It’s Father’s Day next week. What a perfect time to sit down and ask your dad….what? What are the things that you would need or would want to know if he wasn’t around? Do you know why he lives where he does? Do you know how he met your mother? Do you know what he was called when he was a kid?
There are so many different guides that give you questions to ask in an interview. But one of the best is from StoryCorps, the NPR sponsored radio show that records people talking about their lives. You can download their list of great interview questions from their website.
Dad & his two girls
Take your dad to a quiet room, set up a camera or a tape recorder and start. It doesn’t even need to be all about him. My favorite question is what is your favorite memory of me? My dad told me many times about his favorite memory of me when I was 3 years old. We were in a hotel room in Florida and I was feeling sick. He was sitting with me trying to feed me chicken noodle soup. I looked at him and said “Hello cuckoo-face.” A fairly average moment, but he loved it. And he savored it enough to tell me about it years later.
“Madam, I am directed to inform you that the decision to remove your son
from the Indian Civil Service was reached by the Secretary of State for
India after careful consideration of the results of an inquery into his
conduct and the decision must be regarded as final. Owing to your son’s
health it has not yet been possible to notify him personally but this will
be done as soon as his mental condition has sufficiently improved to render
it practicable to communicate with him.”
A year later a letter from the Medical Superintendent of an English mental
institution concluded, “I am afraid I cannot agree that your son has
improved so much that he is fit to be outside. He still has many peculiar
ideas and is very irrational in his conduct…he has quite recently made
unprovoked attacks on other inoffensive patients. He resents control and I
am sure he is quite unfit to be in a private house.”
Hidden within plain sight in a carved wooden box on my mother’s bureau
these letters introduced me to an uncle I never knew existed. I wish my
mother could have have answered the many questions these letters triggered
but her fragile mind had locked secrets away long ago and she was never
able to retrieve them.
Have you ever asked the relatives or friends you grew up with if you could take a look at their home videos and photos?
Over the past few years, I have created several tribute videos for aunts and uncles. In order to accomplish this, I had to get photos and video from my cousins. While combing hours of their family’s home movies, I ran across this hilarious clip of my mom and dad hamming it up in Halloween costumes. I had never seen it and neither had any of my siblings. Throughout this mile of footage, I found all sorts of precious history as the years of birthdays, Christmases and summer vacations played out in front of me. And I learned a lot about my cousins and their family watching them grow up again on my screen.
When searching for your history, don’t forget that there are treasures hiding. And not just in the shoeboxes under your bed.
I have been boring friends and family for several years with unsolicited advice re: “record your parents”, “go see your great-aunt and here, take some questions to ask her”, “this is a momentous day for you; maybe you should write something about it for your grandkids”. To which the response has been ‘uh huh’, ‘okay’ (translation: uh huh), ‘good idea’ (translation: okay, uh huh), and ‘I’ll get right on that’ (translation: leave me the **** alone).
So I was delighted when my friend D stopped by the house two days before she went to see her elderly parents. “I want to interview my parents.” After being revived from my faint, I lent her my old Hi-8 camera and the book “Listening is An Act of Love” published by StoryCorps that contains, in the back, three pages of questions that will get even a reluctant mother talking.
Upon her return, I got this email, “I got my mother and father to sit for THREE interview periods. I hope to heck it recorded and it had light and sound, I haven’t played it back yet. My mother said she would be quite upset if it didn’t work because she wasn’t about to repeat it again! My dad turned out to be quite a talker, go figure!”
We’ve got an edit date next week to look at the tape and duplicate it for her sister and nephew. I am so excited that, at least for one friend, I no longer have to repeat myself.
Beg or borrow a camera and get out there! Check out StoryCorps for suggestions.
Do you long to tell your story? Do you have a story that you would like to tell? Make this moment your ‘aha’ moment. Write your story, tell your story, leave your story for your family and friends.
I’d never seen a census form until last year. They are a snapshot of a household and they hold a tremendous amount of information about your history. These forms record names and relationships in the household, ages, occupations, education levels and veteran status. There is place of birth for the person recorded as well as the place of birth for that person’s parents. The 1930 census even asks if there is a radio in the home.
Rinne household in 1930
This is the form from 1930 which records a three-generation household consisting in part of my great-grandfather, my grandmother and grandfather and my mom and 2 aunts. My great-grandfather’s job is listed as ‘poultry man’ and my grandfather is recorded as a manager of a motor car company (a job that would soon end because of the depression).
Start the research on your own personal family history by logging on to Family Search and see what you might learn about your family in 1930.
