STOLEN FIELDS: Memoir, Family History

CHUCK HENDERSON

One of the most pleasant things that can happen after you publish your memoir is to be contacted by a relative you didn't know was still there.

In my last post, I discussed finding other relations that weren't previously known. I also mentioned that my cousin Ned Cole, had provided me with information that he had from a relative of my grandmother's father, Harvey Henderson. The name of this contact was Chuck Henderson, but I had the impression that Ned's conversation with Chuck took place many years ago and that Chuck was very old at that time. I foolishly assumed that Chuck was no longer with us.

Last week I was pleasantly surprised to receive a book order through the mail from Chuck Henderson. At first I thought perhaps it was the son of the man who had given Ned all the information. His order included his email address and I contacted him -- it was the very same gentleman. He was the grandson of one of my grandmother's brothers.

I knew that Grandma Cole had six brothers and that she was the only girl. However, the brother that was most familiar to us was her youngest brother, Frank with whom she was very close. Ned informs me that Grandpa Cole was also fond of Frank. Frank never married and toward the end of his life came to live with his sister and brother-in-law, and died at the farm. I did not know the names of the other brothers, let alone anything about them.

I'm looking forward to more email conversations with Chuck, and to meeting him and his family next fall when I return to Franklin, Pennsylvania for Applefest.

Jean, Somewhere in Maine

WRITING THE MEMOIR

In many ways, writing was the easy part. I used my cousins' groundwork as the basis of the early sections on how my family lost their prosperous farm on Neville Island in Pittsburgh to eminent domain at the time of World War I. In addition to Marian's booklet, cousin Ned sent me page after page of anecdotes that Grandpa Cole told him as a child. I had heard different versions of some from my mother and liked to include both, allowing readers to form their own opinions.

Ned also sent me more information than I had known about my grandmother's father, Harvey Henderson. My sister and I had grown up thinking he was a ne'er-do-well who had left our great-grandmother to fend for herself most of the time while he was off somewhere galavanting around the world. It turned out that he had gone west to the Dakotas in search of a new life after suffering Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from his Civil War experiences. He settled there and returned to Pennsylvania frequently to plead with his wife to join him. She refused. Ned had learned this from a relative, now deceased, of Harvey's, and there was documentation to back it up.

WRITING THE MEMOIR - FAMILY HELP

When I decided to write the story of my family's experience with eminent domain, I had a lot of background material to build on. How we lost the Neville Island farm was one of our favorite bedtime stories growing up and the effects permeated my mother's existence. She was not the only member of her famiy to dwell on it. My cousin, Marian Bernhoft Morse, was the eldest daughter of my mother's older sister and she, too, had been well-apprised of that history.

Marian and her husband (now deceased) traveled from their home in Poughkeepsie, New York, to Neville Island in Pittsburgh, haunted the Carnegie Library, and researched whatever they could find. They then met with my two uncles who were still living, and interviewed them about their memories of the events of the time. They gathered copies of periodical articles and transcripts of the interviews and put them into a binder. This was then given to family members who they thought would be interested.  I also had interviewed my mother to get some specifics to the many incidents I already knew, and although she was suffering from early Alzheimer's at that time, I was able to get some good information.  Before that time, she herself had taken a memoir class at the assisted living where she spent some years, and had written up some of the events herself.

HOW THE MEMOIR BEGAN

Being alone in Maine after my younger daughter had moved away to Portland, I was looking for something to occupy my time other than going to work. I had received information from Senior College -- part of Univerity of Maine -- and noticed a summer course on memoir writing. I signed up.

The course itself was very sketchy being only five sessions and having about thirty enrollees. Everyone was to have a chance to present a short piece of writing for criticism from the class. My turn was near the end, and I wrote up some silly childhood adventure that would be amusing. It was not remarkable other than it was well-written.

It became obvious during the five weeks that some of the class members were more serious about their writing than others, and at the last class, a few of us got together and decided to continue on our own with a small writing group. One woman took the lead on arranging space for us to meet.

Technorati Profile

WHY WRITE A MEMOIR?

Some people think writing a memoir is only for the famous or powerful. It is not.  It is for everyone with an eye for the future generations of their family. Our descendants want to know who we are -- what we experienced, what we thought, what we felt. They want to know what life was like way back when. Sometimes we also have things to say that are relevant to people who are not in our family -- similar experiences, similar feelings, how we coped or not.

In writing Stolen Fields, I also included a look backward as my ancestors had not left much of a written record of their lives -- I drew on old records and what interviews I could find. Fortunately, there were articles about my early family as well as cold facts.

Whether you write to share with a broad audience, or simply for family and friends, you may establish closer relationships with family members as I have, and you may make discoveries -- some welcome, some not. Not everyone will like what you have to say, and you need to be careful not to tread on too many toes. But some truths must come out for the greater good.

The process can be a wonderful experience, and may lead you to relations you never knew existed. Start with the first sentence, and write it one sentence at a time.

More later.

Jean, Somewhere in Maine

WELCOME TO STOLEN FIELDS

This blog is about the writing of STOLEN FIELDS and the things I've learned along the way.

There is a separate blog for Eminent Domain issues and they will not be directly address in this blog. I welcome your comments if you have been a reader of Stolen Fields and invite you to post an Amazon review if you enjoyed the book. I also invite you to visit my website at http://www.jeanboggio.com for excerpts and ordering information.

If you enjoy this blog, please also visit my blog Under the Maine Sun, that gives glimpses of my next book and presents some of my ongoing observations about live in general. It is also on TypePad.

This is just a short introduction but I will begin in earnest tomorrow.

Jean, Somewhere in Maine