Carol's Corner

Sometimes we may need a prompt to get a member of our family to tell a story. Photos, especially older photos are a great starting point. It identifies the people or places in the photo but there must be a story behind the picture. What was the occasion of the photo? What year? What location? What memories does it bring back to the people looking at the photo? All these make good family story starter prompts.

Family memorabilia such as old letters, journals, china, ornaments, and personal items also have stories attached to them. I have a number of pieces in a display cabinet that have family stories that go with them. One of my challenges is to photograph them, write the story and put the two together. Then my children, grandchildren and any future generations will know why this piece has been kept. Maybe someone will appreciate it more because of the story attached to it.

On my husband’s side of the family there are old letters going back to the early 1900’s, old wills, photos, even a pair of kid leather gloves his great grandmother wore on her wedding day. Oh but she had tiny hands. Each piece sparks a story for older family members and I have sat listening to them for hours, jotting notes, taking pictures and imagining life on the prairies before all our modern conveniences.

My mom, as a young woman, traveled for a year and told of some of her adventures. For three months she lived and worked in Chicago at the Kenner Hospital right by Lakeshore Drive. She told about the hospital being in an old mansion and having a concrete fence surrounding it. She had no camera and only a few photos of that year that others had taken and given her a copy. My curiosity took hold. Could I find pictures of that old hospital/ mansion. I did. This picture shows the concrete fence and part of the front of the old mansion renovated into a small hospital. It intrigued me to add to family history but also it sparked possibilities of fictionalized stories with more accurate settings due to the photos.

I love looking at old black and white photos, especially of family members. But these old photos also give a chance to research an era. What style of clothing did the family wear? This photo of my grandparents and their children in the mid 1930’s shows the car they drove as well. Other photos I have gave me a glimpse into housing, animals they owned and even some school photos.

This photo, taken only 15 years ago, reminds me of an era which has almost past on the Canadian prairies. No longer does every small town have a grain elevator like this, often multiple elevators. They used to dot the prairie landscape, a visible marker of an upcoming town as you drove down the highway. Now most have been torn down and replaced with new central cement grain storage units. This photo from my husband’s home town gives me a visual for family stories, both oral and written, as well as research into what they really looked like if I chose to write it into a fiction story.

Yes family stories can have prompts from photos or tangible reminders of the past that have been kept by some family member. But these things can also be great research tools to take the story into writing format. Have some fun. Take a trip down memory lane with family members.

What prompts do you like to use for family stories? What do you do with memorabilia and photos to incorporate them into your storytelling?