Every family has them: stories of Great-Uncle Harold’s time in the trenches of WWI, Grampa’s side trip into bootlegging during Prohibition, Aunt Helen’s wanderlust that took her around the globe twice, Grandma’s ground-breaking work as the first female at Lockheed Aeronautics during WWII. These are the stories that may only get trotted out once a year or so, maybe at Christmas or the infrequent family reunion, but otherwise stay hidden away in shoeboxes at the back of closets or in the dimly-lit corners of an oldster’s mind.
And very often, the story and its teller are, eventually, lost for all time. Why? Because the stories don’t get written down.
There’s a Mandinka proverb that says every time an old person dies, it’s as if a library has burnt down. Continue reading “Family Stories: Leaving a Legacy of Words”
