of Arc! look at Lucretia Borgia. Well, suppose we let Lucretia slide. Look at Mother Eve! You need not look at her unless you want to, but Eve was ornamental, sir — particularly before the fashions changed!  . . . I repeat, sir, look at the illustrious names of history! And, sir, I say with bowed head and deepest veneration, look at the mother of Washington! She raised a boy that could not lie — could not lie. [Applause.] But he never had any chance. It might have been different with him if he had belonged to a newspaper correspondent’s club. [Here, the reporters heartily booed Twain.]

As a sweetheart she has few equals and no superiors; as a cousin she is convenient; as a wealthy grandmother with an incurable distemper, she is precious; as a wet nurse she has no equal among men! [Laughter.] What, sir, would the people of this earth be, without woman? They would be scarce, sir.

Then let us cherish her — let us protect her — let us give her our support, our encouragement, our sympathies — ourselves, if we get the chance. But, jesting aside, Mr. President, woman is lovable, gracious, kind of heart, beautiful — worthy of all respect, of all esteem, of all deference. Not any here will refuse to drink her health right cordially, for each and every one of us has personally known, and loved, and honored, the very best one of them all — his own mother!”

Tip #1 for getting your writing going

If you want to write your life story or memoir but are having trouble getting started, remember this:

Your life started at the beginning but your telling of it doesn’t have to.

Starting at the beginning–“I was born on October 11, 1949 in Spokane Washington”– is fine if that is your choice. However, starting at birth can pose some problems for writers:

• The beginning may not be very interesting to us. After all, we don’t actually remember any of it personally.
• We may not know much about the events of our birth, so lack of knowledge can block progress.
• Starting on the first day of our life can make the project look long and overwhelming
• Starting at the beginning can make us feel locked in to a rigid chronological order.

Free yourself from the tyranny of the chronological. The order in which you write about events, does not have to be the order in which they occurred or the order in which they will ultimately appear in your memoir. It’s your life, start anywhere your want. The day your daughter was born, your first day of school, the day met your spouse. The day the bee sting sent you to the hospital. Or what your bedroom looked like when you were a kid. Or start with today.

Next: So I’m free, now what