The Memory Fades: Family You Know and Family You Didn't

The Memory Fades

Family You Know and Family You Didn't

The summer before I was two years old, I met my only living great grandfather, who was my grandmother's father. I didn't remember meeting him until my mother showed me her wedding photos. My parents were both in the room and my mother said that I couldn't possibly remember him since I was a baby when he died. I was 1 year, 11 months and 7 days old when he died. 

When I described him coming into the room where I was playing on the floor at my grandfather's feet, my father asked me to tell them exactly what I remember. 

My mother looked astounded and my father made a "hurumpf" sound. I was quite sure that I was alone in my grandmother's house that day with my grandparents taking care of me. 

The clincher was that I remembered that he smelled strongly of cigarettes and what my grandmother said to my grandfather when she opened the French doors and gave her father a gentle push inside the living room.

Neither thing is provable but she said, "Evans.  J. Fred is here". The man, the oldest person in my family at that point, came directly to me and ruffled my hair. I thought, "Oh, the other grandpa." and went back to playing with the puzzle of blocks on the floor.  He sat down in a chair next to my grandfather and talked to him.

Don't discount even a tiny memory of what you remember. I will always be glad I remember that. 

These are the only three surviving photos of James Frederick Barber (1866-1949) One taken in 1918, one taken in a group photo in 1938 and the one of him at my parent's wedding in 1946. He was always called J. Fred. 

Who was alive in your lifetime? 

The Memory Fades: How to be an Organized Person

Photo of Erin Condren Paper Pads, erincondren.com, 2019

The Memory Fades: How to be Organized

I have had people tell me that I am both too organized and too clean. One girl in college bullied me because my room was clean and I was too stuck up. I was a freshman and she was a senior. Others turned against her because they through she was wrong. But, that was only the beginning. I didn't realize that for the many years to come, people would pick on me for what I was good at. It wasn't until I got good at computers that I noticed people getting even more jealous. 

Before the memory fades, I'd like to say that I didn't immediately join the Facebook group "The Organized Genealogist" because I knew it was something I could not teach to others. When I was invited again, I did so but I seldom read it. There were too many other groups I needed to learn from. 

I think our mothers and grandmothers influence us in ways that make us successful.  My mother struggled to maintain order but she worked at it because she didn't like working and she took her "job" as housewife seriously. After talking with men friends, one of the topics where they think their girlfriends or wives could improve was "keeping house". Think about the number of census records you have read that list that as the female occupation. Women ran the farm or the store, took in laundry and seamstress work. Dawn to dusk repeats itself in many journals women wrote. 

My mother, tired of my messy room and unmade bed, at age 4 or 5, insisted that I learn to manage my own life. She had been teaching me to make my own bed when I moved from the crib to a bed. As soon as I was able, it was not optional that I do so every single morning. Because I have no siblings, I didn't know people didn't make their bed until I was old enough to ride my bike in my neighborhood.

Mom did a very radical thing. She took a bedsheet and dumped the entire contents of it into the middle and tied it up with a big rubber bands. The contents of my room was in layers, toys, books, clothes were inside. I was not allowed out of the house until I had put everything where it belonged. I don't recommend this to others because I discovered that I enjoyed keeping my room in order and demanded a bookcase, a desk and a toy chest. I was never messy again. I became less social. My room was my own queen's domain.

Although I do not agree with everything in his book, much of it can make us think about how we live and what can give us stress. I can improve areas of my life and maybe make it easier to decide what is important. One thing to remember is that this is translated from another language and cultural differences are obvious.

The Memory Fades: Why Do Genealogists Remember?

Last Night in my Crib
collection of the author
Photo by Dorothy Frances Stewart Broadfoot
Taken in Cranston, Rhode Island

The Memory Fades 

Why do Genealogists Remember?

I know that this photo looks faded. So many of the photographs in my personal collection are fading because my mother and I looked at them a lot together. I'm not sorry that we did because otherwise I would not know some of my family history and I would not understand my childhood from the perspective of my parents and grandparents. My mother was annoyed when I wanted to label, date and write down our conversations about photographs. She wanted me to listen but she didn't want me to remember. She wanted me to live in the moment.

Dementia runs wild in my family tree, partly because so many of my ancestors lived to be very elderly and partly because dementia is a by-product of other medical conditions. Death records mention this over and over like bad song lyrics. It is hard to pick apart metal illness from physical ailments. 

Because genealogists live in a strange world of records, memories and photographs, my own personal history gets shoved to the background and I fear that I will not leave any impressions behind of, well, me. I do think that my fellow genealogists share this fear. I don't think that this is just because I am an only child, only grandchild and for a time, an only great grandchild. It is because to us, our ancestors are more fun to work with.

I stopped blogging through the holidays because I want to learn to live in the moment. I've read so much about mindfulness and how regular day to day life is giving me anxiety. Do genealogists think too much about the past or is it something that is happening to me now because I am in my 70s? 

Should I be fearful that dementia is already happening inside my brain?

I think I should write about some things that I remember because there is no photograph that matches the memory because we can't take a photograph of everything. I suspect the generations that follow me will try to do just that. 

Blogging was designed to be about short writing. I think that is why so many have stopped writing blog posts. Writing is time consuming, so let's just take a photograph so we won't forget. Is that going to work?

Some studies suggest that writing with a pen in a journal helps us remember better than recording with a computer and sharing online. What do you think?