Passing It On

Don't wait until you're dead

Sometimes when I make a presentation to a small group, I’ll pass out plain white index cards.  The cards, I explain, are to help people communicate with a loved one. I set up the following scenario:

Imagine that you are not going to make it home today, that you will be struck down and killed by a bus, physical ailment or some other means. What would be your final message to the one person most important to you? Take a few minutes and write it down.

After giving the audience a few minute to compose their final message, I alter the scenario:

OK. Now imagine that you’re not killed today. I want you to take the message you’ve written and present it to your loved one today. Pay close attention to the reaction you get. That should convince you of the value of your stories to your loved ones.

It’s sort of a mini-mini-course in writing a legacy letter, which many others call an ethical will. Besides showing the value and power of stories, it also makes the point that you don’t have to wait until you die to share them with your loved ones. I fact, I make the opposite point: that it’s better to share while living. Doing so helps eliminate that nagging feeling of regret that many people feel after the loss of a loved one.

Comedian Bob Saget makes a similar point in this essay on The Huffington Post in which he details what he would do if he knew he were in the last 24 hours of his life. What about you? Would you spend most of that time jetting to an exotic destination or would you prefer taking your final breath in more familiar surroundings?

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died -- is available at Amazon.

Flickr photo courtesy  of Graham Ballantyne.

What should you include in your 'family stew?'

Putting together a family history is much like cooking up a stew. You take a little bit of this, a snip of that, add a dash of this spice or a pinch of that “secret ingredient” and voila! Every family has its own recipe with the final product having a distinct flavor and texture. One thing all have in common, however, is that they are tasty and are eagerly awaited by family members.

Occasionally, though, someone will add something to the mix that takes the final product in a whole new direction. In a family history project, it is important that you consider whether any such additions will so alter or distort the final product as to make it unrecognizable to the family audience.

Consider this situation in which a client of mine excitedly told me of a recent discovery of journals kept by his mother in the decade before her death. He was unaware of them when we started his family history project and wanted to include material from the journals.

“I can’t wait to see what she wrote, but am afraid to read them myself,” he said, as he handed the unread journals to me.

She was meticulous in her detail. Every visit to the beauty shop, shopping trip, mowing of the lawn and Sunday dinner was duly noted. She proudly documented visits from family members. But she also wrote often of her frustrations with her adult children. A common complaint was they didn’t visit often enough, or do enough to help her. At one point she wrote that no one would miss her if she disappeared.

So far, I’ve included just the “good parts” since it’s clear that’s how my client wants to remember his mother, but I’m still wrestling with the “bad parts.” Should they be included or not?

For more on this subject, check out this earlier post on dealing with truth in family histories.

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died -- is available at Amazon.

Flickr photo courtesy of ssour.

What obituaries don't tell you

Two parts of my daily morning ritual are to peruse the obituaries in my daily newspaper and to check what people are writing about family history on the Internet. Occasionally these activities intersect. Like today.

Many people read the obituaries to find out if any old acquaintances have died. Since I consider myself a relative newcomer to the Des Moines, Iowa, area, I rarely recognize the names of the people listed. But I am still interested in the lives of some of them. I’m often curious about how the information included was deemed important enough to include in what is often the last written tribute to a person. That curiosity is piqued even more when you realize that someone has to pay to have this information printed.

Today’s listings included a 37-year-old woman. In the 56 lines describing her life journey was the usual information: birthdate, schools attended, husband, marriage date, survivors, service information. But I wanted to know more. Why does a woman die at an age when she should be enjoying a life of her own choosing, whether that be raising kids, building a career, serving others or whatever else strikes her fancy? Even more important, what memories of her will her family carry forward beyond the basics listed in the obituary?

Then, while checking the Internet, I came across this post by Bill Reid entitled “Remember you’re going to be dead soon…” The first line of Bill’s post was this quote by Jeremy Schwartz, “Live every day as if it were your last, because one of these days, it will be.”

While we’re all aware of the uncertainties of life, it’s good for us to be reminded of it. I use this phrase in my presentations and workshops: We all have an expiration date, but few of us know what it is. Preserving family history is not just for senior citizens. Of the people killed in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, fewer than one-third had a legal will. Even fewer had taken steps to preserve their family histories.

Some people think that writing a person’s life story is a sign of an overblown ego. Others think that to withhold such information is a selfish act. I happen to value the stories of my ancestors for they’ve helped me become the person I am. I hope that my unborn grandchildren will want to know about me at some future date. But I’ll leave that up to them. At least they’ll have the material available so they can make an informed decision on their own.

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died -- is available at Amazon.

Flickr photo courtesy of  Dappers.

Taking a swig from our thirsty past

 

When I was a kid, my family kept a water bottle in our refrigerator.

My brothers and I were frequent visitors to the fridge on hot summer days. House rules dictated that you poured the cool water into a glass for drinking and when the bottle was less than half full, you refilled it to the top and returned it to the refrigerator. Like most rules, these were broken. We drank directly from the bottle and sometimes were in too big a hurry to refill the bottle.

But I can still remember how good that cool water tasted after a hard day on the basepaths or after grinding out a few miles on my one-speed bicycle on a stifling, humid Iowa summer day.

This might seem like an odd topic to include in a family history, but the way we hydrate ourselves has changed radically in recent years and water issues will be huge for future generations. How we handle our thirst today may be much different than in the future.

Even water, the staple of thirst-quenching in my childhood home, is handled differently today. I’m still not quite used to someone offering me water in their home and then handing me a store-bought plastic  bottle of the stuff. Nor am I fond of the now-common practice of prohibiting the carrying of your own water into an event so that you are compelled to buy their bottled water at ridiculously high costs.

For many of us, water is not even our first choice. As a child, soda (which we called pop) was a treat, something you got primarily outside the home. We rarely had it in the house. Now cheap soda can be found everywhere.

When you factor in health, economic and environmental factors, ordinary tap water deserves a much better fate.

Thousands of bicyclists are travelling through Iowa this week on RAGBRAI, many of them on an annual pilgrimage to our fair state. It will be hot; they will get thirsty.

It was on one of those steamy days on RAGBRAI that I stopped for a break on a farmer’s lawn, lounging beneath a shady tree and soaking up whatever breeze I could snare. The farmer’s young daughter stood nearby with a hose, filling up water bottles and offering drinks.

One rider filled his bottle, took a sip and spat it out. The mineral content of the rural water was apparently too much.

“Don’t you have any good water?” the rider asked.

Without missing a beat, the young girl replied, “This is the good water. This is the way we like it.”

How did you quench your thirst as a child? What about your grandparents? Our descendants will find it interesting to learn how you dealt with such matters.

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died -- is available at Amazon.

A tip o' the hat to all Harrys out there

 

Are you wild about Harry?

Harry Potter, that is. The countdown to the release of the final installment in the wildly successful book series is approaching the zero hour, as virtually anyone with a pulse is aware. I’ve never read a Harry Potter book and have seen just one of the films so I’ve managed to avoid being swept up in this latest round of hyper-hype.

But it did get me wondering: What about the real Harry Potter? I did some checking.

In an unscientific, non-exhaustive search, I learned that there is only one Harry Potter listed in phone directories in Iowa or its contiguous states. In addition to the Harry Potter in Omaha, there’s a Harold Potter right here in Iowa, in Sibley.

Although I have little interest in learning the fate of J.K. Rowling’s fictional Harry (whose life has been bared in some 325 million books so far), I’m more interested in the life stories of the actual Harry Potters. Or Harry Lehmer, my paternal grandfather. That’s just the personal historian in me, I guess. Although there’s always room for a little escapism and fantasy, reality trumps fiction for me just about every time.

What about you: Would you rather read the exploits of a carefully crafted fictional character or the real-life exploits of a person of interest?

Genealogy blogger extraordinaire Randy Seaver offers a reminder that, although the Internet has made genealogical research quick and easy, it is far from complete. To uncover the real gems in your family history project, you’ll likely have to go elsewhere, Randy points out.

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died -- is available at Amazon.

Having some fun while keeping in touch

We all have ways of keeping in touch with family and friends. The way we communicate with each other has undergone many changes over the years and most of us probably use more than one channel these days.

For most of us, it's the telephone, e-mail and old-fashioned face-to-face interactions that are our primary modes of communication. These are not the only options, however.

Consider, for example, Flora Zimbelman and her sister, Rose. Over 50 years ago Flora slipped an uncooked hot dog into Rose's suitcase. Rose mailed it back, starting a 54-year game of "sneaking the frank back into my sister's life."

"I found it under my pillow once, I found it in between the drapes and once I found it in the kitchen drawer," said Flora, who is left with the odd trophy after her sister's death earlier this year.

Hot dogs aside, there are some other ways of putting some fun into your communications efforts.

Some people like to leave unexpected notes for others, like spouses. There have been cases where these notes are so unexpected that they go undiscovered or ar discovered at inappropriate times. The folks at Poketo think they have the answer with their message capsules. Just slip it into a pocket or beneath a pillow where it's bound to be discovered.

To enhance the unexpected note experience, why not use a pencil that has aromatic lead? Scents available include rosemary and lemongrass.

If you're delivering your message  in print form, consider using Tokyo-based Ko-sin Printing. They'll put some of your DNA in the ink, making it very personal, indeed. Caution: they say the DNA is extractable as well.

If you prefer leaving your mark in cyberspace instead, try leaving a voicethread. It's new. It's easy. It's very cool.

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died -- is available at Amazon.

Flickr photo courtesy of  Garrick.

Accidental documentaries: The sounds of our past

Over the weekend I happened to catch part of the This American Life program on National Public Radio. This weekend's program was called "Accidental Documentaries." During the program, host Ira Glass played excerpts of audio tapes from a variety of sources, including one found in a Salvation Army thrift store.

The recordings were rich with family stories, many obviously were never intended for the national audience delivered by NPR. They were riveting, if in a voyeuristic sense.

There was a time when I was deep into audio recording myself. Although I started using audiotape as a means of identifying radio stations, I soon expanded it to incorporate my music collection. It was  a short hop to recording family events and conversations.

Although most of those recordings have been lost, I still managed to come up a few earlier this summer while working on my own family history. Included were tapes of my children at very young ages, snippets of phone conversations and radio station appearances and a complete cassette from my mother-in-law from back in the day when swapping tapes between out-of-town relatives was in vogue.

At one point, I bought a box of reels of tape at a garage sale with the intent of recording over them. Upon checking, however, I realized there were hours of giddy conversations among teenage girls from the 1970s, the golden age of mass reel-to-reel recording. I started to save parts of these conversations but soon realized I lacked the family context to make them relevant. How I wished I could have returned them to the rightful owner.

What about you? Do you have any "Accidental Documentaries" tucked away somewhere? Even if you don't, your relatives might. It's worth checking.

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died -- is available at Amazon.

Flickr photo courtesy of Status Frustration.

 

Now is best, but later is better than never

This is something of an equal time post.

In my last posting, I wrote of the perils of procrastination. Today’s theme might be described as “it’s never too late.” This is not to take a step back, however. Given the uncertainty of our life journeys, there is a very real sense of urgency in preserving our legacies. But, as these stories show, patience and perseverance have rewards as well.

Consider the story of  Francisco Uribe and Candelaria Alvarez of Guanajuato in the center of Mexico.

When Francisco proposed marriage to Candelaria in 1937, she turned him down. Since that time, they have continued as “boyfriend” and “girlfriend.” That relationship has produced 10 children, 31 grandchildren, 29 great-grandchildren and 42 great-great-grandchildren. Over the past seven decades, Francisco, 98, has repeated his marriage request to Candelaria, 91. Eventually, she relented and they were wed on June 2.

"She confessed to me that she’s in love with me and that she’s always loved me," said Francisco, according to the Reforma daily. "Now it’s real; together for the rest of our lives."

It was 50 years ago that Marilyn Creed’s fourth-grade teacher in Vancouver, B.C., suggested that she practice her letter-writing skills with peers from other countries. That led her to  Mary De Laet of Glasgow, Scotland. This summer they are marking 50 years of their pen pal relationship with a North American reunion.

Frank L. White was a naturalized citizen of the U.S. after emigrating from his native Barbados in the late 19^th century. Around 1900 he was photographed in a Chicago restaurant, where he worked as a chef. The image was used as the model for the "Cream of Wheat man."

After White died in 1938, he was buried with a modest grave marker in Leslie, Michigan. Researcher Jesse Lasorda learned of White’s uncredited fame and started a campaign for a grave marker that included an etching of the famous image, which was placed at the gravesite this year, 69 years after White’s death.

And, for those of us who know the origin of the sandwich known as a “Dagwood,” next month will see the release of “Blondie: The Bumstead Family History.” It will cover the 77-year history of one of the most famous families in cartoon history.

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died -- is available at Amazon.

 

The top 10 reasons to procrastinate: 1. ...

 

Are you like me? Do you have projects sitting around that you’ve been meaning to get to but just haven’t found the time?

Like the tapes of interviews I did with my parents over a year ago and haven’t transcribed? Or the pictures and items I collected for that mini-book on our vacation to Memphis, Oxford and Clarksdale more than two years ago?

I’m a Procrastinator, with a capital P. I have no trouble wading right in on projects for my clients, but I still haven’t managed to find the same motivation with my own family research projects. In a way, that’s good for my business. I suspect that many of my clients are Procrastinators, too. That’s why they hired me. Preserving their family history is important to them and they realize it will never get done if they wait to do it themselves.

While procrastination is generally seen as more of a nuisance, with family history it can be a fatal flaw. Most of us have experienced the erosion of our family legacies when a vital family member dies, taking their wisdom and stories with them before they can be saved.

We would all be better off to follow the advice of Larry the cable guy and just Git-R-Done.

That’s exactly what Peter, a near-octogenarian, is doing with his regular postings of bits of his history on YouTube. And Jennifer Koretsky offers tips on how to combat your procrastinistic urges.

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died -- is available at Amazon.

Cousins: A world of complexity and intrigue

As a personal historian, I make a distinction between what I do and genealogy. While a genealogist’s primary motive is creating an accurate, comprehensive family tree, I’m more interested in putting some fruit on those trees through the stories and memories of family members.

Genealogy and family history are, to me, close cousins of the same family. As I considered the relationships among cousins, it occurred to me that among the more interesting discoveries as one traces its family back through the generations is the not-all-that-unusual occurrence of intermarriage within a family, usually involving cousins of a certain distance.

To one who was raised in a state where marriage between first cousins is prohibited and who was taught that such unions would likely produce a generation of genetic misfits, I was surprised to learn that a minority of states actually prohibit such marriages. Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia allow first-cousin marriages without restrictions and six states allow them with some restrictions. Still, only an estimated one in 5,000 American marriages is between first or second cousins.

The term for intermarriage is consanguinity and it’s much more common in other parts of the world. In southern Saudi Arabia, for example, the rate of marriage among blood relatives is as high as 70 percent.

Cousin is such a simple word. But understanding the many types of cousins is complex. Here’s a guide that even explains double cousins, who may not marry in North Carolina where first cousins are allowed to tie the knot.

Check out this informative site to learn more about Cousin Couples.

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died -- is available at Amazon.

Flickr photo courtesy of Trip Print Press.