Passing It On

It’s official: You can share a story today

Are you sharing a family story today?

Today has been designated International Day for Sharing Life Stories and many communities around the world are holding special events to commemorate the occasion. Here in Central Iowa, I’ll be participating in tonight’s Two Rivers Story Spinners’ event at Des Moines Area Community College.

I’m looking forward to hearing other people share stories from their life experiences. For my part, I’ll probably tell the story about a public spectacle involving my grandfather and root beer. If you’re in the area, drop by and I’ll share it with you.

Not so coincidentally, today just happens to be the 96th birthday of story teller extraordinaire, Studs Terkel. Terkel, an oral historian from Chicago who became a public television star a few decades back, has a new book out, “Studs Terkel Interviews: Film and Theater.”

Even if you miss out on today’s festivities, you can make amends by sharing a life story or two with your loved ones over the weekend. What are you waiting for?

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

Flickr photo courtesy of wgbhmorningstories.

How about some stories with that dinner?

Dinner time is story time in America. At least it used to be.

There was a time in our not-so-distant past that families would gather at the dinner table each night to share their experiences of the day while dining. While family dinners are far less common today, a 2005 study by Emory University showed that they’re no less important in developing valuable, strong family ties.

So, it should come as no surprise that the 41st Carnival of Genealogy that focused on family dinners drew a huge response. The carnival topic was: If you could have dinner with four of your ancestors who would they be and why? Most of the bloggers who took part are well steeped in genealogical knowledge and it shows as their dream dinner often includes ancestors of far-flung and disparate branches of their family tree.

I didn’t participate, even though I thought it was a great topic. My guests would have been a bit closer to home – my grandparents. Although I have vivid memories of each, they are almost exclusively about my relationships with them. The questions I would ask today are much different from those I asked when I had the opportunity. One dinner would barely scratch the surface.

As you ponder who would be on your guest list, you might want to check out what Carnival participants said about their fantasy meals.

Have you seen the PBS program “African American Lives 2” that’s currently airing? After catching the first two parts of this four-part series this week, I wonder how I missed the original show, which aired in 2006. Hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., researchers dig into the past of a dozen African Americans, including Chris Rock, Tina Turner and Morgan Freeman, and usually come up with some obscure, educational, entertaining facts about 19th century ancestors. It’s a generous contribution to Black History Month.

Thanks to Nicholas Osborn at the ever-fascinating Square America site you can view an eclectic collection of snapshots of the Africa-American experience. Just click on the “Current Exbibitions” photo. Warning: This site is highly addictive!

For those among us who are old enough to remember the manipulative campaign that Dick Clark foisted upon America’s teenagers a half century go involving a 15-year-old “singer” who was known by a single name, please note that Fabian Forte turned 65 this week. Sigh!

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 animefx.

Even the streets have tales to tell

My personal history business is built around the premise that every family has stories that are worth saving for future generations.

As we grow up, we are continuously exposed to the strange meanderings of slightly off-center relatives, the accomplishments of more inspirational ancestors and the tawdry gossip of all manner of personal relationships – proper and improper. A personal historian collects those stories and weaves them with other facts and details to create a rich tapestry of a family history.

I wrote about storytelling from the Nashville conference of the Association of Personal Historians last fall where I was treated to presentations from author Robert Hicks and history instructor James Walsh, but just last week I was reminded of the power of storytelling.

The reminder came in the form of a street person on the skywalks of Des Moines as I returned to my car following a basketball game. Street people retreat to the warmth of the skywalks each winter where they ply their trade of trying to coax a little hard cash from their marks.

Panhandling has come a long way since the “got any spare change?” days of my youth. One local guy has at least three elaborate stories in his repertoire, involving a broken down car (probably the most common in this area), a sick aunt and (my favorite) the valuable stock portfolio his broker has tied up until he can come up with the cash to release it.

I’m sure you’ve already nailed down the main storytellers in your family for your own history, but don’t forget those secondary storytellers, too. There are likely some undiscovered gems in your family’s past.

Some things you’d better know. Thomas MacEntee of the Destination: Austin Family blog has come up with a list of “10 Things Every Man Worth His Salt Should know How to Do.” How Thomas came up with this post without once mentioning duct tape is beyond me.

How popular is your name? I don’t think I had an elementary school class that didn’t have at least two Larrys in it. Today there are probably entire elementary schools without a Larry. Thanks to Name Voyager at Baby Name Wizard, I now know that Larry was the 18th most popular name in the 1950s but was No. 381 on the list in 2006. What about your name?

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.

storyteller 1  courtesy of bored@work.

"Soldiers of storytelling" turn family history into drama

I heard James Walsh speak Sunday. I was impressed.

Walsh, a history instructor at the University of Colorado in Denver, has a unique way of making history relevant to his students. He assigns each of them the task of interviewing four relatives and, working in groups of eight students, use that information to write a play, which they perform. The process is inspiring and the performances are raw and powerful.

That was the backdrop for the message Walsh delivered at the 2007 Conference of the Association of Personal Historians in Nashville on Sunday morning.

Walsh’s own story is pretty amazing. He owns up to not being a particularly dedicated student as he grew up in the mill country of Pennsylvania, even though that business was dying and family urged him on to higher education. Walsh did manage to snag a wrestling scholarship to Duke University, where his eyes were opened culturally and academically.

It was at Duke where a professor took him to task for his own lack of self-awareness.

“Walsh, how many people in the history of the world will see the world from your perspective?” he was asked. After Walsh’s expected reply, the professor challenged him: “Who will tell those stories from that viewpoint if you don’t?”

The Walsh method of entwining personal histories to spin compelling drama seems to be effective. He’s taught over 3,000 students this way, 130 at a time, over the past eight years. He read from some students’ work on Sunday and told tales of the intensely personal nature of the Cold War, how a collection of wingnuts revealed a bit of unknown family history and the horror of discovering that Grandma met Grandpa while skinnydipping. Walsh also played an excerpt from the Alan Berliner documentary, “Nobody’s Business,” which touches on many of the sensitive issues associated with a family history project.

Walsh describes his students as “soldiers of storytelling.” I wondered how his students described him, so I checked the web site, Rate My Professors. Among the comments: “Walsh is an amazing professor. His teaching style questions the humanity of the world” and “I highly recommend him to anyone who is studying history and like a professor with passion and who is interesting. He makes the students think.”

He scored high on the “Helpful” scale and low on the “Easy” scale, which I interpret as a good thing. He also scored an average 4 (out of 5) on the “Hotness” scale. I guess that’s good, too.

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

Photo: James Walsh at APH Conference in Nashville.

Storytelling: The art of saving real history

In my role as a personal historian, I’ve interviewed many people who survived The Great Depression. I’ve documented their experiences as they struggled with drought, disease, heartbreak, poverty and chinch bugs.

But none of them lived through the horror of the 2,500 people of Franklin, Tennessee, who woke the morning of Dec. 1, 1864, to find over 9,000 dead Union and Confederate soldiers in their backyard, the result of an hours-long battle the night before that ended with doomed soldiers trampling over corpses of the fallen, the sharp sound of crackling bones intermingled with moans of the dying in the waning hours of the slaughter.

The Battle of Franklin is the pivot point of “The Widow of the South,” the best-selling novel by Robert Hicks, our keynote speaker Saturday at the 2007 Conference of the Association of Personal Historians.

Hicks is a first-rank storyteller in that fine Southern style. His presentation was centered around that battle, which some Civil War historians have called “the last hurrah of the Confederacy.” He also told the tale of his brash introduction to noted Civil War historian Shelby Foote in Memphis and how he recruited an unlikely ally to persuade Foote to temporarily suspend his policy of “not inscribing books for strangers.”

But it was Hicks’ telling of the legacy of Carrie McGavock that reveals how historical fiction “is about how ordinary people can become extraordinary people because of circumstances.” It was McGavock, the heroine of Hicks’ novel, and her husband John who cared for hundreds of wounded soldiers following the Battle of Franklin and provided two acres of their Carnton Plantation for the final resting place for 1,500 of the dead.

One of the points Hicks made was that formal historians don’t preserve history, storytellers do. Keep that in mind as you collect your own family stories

Another blogger. My friend Stefani Twyford of Legacy Multimedia in Houston, Texas, is also blogging from the conference. Stefani specializes in video and does a great job. She’s also one of the few people I know who’s brave enough to karaoke “Keep On Chooglin’.”Check out her blog.

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.

Photo: Author Robert Hicks signs a copy of  "The Widow of the South" for past APH president Lettice Stuart.