Grandma's Little Black Book

An African proverb warns that, "When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground."

As family historians, we work furiously to capture our family's stories to mitigate this irrevocable loss. We seek out ways to record our family's lives for posterity.

One of the best ways to do that is through a recorded interview. There's nothing more compelling and dynamic than listening to someone tell you their story in their own words and hearing or seeing them share their past.

I was able to do that with my maternal grandmother. Our telephone interviews were recorded and, following her passing, made into a video with photographs of her life story. They're a fantastic treasure that provide insights into her life experiences including her reminiscences about my ancestors who I never met or knew - several of whom were born in the later 19th century.

But interviews don't work well for everyone.

My paternal grandmother was not a talker and she was definitely not someone who enjoyed reflecting on the past or walking down memory lane.

I remember trying to conduct a phone interview with her and eliciting a series of short answers like, "I don't know" or "I don't remember." Those were among the more wordy responses that were sandwiched between dozens of "yes" and "no" replies. It was like pulling teeth to get anything substantive from her.

Undaunted, I wasn't giving up and decided I would take a different approach to capturing her life's story.

Journaling to capture family history

I bought a small black faux leather-covered journal and mailed it to my grandmother. I wrote an inscription inside encouraging her to write her autobiography.

Would she take the bait?

I was unsure, but it certainly seemed like it was worth a shot after our unsuccessful interview.

During subsequent phone calls, I would often bring up the journal and encourage her to jot down memories and stories. I was hopeful that my persistence and nagging reminders would prompt her to put pen to paper.

But I was never sure if she did, and, eventually, even I forgot about the journal.

It wasn't until four years later, after she had passed away and her children cleaned out her home, that the journal came back to my attention. My father found it tucked away among her possessions. Reading my inscription, it was set aside for me to have.

To my great surprise - and delight that the idea had worked - I discovered that she had written five-and-a-half pages in cursive recalling her early childhood. Sure, fewer than six pages sounds like nothing, but for my tight-lipped granny it was a loquacious gift.

She began with her mother's death just one week after her birth and then her adoption by her maternal grandparents. They raised her on their Colorado farm. Although a woman of few spoken words, she took care to write of her youth so that you could picture her experiences.

For example, remembering one of the farm houses in which they lived, she wrote that it "was a 2 story place with the bathroom outside. A coal stove in the kitchen which did not keep the upstairs warm. You went to bed with a hot water bottle at your feet and a lot of covers to keep warm in the winter."

Many of the details she wrote revealed her guarded perspective on her young farm life, of which I was wholly unaware.

The tactic of mailing a journal afforded her privacy to think about her memories and share - on her own time frame - the history that she was comfortable sharing and in a way that worked for her.

Family historians are nothing if not industrious, determined, and unrelenting. We'll get our work done, one way or another.

Have you had similar success encouraging your family to capture their lives through journaling? What other approaches have helped you record your family's history for posterity?