Passing It On

Let the confetti fly: It’s Family History Month!

Today is the first day of Family History Month. That’s a big deal to personal historians and to a growing number of Americans. During a recent series on the family histories of its anchors, NBC’s Today Show recently proclaimed researching family history as the No. 1 hobby in America.

Family History Month began in 2001 when 84 U.S. Senators co-sponsored a resolution that sailed through the chamber, recognizing that 60 percent of Americans are interested in their own family’s history.

The value of saving family stories for future generations is sadly often realized only after a loved one has died and those stories are lost forever. But  even in families where stories are meticulously documented and preserved, new and unexpected material is often uncovered. Just this week, for example, I learned that my grandmother’s marriage to my grandfather wasn’t her first marital journey.

To mark Family History Month, a group of personal historians here in central Iowa has joined forces to present a free Open House from 2 to 4 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 19, at the Urbandale Public Library. More information will be forthcoming in a few days in my newsletter. Send me an e-mail if you want to subscribe to the newsletter.

Meanwhile, Kimberly Powell lists 10 ways you can celebrate Family History Month here.

Larry Lehmer is a personal historian who helps people preserve their family histories. To learn more, visit his web site or send him an e-mail.

Photo: Calvin and Lillie Lehmer with their sons, Warren and Harry courtesy of Larry Lehmer.

Reunions are great, but they don’t last forever

I’ve got a confession to make: I so enjoyed my class reunion last weekend that I didn’t fully realize its significance. That’s a stark realization, coming from a personal historian whose profession is based on the value of claiming our legacies for future generations before they slip away.

It was a grand two-day affair that marked the 45 years that have passed since our class of 243 graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Of the 80 or so who took part, most were “reunion regulars,” classmates and spouses who catch up on our ever-changing lives every five years.

But there were surprises, too. I reconnected with Bernie Miller, who grew up across the street from me, but who I hadn’t seen since high school. I met Howie Anderson, cousin of a classmate, who played in local garage band Andy and the Manhattans  (“Double Mirror Wrap Around Shades,” sample it here or hear the entire song here). Dave Wolfe also shared the story of how he and a couple dozen of his army buddies from Vietnam rallied to the side of a dying former commanding officer.

But, as I absorbed as best I could the details of every conversation with every person I met over the weekend, I never once considered that this might be the last time I will see any of them. My local paper printed an essay about class reunions by Lynne Wisman (Mason City High School, Class of 1959) over the weekend. Lynne points out that the 50th “may be the last reunion, the last time we’ll see our high school friends.”

There are still about 200 surviving members of my high school class but we’re dying at an accelerating rate. Statistically speaking, that’s normal, but it’s still a somber and bittersweet realization that some of the people I shared a laugh with a few days ago won’t be around in five years to do it again.

Our reunion committee, spearheaded by Linda (Lee) Hook, had the great foresight to publish a survey of our class members for anyone who wants one. The much-appreciated resulting book contains bios and contact information for every classmate, plus a compendium of favorite stories, entertainers and songs as well as a list of our first cars. It was a first-rate job at preserving a slice of the personal histories of a group of people who came of age before cell phones, CDs and PCs. Thanks, Linda, and the rest of the committee.

Larry Lehmer is a personal historian who helps people preserve their family histories. To learn more, visit his web site or send him an e-mail.

  Photo: Linda (Lee) Hook and Larry Lehmer at TJHS reunion by lwlehmer.

Oxford Project paints vivid picture of town’s residents

The good people of Oxford, Iowa, must have thought Peter Feldstein had lost his marbles..

After all, why would a grown man set up shop in an abandoned storefront in the hamlet of fewer than 700 people and then invite townsfolk to drop in to have their picture taken?

Despite their skepticism, hundreds responded to Feldstein’s invitation, which came in the form of flyers, tacked onto utility poles and passed hand-to-hand throughout the northeast Iowa community.

That was in 1984. Twenty years later, Feldstein did it again. Teaming up with University of Iowa writing instructor and author Stephen G. Bloom, the duo produced a striking exhibit: Feldstein’s before-and-after images flanking Bloom’s brief narrative about each subject.

The exhibit, dubbed the Oxford Project, will be available this fall in book form. The book’s publisher, Welcome Books, describes the book on its web site:

“The portraits reveal the inevitable transformations of aging: wider waistlines, laugh lines, wrinkled skin, eyeglasses, bowed backs. Babies and children have sprouted into young nurses, truck drivers, teachers, rodeo riders, ardent Buddhists, racists, Democrats, strippers, and drug addicts. Time also rewards. Gawky teenagers blossom into assured men and women—the promise of the future realized.”

You can do much the same with you own family photographs by comparing one photo with another taken decades apart. Consider that person’s experiences in the intervening years and how those experiences are reflected in their appearance.

Larry Lehmer is a personal historian who helps people preserve their family histories. To learn more, visit his web site or send him an e-mail.

Photo courtesy of “The Oxford Project” published by Welcome Books. Photographs © 2008 Peter Feldstein. Text © 2008 Stephen G. Bloom. Preface © 2008 Gerald Stern. www.welcomebooks.com/theoxfordproject

If walls could speak: Leaving your mark, literally

Recording your family history is a way of leaving your mark for future generations. But what about those other ways that you literally leave your mark for others?

Just about every place that you have lived bears some sort of reminder that you once were there, whether it be a crack in the plaster from some familial rough-housing, a coffee can of treasure buried in the backyard or hash marks on a pantry wall that mark the growth milestones of your youth.

In my case, here are a few of the things I’ve left behind in my home town of Council Bluffs, Iowa:

• In my parents’ house on North 28th Street: My brothers and I enjoyed bowling in our basement, with plastic pins and a softball. I named the place “Regal Lanes,” a term misunderstood by my brother as he indelibly inscribed “Ringo Lanes” on the basement wall. (Note: if they ever rip up the paving on Avenue E north of the house, that strip of buffalo hide is mine!)
• In our former house on Lincoln Avenue: If the shed near the alley is still standing, take three steps west and start digging. You’ll find the rusted hulk of a former kitchen appliance, a gift from a former owner too cheap to pay to haul it away. Hopefully, you’ll find no evidence of the brick that shattered the lower reaches of the laundry chute, though I’m certain you’d enjoy the story. And, while I’d like to take credit for the safe encased in concrete in the basement, that’s the legacy of a previous owner.
• In our former house on 10th Avenue: I hope you’re enjoying the oak plank floor in the northwest bedroom. That was a serendipitous discovery after removing some otherworldly carpet and spending many hours on hands and knees with a finish sander. You’re welcome.

I know those are quite tame, nothing compared to my grandfather and father, who actually built a whole house for their families. In the case of my grandfather, he built the same house twice and dug the foundation by hand. I feel like such a slacker sometimes.

What are the ways you’ve left your mark in the places you’ve lived?

Larry Lehmer is a personal historian who helps people preserve their family histories. To learn more, visit his web site or send him an e-mail.

Flickr photo courtesy of TrEjAcK..

Happy birthday to us!

It was exactly one year ago today that "Passing It On" made its maiden voyage into the blogosphere. Now, 172 posts later, we’re still around and plan to be around for many more ramblings about family history and related genealogical issues. In fact, we plan to launch a monthly Passing It On newsletter next week. If you’d like to receive a copy, shoot me an e-mail and I’ll add you to the distribution list.

For old times’ sake, here’s a link to our first post.

Don Crowdis, the 93-year-old blogger mentioned in that initial post, appears to have stopped blogging but centenarian Olive Riley of Australia hasn’t. With help from assistant Mike Rubbo, the 108-year-old Olive has cranked out dozens of posts at her Life of Riley blog.

While you’re checking Olive out, I think I’ll have another slice of cake. And a hearty thank you to every reader, subscriber and commenter who offered words of encouragement over the past 12 months. It’s been fun.

Larry Lehmer is a personal historian who helps people preserve their family histories. If you’d like to know more, check out his web site or send him an e-mail.

Flickr photo courtesy of TheMunkyHouse.

FWOOOM: How do you handle a blast of family history?

In my role as personal historian, I have the privilege of hearing lots of family stories from lots of interesting people. Of course, we personal historians believe everyone’s story is interesting and worth saving for future generations.

Most of the stories I collect from people cover about five generations, ranging from grandchildren to grandparents, though it occasionally goes an additional generation or two. Only one of my interview subjects has had personal stories to share of relatives who were living as far back as the Civil War years. Good genealogical research can help fill in a family’s history far beyond grandparents and great grandparents.

I’ve posted before on the difference between genealogy and family history, describing family history as putting some fruit on the family tree. In my effort to expand my genealogical skills, I’ve recently started working on my own family by using the Family Tree Maker 2008 program.

Seeking data on the Internet was once described to me as trying to take a sip of water from a fire hydrant. Modern genealogical research is much the same. There’s so much data available that sorting through it all to find what one is looking for is a challenge.

I’ve already traced my paternal grandmother’s family to 17th century England and Ireland with a reasonable amount of confidence. Real genealogists (just like real journalists) don’t accept things at face value. They dig until they have sufficient evidence that what they believe to be true is, in fact, the real deal.

Although I haven’t reached that level of expertise yet, I’ve spotted a few errors in some other people’s work. One fairly elaborate tree, for example, gave my grandmother a non-existent brother. I’m not certain how important my grandmother figures into that family’s history, but that would be a major mistake in my own family’s lineage. On the other hand, I’m struggling to find a woman my grandmother insisted was a sister to her dad’s mother.

I have a lot to learn, but one lesson is very clear: it’s wise to exercise a good bit of caution and skepticism when venturing into the unknown.

Larry Lehmer is a personal historian who helps people write their family histories. To learn more, visit his web site or send him an e-mail.

Flickr photo courtesy of Joseph Robertson.

Oh man, is this trip really necessary?

It’s among life’s more annoying aggravations. Some people skip events because of it and most of us have found ourselves unwittingly snared it its grip. Yet it’s estimated that most Americans will spend between two and three years of our lives doing it.

“It” is waiting in line, often called queuing. Although a necessary component of civilized society, queuing can be a frustrating experience.

Fellow blogger Terry Thornton got me thinking about this with his post over at Hill Country of Monroe County, Mississippi. What I’ve come to realize is that I used to spend a lot more time waiting in lines than I do these days. That’s partially due to the convenience of the Internet, where I can now shop, buy tickets and pay bills, but I suspect that there’s some learned behavior at work, too.

When I was in college, it seemed like I spent a lot of time in lines. Registering for classes was a time-consuming ordeal, as was the simple process of picking up license plates each year. Buying tickets to sporting events and concerts also ate up a lot of time. Much of my basic training time in the U.S. Air Force was spent waiting for one thing or another.

I learned that it paid to plan ahead, like make reservations at restaurants or buying tickets in advance. In some cases, though, when faced with either waiting in a line or not going, I often didn’t go.

The whole process of queuing has undergone some changes over the years. For instance, many places now democratically use a single line, rather than forcing customers to guess which one of multiple lines is moving faster. But there’s still the injustice in some outlets of peeling off the person who’s waited the least amount of time when a new checkout opens. And many discount stores have many more unopened checkout lanes than are in use at any given time.

Think back on your queuing experiences. I’m sure many meaningful relationships were ignited by a long wait somewhere. With all that time spent in line, something interesting must have happened in your lifetime.

The MSNBC web site has some tips on how to avoid some lines and, as this interview on NPR shows, scientists are tackling the problem. As you might expect, the folks over at Disney have their own take on the situation as it affects visitors to the House of the Mouse.

Larry Lehmer, founder and president of When Words Matter, is a personal historian who helps people preserve their family histories. To learn more, visit his web site or send him an e-mail.

Flickr photo courtesy of Paul Russell99.

Don't let a little white lie tarnish your legacy

You’re probably familiar with the term “little white lie.” It’s possible that you’ve even told one or two in your lifetime. At their simplest, these little misstatements of fact are harmless and could even be considered helpful if they spare someone a dose of undue pain or suffering.

But what about those little white lies gone bad, when they lead to lie heaped upon lie to the point where you’re boxed in with no escape? Many television shows and movies have been built on this premise, usually with comical results. In real life, though, these situations are not always so funny.

Consider the case of Bill Henry, an 83-year-old Floridian whose obituary last fall told of his exploits as a major league pitcher. It outlined his 16 years in the bigs, including a couple of games in the 1961 World Series. He would drag out an album of baseball cards to show friends, a cardboard shrine to his colorful past.

But none of it was true. The real baseball playing Bill Henry is still kicking around his native Texas at age 80.

How and why the Florida Bill Henry assumed his false baseball playing identity is still a mystery, even to his wife, who met him after the deaths of his first two wives and his children.

"I just took his word that that's who he was," she told the Lakeland Ledger. "I was married to somebody that maybe I didn't know."

Keep that in mind if there are little white lies lurking in your family history. It’s better to come clean now before some snoopy reporter uncovers them or your heirs are embarrassed by an erroneous obituary.

Larry Lehmer of When Words Matter is a personal historian who helps people preserve their family histories. To learn more, check out his web site, or send him an e-mail.

Flickr photo courtesy of Bright Tal.

What have you learned from your life choices?

Choice. Picking one thing over another. The freedom to make such a decision is generally a good thing. But it can be bewildering, as well.

Consider the kid in the picture. If you placed two pumpkins in front of him and asked him to pick one, he could probably do it within seconds. But put him a field with a few hundred very similar-looking pumpkins and the decision is likely to take quite a bit longer. Then, even after the decision is made, there may be a bit of second-guessing.

Iowans are facing a similar situation as they sort through a large field of candidates in the presidential caucuses this week. But this isn’t a post about politics, it’s about choices. The caucuses are just an example of how making choices is becoming increasingly difficult in our lives today.

When I was a youngster, every house that had a phone had a black one. The phone company owned it; the customer rented it. Henry Ford was famously known for saying a buyer of his cars “can have any color he wants so long as it’s black.”

Phones and cars aren’t the only commodities that have changed. Bought a health care plan lately? Or one of those gussied-up Medicare options? How about wedding photos? There was a time when a wedding photographer presented a few dozen of the best shots in an album to select from. Now they put hundreds up on a web site. Is this an improvement, searching through all those similar, out-of-focus, off-center photos? The consumer too often shoulders the load of the decision-making process these days.

I do much of my grocery shopping at a small Iowa chain called Fareway, largely because it’s small. I don’t have to make as many choices and can pretty much zip through it in a half hour or less. If I had to stop and compare the 30 types of peanut butter or hundreds of cereals they have in a mega-market, I couldn’t do that. Plus, Fareway has better prices, doesn’t drown its fresh vegetables with those abominable sprayers and has a full-service meat counter. 

As complicated as the choices have become, it still boils down to one thing: you have to decide. Whether picking a jar of peanut butter or selecting a mate, the final choice is yours.

Think back on the big decisions you’ve made in your lifetime. What were the options you had at the time? Were you satisfied with the results? What did you learn from the experience? What’s the lesson you want to share with your descendants?

Larry Lehmer, founder of When Words Matter, is a personal historian who helps people preserve their life stories. To learn more, visit his web site or send him an e-mail.

Flickr photo courtesy of shutterBRI.

Tidying up for the new year

It’s time to clean out the office in anticipation of a productive and prosperous 2008. Here are a few items of interest for your consideration.

Are you familiar with the Willard Suitcase Project? This fascinating project began when the Willard Psychiatric Center in New York was closed in 1995 after 126 years. Left behind in a pigeon-infested attic were nearly 400 suitcases, dusty testaments to long-forgotten former residents of the facility that began as the Willard Asylum in 1869.

In the years since, researchers have examined the contents of the suitcases and have pieced together the stories of their faceless owners. The result is a traveling public exhibit, “The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic,” which will be at the New York City Public Library through Jan. 31. A book by the same title will be available in January.

People do the darnedest things to their data. To learn about the guy who sprayed his hard drive with insect repellant or the woman who took her flash drive for a tumble with her laundry, check this out.

Hopefully this won’t happen to you, but some people have taken to selling family heirlooms to pay off their medical bills. Descendants of abolitionist John Brown found themselves in this predicament recently.

Many newspapers charge for obituaries these days. That’s the downside; the upside is that you have more control over what you can say since it’s essentially a paid ad. But, if you want to avoid bad word choices, like “gone to live with the angles,” or factual errors such as “Grandma was a descendant of [the childless] George and Martha Washington,” you might want to hire a pro. Here’s an article on the perils of paid obituaries.

Oh, to be a farmer. Chris over at The Genealogue reports that a study by Drs. Leonid and Natalia Gavrilova of Chicago shows that trim farmers with more than three children were more likely to live to see 100 than overweight city boys without kids. In fact, living on a farm "more than doubled a man's odds of living into the triple digits."

Larry Lehmer is founder and president of When Words Matter, a company that specializes in collecting stories and writing family stories. Check out his web site or send him an e-mail.

Flickr photo courtesy of otbergo.