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Posts Tagged ‘life stories’

  1. Why Preserving Life Stories is Important – Now

    March 15, 2012 by katemeadows

    On Monday, I wrote about mining some less than glamorous memories of my grandparents.

    But there is another side to the story.

    waterfall, Sublette County, Wyoming. Copyright Kate Meadows 2009.

    Aside from hidden cigarette butts, a lack of love for each other and an ugly divorce after 51 years of marriage, my grandparents were a wealth of information about the town and county in which I grew up. This place happens to be – or at least used to be – the least populated county in the least populated state of the nation.

    My Grandma and Grandpa were raised just over the hill from each other. Their parents’ generation had homesteaded in Sublette County, Wyoming, chiseling out roots and lives in a land so sparse and barren that hardly anything grew. My grandparents learned to work this land, to own it rather than fear it. They started a family, launched business ventures in town (which included live-trapping and raising and breeding wild bobcats) and got to know people whose own families had similar stories of trial and triumph when it came to making life work in western Wyoming.

    In short, my grandparents were sources of stories – stories that painted a history so rich it would be a crying shame to see that history dissolve with their deaths.

    Winter leaves in Missouri. Copyright Kate Meadows, 2009.

    I knew this. I knew they were a wealth of information about my home. I knew they each had valuable knowledge that could preserve the value of this place for generations and generations to come. How often had I heard them spit out those wild and unbelievable tales of old-timers working in the moonshine business, or tricks guys played on each other in the old tie-hack camps as they prepared to float logs down waterways for the country’s major railroad construction?

    I knew they would gladly tease out these stories and memories, if only someone took the time to listen to their stories and, somehow, save them.

    My grandpa died too young, of suicide in 2003. I was knee-deep in an English degree at Gustavus Adolphus College two states away. Fortunately, he recorded some of his own hair-raising stories and memories via a weekly column in the local newspaper.

    Grandma lasted longer. I was planning in the spring of 2010 to fly to Wyoming with a tape recorder and a notebook, and put in some long hours with her, hearing her stories of growing up and learning the history that she knew.

    She died on Feb. 7 of that year. Super Bowl Sunday. My plans were a couple of months to late.

    Why am I telling you this? Because it is my testimony of why your own life stories are important to preserve now. NOW. We all think we have a lot of time left. We can always do x, y and z tomorrow.

    But what if we can’t?

    So many of us have ambitions to get down and do that hard work – to sit with a relative and probe them about their lives, to sit with ourselves and journal a myriad thoughts about our experiences, to take the time to get to know a place or a person in a deep and distinct way and to preserve that knowledge for others.

    Dry winter forest, Danbury, CT. Copyright Kate Meadows 2009.

    But life – our own – gets in the way.

    To preserve the life stories that are important to us, we need to make it a priority. We have to recognize the urgency in listening and taking action. If researching the history of a special place or of someone’s memory is important to you, you need to make it priority.

    I can help.

    In the coming months, I will be hosting a series of Life Stories workshops to help people launch projects that are important to them. As someone who has been hired to write full length biographies and scores of personal profiles, I know what it takes to invest in people, get information, and turn it into a format that is cohesive and worth preserving. I can help you sort through questions and insecurities about tackling such a project. I can help you write – or, on another level, write for you. I can help you forever save those stories and memories that are important to you.

    If you’re interested or you want to know more, get in touch or leave me a comment. If you’re interested in attending a workshop, or want to host my workshop at your place of work, your church, community center, etc., I am happy to discuss details.

    I am here, and hoping that you recognize the importance of preserving those life histories that are important to you, before it’s too late.

     

    Category Home, Ideas, Inspiration, Life Stories, Place, Writing Process | Tags: ,,,,,,,,, | 2 Comments

  2. The Bucky’s Book Project

    March 1, 2012 by katemeadows

    Last April, I spent a week in my hometown, Pinedale, Wyoming, helping my dad organize photo albums and memorabilia for his business’ 50thanniversary open house. The business, which began in 1961 as a small engine repair shop and has since evolved into one of the most successful Polaris dealerships and recreational vehicle retailers in the country, had endured a wild rollercoaster of ups and downs, successes and failures. I knew this, but as I worked with photos on a folding table set up in the retail showroom, an entirely deeper, more meaningful picture began to take shape before my eyes.

    copyright 2012, Kate Meadows

    Here were photos of my short, chubby grandfather, grinning next to a horde of fresh beaver skins. (He and my dad trapped animals in the mountains and sold hides and furs to stay afloat in the early days.) Here was my dad, still with his moustache and young, serious face, standing on a mountain top with my mom and the snowmobiles with which they had climbed to that scenery. Here was my dad in a hospital bed, his leg in traction after a snowmobile wreck on a drag race track nearly killed him. And there I was, in the crooked notch of a mountain pass, my hair gauzy and flat from the helmet I’d been wearing, the champion of yet another mountain thanks to my dad’s patient prodding.

    Stories were beginning to emerge as I pieced photos together. Some of the stories I knew – or was even a part of – but many stories I didn’t know. Customers walked into the shop for oil, belts, snowmobile repairs, snow boots – and saw me at work at my little makeshift station. They paid me many visits.

    photo courtesy of John Linn

    “I remember that,” they would begin, or, “I recognize that mountain.” And more stories would tumble out.

    I realized then that I was sitting on a goldmine.

    A goldmine of a history yet to be preserved, of stories so hair-raising, ridiculous, tear-jerking and triumphant that to lose them … well, would be one of the biggest shames of small-town history.

    I realized something very quickly: I was the one to ensure that these memories, this history, was somehow preserved. Soon my dad would be selling the business – the business that had been in the family for 50 years. I was no mechanic. Talking repairs and small engine parts were not and never would be me. The business would be leaving the family.

    This, I realized, could be my contribution to keeping the legacy alive.

    copyright Kate Meadows, 2012

    I am a cautious person with most things in life, weighing every decision with painful analysis before I make any move.

    With this, I jumped in without thinking twice. I snatched my dad’s extensive list of customers. I wrote letters. I made phone calls. I set up a Web site. I booked interviews.

    I set the ball rolling on what would be one of the most important projects of my life.

    Bucky’s: Stories and Memories from 50 Years in Business is the history – that compilation of stories and memories that customers, friends and family members have shared with me – that resulted. It will be published in June. It is my free-fall into the world of storytelling and history preserving, my way of giving back to the place and people that constituted my family’s bread and butter as I was growing up.

    More information on the project, as well as a link to order a copy of the book, is at www.buckysstory.com.

    And now? I hope this is only the beginning of carving out my niche as a writer. Soon I will be hosting a FREE “Telling Your Life Stories” workshop in Orange County, CA (where I now live). My hope is to help people dig up and share their own life stories, with audiences who would give their eye-teeth to hear them.

    If you’re interested in working with me, let me know. I am preparing here to open big doors.

    Category Books, Home, Ideas, Place, Writing Life | Tags: ,,,,, | 8 Comments