Focus 580; Preserving Family History

I think that it's fair to say that over the past few years I don't know that's exactly new but over the past few years there have been more and more people in the United States interested in exploring their family history learning more about the experiences of their parents and grandparents and great grandparents and how it is that that made them the people that they are today. And there are a lot of different ways that people have done that collecting memorabilia family heirlooms but also collecting stories. And we're talking this morning with two guests who are very interested in writing for children and spend a lot of time watching what happens in the world of children's literature and also have written books for children themselves. And they each of them the author of a book that uses some of their family history to tell a story that's not just about their family but it really goes beyond that. Our guests are Janice Harrington and Betsy Hearn. Janice Harrington is the children's services coordinator at the champagne public library and Betsy Harris professor of Library Science in The Graduate School of Library information science at the

U of I and between them they're also authors experience storytellers and also authors of two books. Betsy has written a book titled seven brave women which is in part about some of the women in her family her her forebears going back to her. How many greats does it start out with I don't even remember back to social greats back and Janice has written a new book that's titled Going north it is about experiences of her family moving from the south to the north in the nineteen sixties and it is fair is this a new book. Yes it came out in September just this September and it has really lovely illustrations I have to compliment you both and also the illustrator who took their pictures and I do want to mention the fact that Janice is going to be doing a book signing. To talk about the book and if you would like to meet her and buy a copy of the book and I have a signed copy this will be happening at pages for all ages bookstore on Sunday November 14th at 3 o'clock in the afternoon so you can do that of course any time you can stop by the library and say hi.

Definitely if you want to hear that. Well thank you both very much for being here. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Maybe you will have better start out and sort of set the set the agenda for what it is we're talking about and I hope that I've kind of got kind of got the idea of what it is we want to talk you pretty much said it all Dave maybe we should close no no no no no we have we have another 40 50 minutes. So you have to stay. Well family stories do tell us who we are and they not only tell us who we are but they create community across families in a sense. Janice once mentioned that all literature is a kind of family story. But if you go back to your own families you'll probably remember people telling stories about the trickster in the family or the hero and those stories really shape us that we hear around the Thanksgiving dinner table or whatever I remember. I was a history major and way back then about the only two women

in history that I studied of Western civilization were Elizabeth the great and Catherine the Great. And it was for a long time that I discovered the women who made history had a pretty low profile. But my mother had spent years telling me about the heroes in our family. You know my great great grandmother who sliced her hand open with a knife when she was chopping vegetables and she took a dish cloth. You stopped the bleeding went got a needle and thread and put it in boiling water and sewed up her left hand with her right hand. We didn't we didn't read about that in history of Western civilization. It took me actually until I taught a course and in folklore and I was telling students you know we all have family stories. They were looking at me like I don't have any family stories. So I started telling some of those stories in my family and I realized that my mother was telling me that women were heroes ordinary women

who migrated to this immigrated to this country or migrated to this country raise children you know never you know never never led a charge or a military army or never became president. But but they were. Every day euros and I think as I look back on my life it told me that I could be a hero to an everyday way. That's what I mean by the stories shape us and make us who we are and I know a number of those stories that my mother told me came into seven brave women and Janice has a kind of similar background of her stories and her family shaping her. I think I came to realize how important these stories were because I had to know they were important. It's just my grew up with my mother talking to me about how she learned to drive where I grew up with my mother's memories. And I never put a value on those and I never particularly you know a listen that was just something that went on It was the weather of our family my mother tongue talking

this way. And when I became a storyteller and it became a Vogue really there were storytellers who began to make their whole the whole shtick was their family experiences I began to think well I have those stories too. And to look at those and the interesting thing is we we keep saying family stories but really many times or fragments they're little fragments little memories and and that's what you look for that's what you ask more questions about. The stories shape us but I think also coming to realize that those stories as Betsy is just sad mean that we are all a part of a bigger story. And I I think the one thing I also want to make sure if I say nothing else today I always remember going to a workshop or something and somebody was saying that they were theorizing that the reason teenagers will try to commit suicide or fall into these deep depressions is because they somehow truly believe that they are the only ones

who have ever gone through a certain experience you know. I'm the only one whose girlfriend abandoned them I'm the only one who has you know this horrible acne problems the end of the world. But if they've heard stories if they've grown up in you know in a family of stories then they now oh I'm not the only one I'm going to live through this and that that's another power of these family stories too to give you the strength that you need the wisdom that you need. Just to break through that I'm aloneness. You know. I should emphasize that when we talk family we're talking loosely structured families are differently structured families. And now that I've read parts of seven brave women our story told that two groups of foster children and children who don't have immediate blood ties but the point is that a family is anyone who takes care of you and cares for you. And when a

number of teachers across the country have used seven brave women to have children look in their in their own lives I mean my my parents and grandparents and great great grandparents happened to be sort of from Switzerland moving out and into the into the West as as covered wagon pioneers. But but listen to some of the stories that children have written about their ancestors. This is from Rita Gomez. My great grandfather's name was Jose. He was born in Mexico in 1890. My great grandfather was born during a war and he survived it. He stayed in Mexico the whole time. By that time during the war they used to take teenagers to war. People didn't want their teens to go to war. They used to dig a hole in the ground and put them in there. My great grandfather was hidden in a hole and he was scared. My great grandfather was special because he was nice and sweet in that she talks about remembering his great grandfather and there were a lot there were stories of children who

whose parents and grandparents and great grandparents came from various parts of Central America. Here's one from Guatemala. My mom works cleaning the house of a lady every Saturday and how heroic that is they send money back to the family in Guatemala. And my favorite sentences my grandma's name is Mario Island. She did not do anything special but she managed to handle 11 children on her own. So these children really have a sense of the ordinary as as heroic. If they're given an exposure to the idea. I come back to the thought where you were talking about the fact that sometimes when you introduce this notion to your students they say well you know there's there's no big stories in my family and I think that that that says something about the fact that even if you do have good stories in your family that they may their importance may diminish with the number of times you have heard the story. And no matter how good a story that you may think oh no here it is. Yeah. Yes I've heard the story about you

know how you walk to school five miles uphill barefoot in the snow. I'm sorry that I'm trivializing that but I'm sure the kids really get to the point where you know if you heard it over and over again maybe the first couple times you thought well that was pretty cool and after I thought Yeah I've heard the story. And that partly what you need to do is get people back in touch with just how significant those stories are even if they have heard them a lot it's probably better if you're somebody else's story. You think oh my gosh that's an amazing story. And then that person would say off with your kid may have heard that story all my life and I felt it. I'm tired of that story so that you know you have to impress upon people that the uniqueness the specialness of stuff that they come to take for granted and maybe even are so tired of that they don't even want to hear the stories. Dave after my youngest teenager crossed the Rubicon into adulthood she wants said to me you know mom. I didn't hear a word you tell me after I was 12 years old. But I heard everything you tell me before I was 12.

Well again repeating those stories because they come back they come back they stay in their subconscious and and repetition is what folklore is all about. You know you you hear the Three Little Pigs 15 times and you pass it on to your children and your grandchildren. There's something in those stories that's about survival and that's why we remember them and that's why we pass them on. I think you bring up something though which is I'm not sure that people are listening even in families that that's having time to listen having the space to listen are having that. That skill that ability to quiet yourself enough to tune into another human being. And I work with kids who don't yet have that that skill that ability to listen and that's why I find storytelling to be so important. And so when I am trying to work with kids and help them go out and find their own family stories or their family experiences a big part of that is

teaching them how to listen. How if you want to stop a story you know. Did you question it or you turn away. Or you you know go to him yourself into the Internet and what I try to do and Betsy works with with stories. But what I try to do with the work my with the kids is with poetry and what I like is that you can play a lot with language you can have a lot of fun it's very excessive will. So a child can create a poem and have to create something right away with these family stories in these family. Remembrances and so a book that I might work with could be seven brave women or Also when I was young in the mountains by Cynthia Reiland. She has a wonderful hook that she loses all the way through her stories where she'll say when I was young in the mountains and she give some memory. And so what I've done with kids is give them some sort of hook it might be when we lived on Twenty eighth street or Alabama mornings whatever the hope will be and have them just go back and remember the things that they can recall and hook that to that. The little bridge we've created for

them. And once they have that experience they've made something successful. Then they want to go back to their own families and ask more questions and listen but I think the key is listening. Let me just in real quickly reintroduce our two guests for anybody who might have tuned in here last question you heard Janice Harrington she is the children's services coordinator at the champagne public library. Betsy Hearn is professor of library science at the in the graduate school library of information a science both of them very much interested in literature for children and have each authored books that are based on family stories from their own families. And Betsy says seven brave women and then the book that Janice has written is titled going north. Would you read something from going north Jones. Sure. Basically this book is sort of a composite of all of the trips that my family took from the south heading north. Really on the the cusp of the civil rights movement in the resegregation and the turmoil in the country at that time. And Big Momma's

House everyone sits around the supper table talking about life up north. Everyone talks and talks about how much better the north is how Daddy can find a good job there and how I can go to a better school. But isn't it good here. Can't we just stay. I don't want to go. I want to stay in Big Momma's kitchen helping her churn the butter up down up down to womp womp swapping stories and watching Big Mama knife scrape a sweet potato dragging its blade across Orange pulp and sharing a sweet treat. I don't want to go I tell Big Mama but going north day hurries to our door like it's tired of our slow poky ways. Everybody comes to say goodbye uncles aunts cousins to Brother baby sister and me picked up put down passed around and tickled twirled all over the place. Everyone says good but I will miss you. I slipped off my shoes and pushed my feet into the rusty sand. I wish my toes were roots.

I grow into a pin oak and never go away with they let me stay. If I were a tree car loaded everything packed. Good bye I said. We're almost ready. We're going north. Good bye Big Mama. Good bye papa. We're going north leaving Alabama far behind. Basically the story is this girl who doesn't want to go to north because of what she's leaving behind this this family that that she loves very much her grandmother these experiences and when she sees her parents encountering the repercussions of segregation that existed then she. She realizes what this what this trip means and what it means for her family. And so the story ends with the words Be brave be brave we're all pioneers which actually is the most important part of the story to me because where they're heading is Lincoln Nebraska. And if anybody is from Nebraska you know

that there is a state that is rich and steeped in the stories and of the pioneers pioneers the great mythology behind it. And so you grew up learning about pioneers in school but you don't necessarily connect to those stories. But when I began to think about what my parents had gone through the sacrifices they made I'd realize wait a minute the Pioneer is not just the person who comes across in steerage and goes across the west with a handcart a pioneer is also you know the many African American families that headed from the south to north or the Latino families or the families from from all the different cultures and and and countries that we have that are coming to the United States. So this this little girl who tells a story this is you. Yeah. And Big Mama is your grandmother. Yes. What's it like for you to sit down and open the pages of this book and to to see your life there. I'm not I'm not used to it yet so it pages that I was minding my

own business. And I I look up at this table there's my book and I literally jumped back three feet. They sort of sculpt out of the store. Like really terrible but I think I think the best thing was I wrote this book from my mother and I had the opportunity to read it to her and I was reading it to her and she now her eyes never left the text she never paid Natick attention to the lovely illustrations that Mr. Laverick did she followed the my finger moving across the tacks and then there was this quiet quiet voice about Page 3 that said that's wonderful. And so what was meaningful for me was having been brought up with this great storyteller who gave me you know not the gingerbread man or Three Billy Goats Gruff but who like I said how she learned to drive or how she met my dad or the time she almost burned her from her father's farm down here let her live.

You know those stories accounted for how I became a storyteller and I think that's that's another value family storytelling is that you. You teach children that these narratives have value that they have value their own story has value. They're part of a much larger one. And that's how you make writers and dreamers and poets and just good people I think. Well it is a it is a lovely story and it's B and and the illustrations are beautiful. You know they're really really angry at you. So I don't want to take anything away from from the text of the story itself but because I really I would like people to go out and look at it so they could see just how it already illustrated a great job. I sort of cut in on little Betsy did you what you were getting ready to say something. Well I just Janice's story of presenting this to her mother is so moving and I have to say that my own mother shaped my stories as well she was always telling stories. I grew up.

During World War 2 and then the Korean War and then the Vietnam war I mean there's always it was always a war when I was young and my father would listen to the war on the radio I mean nobody was allowed to say anything during the time he was listening to the war. And my mother was a real pacifist you know my father's heroes were the soldiers and my mother's heroes were the women who kept things going at home. And so Janice talked about a cook and my hook was to open this book with a list of the wars in the old days history books marked time by the wars that men fought. United States began with the revolutionary war then there was the War of 1812 and then I go through these wars. But then for each war I take a great grandmother and great great grandmother who did things during these wars and my hook is Elizabeth lived my great great grandmother did great things Elizabeth lived during the Revolutionary War but she did not fight in it. She crossed the mountains from Switzerland and then she crossed the sea to Philadelphia in a wooden sail

boat her one year old child and her two year old child came with her on the boat. She was pregnant with her third baby. The food was bad it was hard to sleep with all the babies crying. There were no bathrooms but there were huge waves that rocked the boat back and forth back and forth. Elizabeth was sick all the time. Sometimes she thought she would die but she survived and had seven more children. And then I talk about Memento we have from her a prayer handkerchief that she use my great great grandmother did great things Eliza lived during the War of 1812 and the Civil War but she did not fight in them. Instead she moved to Ohio in a covered wagon. Her parents spoke German but she learned English. Her parents were Mennonites but she married a man who was not a Mennonite. She worked on a farm all her life even when she was tired or mad or lonely she had to work. She kept a herd of sheep and made blankets from their wool. We still have her spinning wheel and talks about how

she delivered the neighbor's babies and became the local midwife. Another great grandmother lived during war one but she did not fight in it. My great grandmother was brave enough to go to medical school when it was hard for women to become doctors and she goes off and starts a women's clinic in India. My grandmother did great things but he lived during war war too but she did not fight in it. She decided to be an architect when she walked into her first class the man met her with a sign that said no dogs children or women allowed. So with each of those there's another grandmother who lives in the Korean War and her husband dies when her two children are young and although she hasn't graduated from high school she goes and gets a job as a secretary and when the children are grown she takes in the strike cats and dogs off the street and takes care of them. So for each of these women their lot in life is not easy

but each of them does what she needs to do and also creates great beauty in her life as well as taking care of the survival family in her system. This like Janice This is narrated by a child who I projected to be one of my own daughters a sort of collage of both my daughters and that the title that book is seven brave women. Right. And going north is of timelessness a book of questions comments whatever people want to get involved in conversation 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 2 2 2 1 4 5 5. The thing that strikes me is that it may it may these days be kind of hard to create a space for this kind of storytelling to take place just because there is there are so many things that compete for attention. There's an awful lot of noise off a lot of noise in our lives. And. For that reason it might be difficult to to make it possible for these stories to be told or to to to as you say to sort of quiet things down to the point where where you can

hear them it is hard. It's interesting. I had a grandmother who died recently and I heard stories told of her life at the funeral that I had not heard before. And I had even tried to pull the stories out of her and I guess the lesson is you can't go home and sort of put a metaphorical microphone in front of their face go tell me a story. You know you just always have to be listening. Sometimes when you're going to that photograph album if you just ask another little extra question about what's going on there you know when do you guys live on that street what was that like. It's listening. It's asking the questions it's waiting patiently for when that when that fragment comes up and pursuing it. The other thing is that there are all these little corners of time and instead of fuming a parent can use the time they're stuck in traffic with the entire playgroup in their car or can use you know the time when the lights go out or

even just take some time at bedtime and instead of reading five books read four books and tell a story there's so many ways to work these stories in. If we become aware of the value of them and really children especially when they're little want to hear about it tell us about when you were little and that's the time to do it. I mean you don't wait until you think you know they're there so they're big enough and smart enough to hear it start way back in the beginning. Absolutely. And don't stop. It doesn't matter if they have heard it two times I think that that's how it it slips in past your mind against your heart the fact that you've heard it several times and I think then the question becomes why are they telling you that story. There's some reason there's something there and if you really stop and examine that you know why what's so significant about the story of how they learned to drive. Are they for the first time you maybe take charge of their own life or take a risk you know that that

cannot. These stories not only shape who we are as people but they also tell you who this person is who's who's talking to you. Well they do these things also if if one me the child or anybody has a have a drive to tell stories themselves or to try to record stories. Here's deer's natural material. You know they say write what you know. Right. That's not a bad place to start. Are there ways do you think you can encourage children to not only be interested in these kind of stories try to illicit them try to collect them but also try to preserve them which is really what the both of you have done with with going north and seven brave women. You know it's really important to start where the child is. And you don't need to wait until the child is literate and can read and write write fluently you can have them draw a story that you've tell them or you can have them tell you sometimes for a child their family stories about Pat and then they can

illustrate that and you can write it down for them. There's there's so many ways that you can start very young with this and go all the way up through teenagers. Teenagers love to make fun of their parents. So you know start there with the stories. But they can literally they can have a family story slam and they can use slam in every sense. But I know Janice has done a lot of this work too. Well I think one of the moving programs that we had at the library was what we had Betsy come in and read seven brave women and then we asked the people in the audience to bring some family heirloom and and talk about it or some something that reminded them of their own mother to talk about the object that they brought and it was just it was just an evening that brought tears to your eyes because of the stories that people had to tell around these objects. But I think if you want to. If the question is how do we encourage children to become family storytellers. I think I'm listen like a broken record but they've got to have something they have to teach

in the lesson or or or they won't. There simply won't be any stories. The reason one of the little microscopic things that led to me becoming a writer was that when I was young I discovered my dad. Scrapbook of his life it started almost started like Charles Dickens sort of. This is the this. I forget exactly how it started but finding that made me start my own because I wanted something like he had. So I think if you are a model for your child if you are telling these stories and you are a good listener and you're listening to stories but more importantly if you listen to your child the thing that really made me a writer because that's a question I'm getting a lot now is that my Big Mama my grandmother would stand in the kitchen every morning and listen to whatever I had to say to her even if it was an outright lie. She she listened. And if you have someone who listens to you then you will believe that what you have to say is important and that who you are is important. And you also learned the importance that a listening as well so

I think if you if you talk about the noise of littering littering your house with books if you've got kids at the corollary is also littering it with all kinds of story and talk and dialogue and laughter and you know all of those memories all of those things will lead to that sort of storytelling so I think it's not something it's going to happen you know you can go home tonight and your child's family storyteller. It's a process as a lifelong way that you relate to each other as a family. We really need to we really need to make room for quiet in our lives to make some space. And there were forget one time my mother was telling me the story and she said you know when your great grand father died your great grandmother stayed up on the night in her rocking chair by the body in the kitchen which is where they used to lay out the bodies on the tables and relatives would be around and. And my mother was there and my and and and

this all woman got up out of her rocking chair and she went over to her husband and she felt his body from the top of his head to the bottom of his toes and then back up to his stomach and she felt around there for a long time and then she nodded her head and she went back to her rocking chair. And what that story was all about was my great grandmother was a healer and she did all these herbal cures and she was a midwife. And she just had to know what killed my great grandfather. It was cancer. And she found she found it finally and and then she sat back down and she was satisfied and I think my mother was telling me is that. That this woman had a passion for knowledge and that even in the face of death of losing someone she'd been married to for almost 50 years. She had to find out she had to know something. And you know a story like that if she hadn't taken the time to tell me and I hadn't had the time to listen to her

there would have been a great. Who would have been a great hole in my life about the importance of the thirst for knowledge. We have some people who are listening would like to talk with us let's do that. The first callers in Danville our line for toll free line hello. Good morning and I've been listening to Debbie a little over the years when books are mentioned I often jot down the titles on scraps of paper and in about two months ago I gathered some of these and went down to the local library and had a list of them and among them was seven brave women. And so all of that's in the children's section. And so I thought well you know I really don't want that but she brought it over anyway so I took it home and read it and was so impressed with it that I took it down to Z before I returned it to the library took it to the school of the grade school

which I volunteer and showed it to the librarian. And when I came back at noon from the quiet one said Well what do you think of it and he said all I've already ordered. This made my day. Oh I certainly look forward to getting going north and Mike thank you. It is the children in the Danville school systems on the accelerated reader program is that also true in Champaign. Yes it is. Well some of the schools. Oh ok well and are either of these books on that list. I don't know I think mine is a month a little bit older than Jim just came out and about 5 years ago. I think most of my books are on it somebody very handily handed me a list of all the great novels for my books. I make celebrated reading program but Genesis Genesis will be on there soon.

Well what are we. I'm sorry to interrupt you but these are read aloud books also so most children won't be reading them for themselves. That's true what most of my time at the school is in listening to the children read their stories and ask them some pertinent questions. About what they have just read so that when they take the quiz they can usually get 100 percent Frank. Good for you and that of course this school. I work almost exclusively with third grade children and the school only goes to the grade. And what do you know what seven brave women is considered At what grade level. Well it's probably about third grade but again you can read it aloud to much younger children and any anywhere from a third grader could read it and it's been used with fourth and fifth graders to stimulate their own you know family folk.

Absolutely and to encourage them to go to their own family older members and elicit stories because my mother died when I was a teenager and I realize I did not know many of the stories that she would have had to tell about her growing up and in later years when my father remarried. I know it's a shame I know much more about my stepmother's early. While the good that I know about both of the things that we miss after we've failed to take advantage of the opportunity I think that that's sometimes a sad story that a lot of families tell we spend so much time thinking about who are going to leave the antique soup tureen or who's going to get the the silverware which ends up on e-bay. And we don't realize that these stories are the are the most precious object that you know the furniture the clothing the silver those things can burn or be melted or be sold or be just destroyed. But those

stories are what's going to be timeless so your point is well taken that the comparatively larger. I did read a book years and years ago. Actually I bought it from my step mother because her sister had her and her husband had homesteaded in Montana back in the late eighteen hundreds. And this was a an unusual event in which a boy was only about 10 or 11 years old and his father had been in the newspaper business in New York City but had bought this small town paper in Montana and this young boy actually interviewed him self Calamity Jane and many of the old time and he told me stories in a book and I don't remember the name of the book but it sure impressed me. What 10 year old boy was going to do. Well I've taken up.

Much of your time but I certainly appreciate thanks for calling or is that you have still very good will things we are into about our last 15 minutes on the program let me get introduce our guests and I want to. We had someone who said Would you please mention the titles and authors of the book again and that we've been talking about and I will do that. Our guests this morning Janice Harrington and Betsy Hearn. Janice Harrington is the children's services coordinator at the champagne public library and her book is titled Going north which is about her experiences growing up in the south and then coming north with her family in the 1960s. She'll be doing a book signing. So if you'd like to meet her say hi get a copy of the book what have you should be doing a book signing at pages for all ages bookstore on Sunday November 14th at starting at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. And as I said back to begin the program any time you want to stop by champagne Public Library say hi. Of course you could do that as well. Betsy Hearn. Professor of Library Science in The Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of

Illinois her book one of among her books is a seven brave women going north as Brandy or seven a brave woman has been out for a while but certainly should be able to find it. If you want over to say I don't know pages for all ages I'm sure you could also find a copy of seven brave women and both of them are very interested in children's literature and have been following that for a long time. And Betsy has written books about that she's interested in fairy tales. She has a book that is kind of intended to to recommend titles to teachers but also to parents if they're interested in finding books for children. And it has I guess in the past in us perhaps not so much anymore but you were involved with this the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books which is also based here at the U of I and that's a publication that's primarily for teachers and librarians but it could be consulted by anybody who is interested in what's new in the where in the world of children's books because there are always reviews of new titles and and so forth things like that which in its online by the way

if you're if you want to check it out that way. Speaking of. Betsy I did a workshop on called The Family mirror for librarians and teachers and the book lists what we recommend. Books that are useful for if you're working with kids and looking for how to research family stories. If you go to WW dot Champaign dot org there that list is they are under family. OK let's talk with some of the people here. Let's go to champagne. Line number one. Hello hello. Yes I have had the pleasure of seeing going north. It's a wonderful book and I'll be looking for the book as well since Halloween is coming up. I began to think about a custom which is still observed in some parts of rural Mexico that I think is kind of wonderful. On the day of the Dead which of course is how will we be as a family take a picnic of the favorite foods of the great grandmothers and great grandmothers and

grandfathers and so on who have passed away to the cemetery. And they also take a bottle of wine if they can afford champagne and they sit around a grave. Usually it's a family plot or maybe if they're wealthy enough a family mausoleum and they tell the family tell a story about the people who have passed away so that the children are. Hearing those family tales. And that children tend to look forward to it because it's something that happens every year almost like Christmas or like our manner of deliberation of Halloween but it is their way of repeating and of fastening into the children's memories those family stories that are otherwise as Janet said a few minutes ago can get lost while we worry about this new terrains and that's so maybe that the custom then we

should start for our Helloween to go and visit the folks who have passed away and take a picnic as their favorite food in hand. Some think I was somewhere and then tell stories about them. That's a great idea and in my husband's family on the anniversary of the of the death of his mother for example they always light a candle in memory and and you know you could accompany that with a story about that person to write in another way so maybe start your own family traditions are not good but I like that. I like that idea of going to the graveyard and doing that. And don't forget Thanksgiving Thanksgiving is a time when everybody's getting together around the table and a little to full to to do this that or the other. You know I know there's a football game. But on the other hand Time is precious and the stories are passing away. So take a little bit of time after dinner and tell some of those do you know tell that story about that time. Been tried to jump out of the loft and

broke his leg. Whatever happened in your family. Just even if it's one or two stories take the five or ten minutes it takes to do that and then do it again in the next holiday in the next holiday. Great I dig out of. Family thank you so much wonderful program. Well thank you. Let's talk again with another caller in this person is in her battle line too low. You just gave me some ideas for a calendar that I do every year now for a family and I'm becoming a family you know interest and give me all the programs I have. Family Tree Maker and it will create a calendar of birthdays if you tell it what people in your database that you created you want to include and I always include the direct ancestors and the living close relatives. And it fills and how will they will be on the date for that year. So you're making a calendar for so I've got somebody who's going to be three hundred sixty five years later. And every year for the artwork I tell something that I've learned

about interesting person and forgot a photo I include that I could do it for you know closer in full and tell with that interest that you're talking about. So you've given me a whole slew of ideas for future years. You might be interested there's this magazine I think it's called Legacy but don't quote me you may have to call me at the library to give you the right time with its legacy and all it is it shows you how to take your family stories or memorabilia or history and how you can make it into different art objects or something which is sort of a tangent to what you're talking about but. That I can do. Well you know there's another thing is that we can use this electronic medium to our own ends a lot of people are starting to put up family story websites and that way people who are scattered family members who are scattered all over the countryside can tune in and tell a story and I know in storytelling I've had a number of students who have created websites for their parents you know for 30th anniversary or whatever. Everybody across the country since in a story

and I can you know put in pictures so the electronic revolution while sometimes crowds are time and space can also be used for family stories that also would you know would help. Area there is an author Emily chrome S.R.O am and she's got a couple of things that I'm beginning to notice one of which is the puzzling your past work book. It's got forms for people trying to do their research but also has a set of questions who ask people in the family and you've got them grouped by era So for instance there's one for the depression to the 1930s with some questions that would might approach it might even fill out the form with the person but you they might also provoke other memories and stories one to get somebody going. And there's another book that I've found that if somebody wanted to go farther back

and discovering your female ancestors it's Sharon CarMax C A R M A C K and it's special strategies for uncovering hard to find information about. Your family your female line and doing research on what life would have been like for your particular women and says If you can't find details and we've got a great resource hearing in Champaign-Urbana in the Urbana Free Library are kind of they have computer access to census images databases and all kinds of things and great staff to help you figure out where to go looking for answers to questions. And I'm amazed that with some of the skills that I've learned in doing this. Some of the things I've been able to find not always online but for instance my mother had said that my grandfather her father had been sent off from home at the age of 15 to work in a bicycle factory been sent

from rural New York down to Connecticut. And so I thought well I wonder if I can find proof of this. And I found in the address of a library in the area where he thought he was. And I said would you look in your city directory. It's unfair if you can find the name of the city directories and they look for me and I didn't they simply put it back so now I know where he worked and I have backup so I bet they they're part of a beginning of a story to tell my grandkids I didn't have the details before and I thought I wouldn't have had to have the details. But sometimes asking around asking librarians for how I what I find more information about this story so I can flesh it out to you may you may find that there are resources out there for you. So thanks things you no doubt don't forget the sort of common questions that get people rolling to like what grandma what was the most embarrassing thing that ever happened.

And also not just stories but there's a lot of little family ephemera that we probably don't pay attention to the sayings you know my mother was always fond of telling me I don't know why but a soft a soft hard head makes a soft behind a bragging dog carries a dirty tale. My grandmother would say when children are at home they're on your mind. But when they're away from home there on your heart and those things too are things to hold onto and that teach us about one another. What does that mean as a hard head make a soft behind she tended to say it when I had really messed up in a major way. She's going to pat you when you're being when you're being really stubborn Yeah. If you if you if you're being stubborn about something you'll sort of pay for it in the end is OK. Word coming down here the point we have a couple minutes left on our server. There are some some final sort of thoughts that you would like to leave people before we go. Well one thing is that we need to treasure our elderly in ways that we often don't and what they have to give us is stories and we need to take the time

to listen to them because often we don't realize how important the stories are until they die. And then it's too late. So of course the elderly but also you know are middle aged in our children. All the stories are precious So we need to listen and we need to tell. I guess I would say that stories are sacred ground and I would caution everybody that they are also dangerous. We tell each other stories in our families and sometimes when there is not communication there are stories and there is that person who becomes the family black sheep and the story lives that. Be careful what we're saying because those stories take on a life of their own. So I don't want to sort of turn people loose and think that you know all is necessarily going to be happiness and it might be respectful. A story is power. Absolutely. OK well I want to thank you both very much for coming by and giving some of your time. Thank you certainly appreciate it. It was fun in the books again that we've talked about. Betsy's

is titled seven brave women and that is published by green willow. Has the publisher and then Genesis book and my mother watch everybody in the state of the United States the United States to buy a gun. Well that should go into some pretty impressive sales. The title of her book and it's just out is titled Going north and the publisher is what for are is that Farrar Straus FSG it says on the spot right now and it has just recently come out and both of the books I'm sure would be available at a bookstore near you and if you would be interested in getting a signed copy of going north by Janice Harrington just meeting her when mentioned one more time that she will be doing this book signing at pages for all ages bookstore on Sunday November 14th three o'clock in the afternoon. So you should stop by and maybe sometime you might want to go over there and see what they have in their children's book section. If they have they have a really nice collection of children's books I mean or you could stop by the library. What do you got. Concept like the library level here like

bookstores they have it's all good. You can have as many as you want as long as you bring them back. And certainly if you're looking for recommendations this is something you know from time to time on the program we talk about books for grown ups and also for children and I always like to suggest to people that if you are looking for help you're trying to find titles to get your kids or grandkids or whoever the children in your life jazzed about reading go away to ask the librarians. That's what they're there for. You won't be bothering them. At's they like kids come by. They like your father. Well thank you both very much. Thank you. Janice Harrington she's children's services coordinator chambray public library and Betsy Hearn is professor in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois.