Storytelling 101
Each December, as the New Year approaches, I ask myself the same question: "Have we told our children the stories?"
Oh, not the bedtime stories we read to them after their baths: Are You My Mother?, If You Give a Moose a Muffin, East o' the Sun & West o' the Moon, The Poky Little Puppy, Miss Rumphius, The Polar Express – and more. We rarely missed a night. And there were stories galore at naptime. No, I'm not talking about those treasured stories still at-the-ready on the bookshelves of their childhood bedrooms.
After all, our children are grown adults now, living in their own homes. The stories I have in mind are the ones our parents and grandparents told us. They're the stories of our own lives before we became their parents, or before they were old enough to read between the lines of our lives.
For the past several years, I've carved out a small niche during our holiday times together to share these stories. This year, I chose a typewritten letter sent to me in 1979 by Mom's first cousin, Kathryn, a few months after my mother's death. Stored in a box of old greeting cards and notes, I had re-discovered it during a pandemic closet-cleaning spree. It's filled with stories from her childhood growing up on the farm next to my mom and her family.
Reading these stories re-opened a window into the world of the early 1920s. It was as though I had been given a gift from the afterlife. Here are two of their childhood adventures:
"We had many happy winter days sliding down hill on the Flexible Flyer sleds. One day, Jim [my mom's older brother] was taking a load of hogs to Sioux City to market. He consented to let Erma and I tie our sleds behind the truck. It was a wet, slushy day and of course the wheels threw all that slush onto us, but we weathered it clear to Grandmother's house in Morningside. Jim took the pigs on to the market and later came back after us. Grandmother was shocked at our condition and stripped us down and dried us out. We rode home in the truck and as I recall, our parents did not even know where we were. Fortunately trucks only traveled 25 or 30 miles per hour then."
The farm was 2.5 miles from the town of Holly Springs, and the "pavement" mentioned here was a new two-lane highway: "After the pavement was put in, we all got roller skates and we girls, Erma and as I remember, Ralph, also, skated to school to Holly Springs several times. The School Board decided that it was dangerous so we had to discontinue that fun. We ground up so many wheels on that rough pavement that our mothers balked at buying new wheels every whip stitch, so we trapped gophers for wheel money. There was a bounty of 10¢ for a pair of front gopher feet, and they had to be taken to the auditor's office in Sioux City."
These stories certainly don't offer a blueprint for parents today. However, they do illustrate the strikingly different state of child's play in rural Iowa in the early 1920s, and perhaps provide a glimpse of how free-range parenting could lead to life lessons, including initiative and self-reliance.
Stories for the Ages
Long before humans learned to write, they told stories. Their stories forged connections among people, conveying the shared culture, history, and values uniting them. The stories that we hold in common form the essence of the ties that bind us.
Stories transport us into another time and place. They offer insights into the motives of others, and lead us to imagine what might happen next. In fact, oral storytelling is undergoing a revival today as a performance art. The Des Moines Register Storytellers Project, launched seven years ago, features persons telling their true, first-person stories live on stage. Three events are set for 2024, with themes including community, travel, and overcoming. https://hoytsherman.org/event/des-moines-storytellers-project-overcoming/
The stories of our families are fundamental to building a framework for our window to the larger world. They range from treasured traditions to the journeys of our pioneering ancestors. These stories can build continuity, understanding, and strengthen the bonds between generations.
Experts say that family stories can help children navigate change, guide decisions, and persevere through tough times: wars, depressions, natural disasters, and personal misfortunes. After all, our ancestors survived their share of challenges.
Stories also foster a sense of belonging and identity. They're a reminder that we're part of something bigger than ourselves. Stories can bring family members to life far beyond the powers of the pages of a faded photo album.
Looking back at a few of the stories I've shared with our children, they fall into the following categories:
Sense of adventure: When my grandma was 15 years old, she and her family boarded a train, and traveled from their farm in northwestern Iowa to the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. She recorded details of their journey, including the sights and sounds of the World’s Fair, Lincoln Park, and Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show. This trip introduced her family to incandescent street lights, Cracker Jacks, the elevated railroad, and maybe even a glimpse of Egyptian belly dancers. Fifty-seven years later, Grandma climbed into a green Studebaker to travel 6,000 miles through 10 states over 3 1/2 weeks to California with her two adult daughters and her two oldest grandchildren. Mom typed Grandma's handwritten travelogue.
Courage: My husband's father was drafted into World War II at the age of 17. He never talked about the war, but in his last years, he was coaxed into sharing his stories by our niece, a court reporter, who transcribed his words. He arrived by ship in Greenock, Scotland in mid-March 1944. After traveling by truck, he boarded another ship with his infantry division, arriving five days after D-Day. He recounted a series of harrowing experiences including walking through the night with his division, falling asleep, and stumbling into German territory. Wounded twice, he was flown to hospitals in England. Later, in Fontainebleau, France with his unit, he recalled, "We were sleeping in Napoleon's horse stable. . . the palace was across the road there, and . . . it was Christmas. They had black outs. The Battle of the Bulge started there." He turned 19 years old in March of 1945, lying on a bridge across the Rhine into Remagen under artillery fire. He returned home to marry, build a farm, raise four children, and harvest crops only a few weeks before his death at age 83.
Resilience: My grandmother, born in 1878, gradually lost her hearing after a childhood illness. Unable to finish school, she was a lifelong reader. With the invention of hearing aids, she wore one until eventually she suffered a total hearing loss. We grandkids grew up, knowing that she relied on reading our lips. Yet she married, and gave birth to five children. When Grandpa brought home the lifeless body of her fourth child from the hospital, she was eight months pregnant with her fifth child, a daughter. Three years later, she worked feverishly to care for this daughter and my mother, stricken by scarlet fever. Only Mom survived. Later in life, Grandma lost both of her brothers under difficult circumstances, and she was widowed for 10 years. Despite these tragedies and hardships, she never retreated from life, or showed any bitterness. She died at age 98
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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Experts advise not to withhold our stories of failure, character flaws, and sadness. As a young adult, I learned that Mom had concealed what must have been a traumatic life experience. Painful as it was for her, if we had known about it as we grew older, we might have been better able to understand her as a three-dimensional person.
A Sense of Place: Traveling by covered wagon from Kentucky in 1830, with sojourns in Indiana and Illinois, one branch of our family arrived in western Iowa in 1856. My great-great grandfather bought 320 acres for $3.60 per acre. My great-great uncle eventually wrote a reminiscence of how they survived grasshopper scourges, prairie fires, and one of the harshest winters on record in 1856/7. In 1859, my great-great grandfather built the first frame schoolhouse in Smithland, followed by two others nearby. These stories underscore the family value placed on education, and impart a sense of the sacrifices made to put down deep roots in the fertile soils of Iowa, leaving us this agricultural heritage.
Life Lessons Passed On
Recent research reveals that younger people who know intergenerational stories have more positive outcomes, including higher self-esteem, lower anxiety, and a higher sense of meaning and purpose in life. (Marshall Duke and Robyn Fivush. https://www.seattlefoundation.org/the-do-you-know-scale/)
But these stories won't be passed on if we spend our fleeting family time scrolling through social media. Family dinners, gatherings, or long car trips offer opportunities for weaving together the rich tapestry of our lives.
Just like us, the generations that came before us were flesh-and-blood folks with hopes, dreams, disappointments, successes, failures, and talents. If we pool our collective memories, there's much they can teach us that remains relevant from generation to generation.
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Our old farmhouse is quiet again now. No echoes of holiday songs or O Holy Night resound from the piano room. The bedrooms are emptied of presents, suitcases, cell phone chargers, dog beds, and coffee mugs. Soon we'll settle into our familiar patterns of electronic communication: texts, Facetime, and phone calls sandwiched between the demands of work and the pace of daily living.
But as we reflect on the Old Year in the warm glow of the lighted tree and surrounded by the still life of wrapping paper and bows, my question lingers: "Have we told our children the stories?"
Delightful stories! I have been writing my adult child a letter at Christmas for twenty years or so, sharing family history. I agree we need to pass these stories down.
This is all so wonderful. What a treasure trove of history! I love that you have made a tradition of telling sharing it with the new generation your family. May they do the same. It's so important. Too bad most of us don't. It's never too late. Thank you for sharing these stories with us and providing a kick-in-the-pants inspiration to tell our own.