Problem
The grass is always greener and it looks so easy. Taxi drivers assume all Westerners are rich and descended from rich families, lazy people who never work. When you ask older people about their past, you hear telling details about life long ago.
My father lived to the age of 93. After he retired, he used to volunteer at the local hospital.
I asked about his childhood. He said he would take a cooked potato in his pocket for lunch. In winter the heat of the potato kept him warm at the unheated school.
In Singapore, as a Westerner, you meet people who have a house or a car and a maid and you assume they have always had an easy life. But as soon as they tell you about their family history, you find it wasn't so.
'Moona' told me that she was one of eight children. Moona's mother ran a coffee stall; the day after giving birth she went back to work.
Moon'as mother could not read nor write Chinese, so she chose a name for her daughter which had few strokes, so it was easy for her mother to write.
Adoption and Helping Others
Moona's mother and father looked after orphans and adopted or fostered children. When the children left school, the adopted family had to help the children and others like the orphans to find work.
Helping A Struggling Artist
One young man was an artist who could not find work. So Moona's father commissioned the young man to paint a portrait of Moon's father and his wife. After Moona's mother died, Moon'as father commisioned another double portrait to be painted, using a photo.
Recording The Past
Moona has the family portraits and tells the famly stories. But she says her grown-up nieces and nephews are not interested in the family history. I think it is important to write it down. So I have made a contribution.
Please write down your family history as told by your elders. Just a sentence or two is enough to capture the essence of the story.
How To Make A Family History Booklet
When we were planning a 90th birthday party for my mother-in-law, every weekend we had a family meal. I asked her questions each weekend, going through her life:
Where did you go to school?
What did you do with your parents at weekends?
What did you do in the war?
Where did you meet your husband?
Where was your first house?
What were the poeple you worked with like?
Did you get on with your cousins?
Did you see your grandparents?
How is life different today from your childhood?
I went off to the bathroom and wrote the answers down in longhand in my diary. When I reched home, I typed up the answers.
When I had enough material, I printed a booklet. It cost less to print three copies, than the cost of most of the giant boxes of chocolates or champagne or other gifts I could have bought her.
When she saw it, she was amazed. She asked me, "Where did you get all this information?"
Two years later she developed Alzheimer's. The good thing about Alxheimer's from a reseracher's point of view, is that the elderly tend to remember the past which is stored in their memory bank, without being able to add and sort new memories.
They can't remember yesterday. But they can recall two or three stories from their past which they repeat endlessly.
At this point, as after they have died, you are very pleased to have a record of their life. You are also glad to have been able to share it with them when they could appreciate the trouble you have taken and the honour they feel that you have made their life history into a booklet or book.
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please bookmark and share links to your favourite posts.
The grass is always greener and it looks so easy. Taxi drivers assume all Westerners are rich and descended from rich families, lazy people who never work. When you ask older people about their past, you hear telling details about life long ago.
My father lived to the age of 93. After he retired, he used to volunteer at the local hospital.
I asked about his childhood. He said he would take a cooked potato in his pocket for lunch. In winter the heat of the potato kept him warm at the unheated school.
In Singapore, as a Westerner, you meet people who have a house or a car and a maid and you assume they have always had an easy life. But as soon as they tell you about their family history, you find it wasn't so.
'Moona' told me that she was one of eight children. Moona's mother ran a coffee stall; the day after giving birth she went back to work.
Moon'as mother could not read nor write Chinese, so she chose a name for her daughter which had few strokes, so it was easy for her mother to write.
Adoption and Helping Others
Moona's mother and father looked after orphans and adopted or fostered children. When the children left school, the adopted family had to help the children and others like the orphans to find work.
Helping A Struggling Artist
One young man was an artist who could not find work. So Moona's father commissioned the young man to paint a portrait of Moon's father and his wife. After Moona's mother died, Moon'as father commisioned another double portrait to be painted, using a photo.
Recording The Past
Moona has the family portraits and tells the famly stories. But she says her grown-up nieces and nephews are not interested in the family history. I think it is important to write it down. So I have made a contribution.
Please write down your family history as told by your elders. Just a sentence or two is enough to capture the essence of the story.
How To Make A Family History Booklet
When we were planning a 90th birthday party for my mother-in-law, every weekend we had a family meal. I asked her questions each weekend, going through her life:
Where did you go to school?
What did you do with your parents at weekends?
What did you do in the war?
Where did you meet your husband?
Where was your first house?
What were the poeple you worked with like?
Did you get on with your cousins?
Did you see your grandparents?
How is life different today from your childhood?
I went off to the bathroom and wrote the answers down in longhand in my diary. When I reched home, I typed up the answers.
When I had enough material, I printed a booklet. It cost less to print three copies, than the cost of most of the giant boxes of chocolates or champagne or other gifts I could have bought her.
When she saw it, she was amazed. She asked me, "Where did you get all this information?"
Two years later she developed Alzheimer's. The good thing about Alxheimer's from a reseracher's point of view, is that the elderly tend to remember the past which is stored in their memory bank, without being able to add and sort new memories.
They can't remember yesterday. But they can recall two or three stories from their past which they repeat endlessly.
At this point, as after they have died, you are very pleased to have a record of their life. You are also glad to have been able to share it with them when they could appreciate the trouble you have taken and the honour they feel that you have made their life history into a booklet or book.
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please bookmark and share links to your favourite posts.
No comments:
Post a Comment