Creating a Personal Legacy Story
By Debra Weller, Storyteller
@debstoryteller https://story-tellingcourses.com
As I was viewing family, photo scrapbooks, I realized how the photos brought back memories filled with emotions. Each photo helped me to recall the precious moments of raising my two children, family celebrations and vacations. The older black and white photos of my parents and other family members reflected time frames spanning 1880-1970. For every photo there was a story. I stopped making scrapbooks about fifteen years ago. I gave the children their own set of scrapbooks when they left home. In the hutch are at least two dozen photobooks which are neatly organized and labeled. All of these items contribute to a personal legacy story. Now, we have our lives digitally mapped on our phones or computers. We can watch the videos and view the photos at any time. Yet, there is more to creating a personal legacy story than just viewing photos.
My mother died when I was eighteen during my senior year of high school. Through my grief, I realized that I had very little written documentation of my mother’s life. I spent the summer before attending college writing stories about my mother and my childhood. I created a person legacy scrapbook and continued working on it for several years. To learn more about my mother, I interviewed her sisters, her parents, my father, her maid of honor and her friends. Through the interviews, I was able to write anecdotal stories about my mother. Now her collection of photos I found tossed in a box had a meaning and order as I pieced the story together. This took several years. I had the luxury of time to work on that project, but when I got married and had children, the progress slowed. Like all of you, our lives get busy and our attention deflected.
To help you get started on creating a personal legacy story, it is important to deny the tendency of negative self-talk. Here are some phrases which can prevent you from making progress: “I don’t know what to write about.” , “I am not a good writer.”, “I don’t have time.” Do not feel intimidated. Get a notebook to jot down ideas or make a folder on your phone, tablet or computer in the notetaking app. Decide what time fame of your life you will begin with, early childhood, middle childhood, teen years, early adult years or present times. A photograph can be just the prompt you need to get started. Just tell what happened in your own words. Record the story on your phone or make a video on the phone. Get other family members involved and encourage your children, parents and siblings to document their personal legacy stories. Here are some category prompts:
Remember When?
Your memories can be in these categories
| ancestry | childhood | homes | food | health |
| clothing | recreation | religion | transportation | schools |
| holidays | birthdays | vacations | friends | weddings |
Pick just one category to start with. For example start with your childhood. Gather childhood photos. These questions can assist you in discovering the story behind the photos. Each of these prompts could be the start of a separate story. Remember the story needs to have a beginning middle and end, sensory details and dialog to make it interesting. There is no correct length of the story a paragraph is a good start. Once the story is formulated, practice telling the story and then share it with a loved one.
- Who were your grandparents?
- How did your parents meet?
- What jobs did your parents have?
- Where were you born? Where else did you live?
- Were you the oldest, youngest in your family?
- How many brothers or sisters did you have?
- How did your family celebrate holidays or birthdays?
- What were your schools like?
- What toys did you play with?
- Where did your family travel on vacations?
- What hobbies or talents did you develop?
For more story prompts and questions, visit www.storycorps.org. On that web site you can also get directions on how to involve your whole family in creating personal legacy stories. Involve your children in the process. Help them to write in journals or create digital memory books so they can begin their own legacy stories. At multigenerational family events set aside time to pair with another family member and ask about their personal history stories. Record those stories for posterity.
Children can play a game called “Name that Ancestor.” Make a deck of family photos and children take turns identifying the ancestor and tell a few facts. Teach the children to interview family members in person or virtually. Help them to write up the stories. Have a family storytelling night where you gather to tell memory stories. At dinner ask a memory, prompting question to encourage family storytelling. Try using dialog and expression when telling the stories. Family history stories are a powerful way to bind your family together. It will become a legacy for future generations.
How can technology be used to make the storytelling easier? I use an app memorykpr, or www.memorykpr.com website to upload or scan my photos and then I can write short sentences or make an audio recording. This has made the process so much easier. When I am done with the chapter, it is ready to share with family or I can invite family members to add their memories too. Digital tools can be a great way to preserve and share the personal legacy stories. I use Family Search www.familysearch.org or www.ancestry.com to formalize my genealogy records. On those sites, I can also upload photos, documents and make audio recordings. For my grandchildren I make photo books about our visits, so they have tangible evidence of our times together
We are all storytellers as we recant the daily events of our lives. We can translate the memories by adding rich, sensory details infused with emotion. We weave these personal legacy stories to share private moments of our lives, our fantasies and dreams. When we tell the stories, we find courage to intimately connect with our families. Clarissa Pinkola Estes states it beautifully in her book, The Gift of Story (993, Ballantine Books):
“Though none of us will live forever, the stories can. As long as one soul remains who can tell the story and that by recounting the tale, the greater forces of love, mercy, generosity and strength are continuously called into being in the world, I promise you… it will be enough.”
Debra Weller is a member of the board of directors of the Florida Storytelling Association and a longtime member of the Tale Tellers of St. Augustine. A professional storyteller, child educational consultant, and teacher of the art of storytelling, Debra recently was invited to share stories at the Marrakech International Storytelling Festival Feb.12-19.
Fellow story tellers, please contribute to this blog. How did you get started as a storyteller? Can you share one of your favorite stories? Do you have any stories about your adventures in storytelling? Please submit your stories or ideas to Walt Belcher at wbelcher47@yahoo. com. This blog space belongs to you.
Thank you Walt for featuring this article on the FSA blog. I help people to create stories and tell the stories.
Thanks for this article. I feel inspired to remember my family, my childhood, my children when they were young…so many people and so many things that happened. The article gave tools to use to gather those stories. Really helpful.
I am glad it inspired you.
I told stories mostly for my job as a librarian. The stories I know come from books. I have not done much personal storytelling, but now that I am retired I am interested in doing more.