Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Holidays and Family Stories

This good looking group of people are some of my relatives in Pennsylvania and are just a little older than when I took this photo. We'll be seeing them over the holidays and I'm gearing up to elicit some good family stories with the intent of archiving them and passing them on. They have some great stories from Depression times, aspirations, and the usual and unusual brother and sister adventures. Usually the best storytelling hearing or performance is at an event where they're all together. Thankfully, I've got some help this time such as books on eliciting family stories and a small unobtrusive digital voice recorder. In any event I'm looking forward to hearing these family stories again, and maybe unearthing some new ones.
Here is one resource from Dr Karl Franklin on storytelling, including a section on eliciting family stories.
I posted this over 10 years ago, and this group have all passed away, my mother being the last. In her 90s she spent much of her day reminiscing her life and especially her childhood, which I was told is the usual. So, there were stories of her life I had never heard in my childhood.