FAMILY HISTORY FROM BOTH SIDES

Family history comes in two varieties:

The first: We don’t talk about that side of the family.

The second: We can’t say enough about that side of the family.

That’s the starting place for going off the rails.

Why does family history go off the rails? Because of faulty memories.

It’s either excluding what’s known, or not knowing enough.

Memory

Unfortunately we don’t all have a sweet and kind Grandma, or a wise and strong Grandpa.

But from listening to others, it sure seems that way.

And somehow it’s the grandkid’s fault?

Listen, we all have different versions of the same story.

One Grandpa can be seen as a strong male influence for his family, providing a role model and masculine icon.

The same Grandpa can be seen as a bully, a bootlegger, and a mean drunk.

At the same time one Grandma can be seen as a ground-breaking innovator, a glass-ceiling chipper, and the right woman in the right room.

The same Grandma can be seen as a bully, a bootlegger, and a mean drunk? No, but don’t cross her.

The truth, for what it is, falls somewhere in between the angels and devils we all live with.

One Grandpa fought the future so hard that he wouldn’t allow indoor plumbing in his house into the 1960’s.

Grandma kept ordering them and arranged them around the dining room table in case her husband changed his mind.

The outhouse was a short walk between the house and barn with no neighbors.

I learned he broke his leg when his boys dropped him during a dig.

One Grandma

I met a middle-aged women who grew up in a one horse town, the daughter of the town baker.

She was so beautiful as a teenager that everyone said she looked like the young Judy Garland.

Which became her name. From Joan to Judy.

She had an equally cute daughter who introduced me to her mom.

I knew I made a good impression when I heard her ask, “You’re dating the dork?”

Everyone was a dork compared to her in her black leather pants riding shotgun in a vintage Mustang fastback with an equally slick LA husband.

Her first husband had died decades earlier. They were married in England, moved to Canada, then Cleveland, before taking their version of the Oregon Trail to Southern CA.

2

He was an electronics man trained in the Royal Navy and building a career in the aerospace industry; She was a teacher who applied for graduate school at UCLA.

Together they raised a family in a sketchy part of LA county, an incorporated square mile of pimps, hookers, and heroin littering the walk to school every day.

But it was home. One time it caught on fire, another time robbed by junkies, but it was home.

This Grandma remarried after her husband had a sudden and fatal heart attack in his early fifties.

Due to her shrewd business sense, she bought and sold and traded property. She and her new husband moving to a Culver City house on a hill with a second story and a swimming pool.

The dork married her daughter; stepdad bribed me not to marry her to start everything off on the right foot.

I raised a family, stepdad got sick, they moved to be closer. Stepdad took several turns for the worse and I volunteered to be his caregiver.

By then this Grandma had transitioned from a motorcycle riding momma to a widow. Again.

She also gained a new lease on life absent the constant needs of someone in dire condition. But enough about me.

One Family History Is Not Enough

Too often we want history all wrapped in pretty paper with a bow on top.

No one wants a big stinker in a fancy bag, but you owe it to yourself to bring stories together.

Grandma was a saint, or was it Grandpa for putting up with her saintliness?

Grandpa was a mean drunk, or was it Grandma who kept him in check?

One thing we know for sure, baby boomers are the last generation raised by children of the Great Depression.

The adults in their lives growing up were shaped by deprivation and denial; they didn’t need what they didn’t have. They made do.

The question wasn’t whether the milk was sour or not, but how sour?

Brown water pouring out of the tap? Tastes like rust? Make a cup of tea and you won’t notice.

Our parents were raised by adults who saw bank failures and suicides and the dark cloud of economic ruin.

They saw a nation rebound with government investments on a huge scale:

The Public Works Administration (P.W.A.) was the New Deal’s premier agency for the construction of big projects, and Harold Ickes was its administrator. The P.W.A., created under the National Industrial Recovery Act in 1933, received $3.3 billion in funding. In addition to its big projects, the P.W.A. built schools, courthouses, city halls, and hospitals.

Then came World War Two.

Your Family History Makes A Difference

The writer William Little wrote a family history, but a different kind of family.

He wrote about his father and fellow veterans of WWII.

It’s a Unit History. Seen from this angle, a family is a unit history, too.

Two people meet, discover a common need, and build their lives around it.

What you decide to include in your family history is as important as what you leave out.

Maybe you know things that are too embarrassing?

You don’t want to put anyone in a bad light.

If you want to leave behind a Hallmark history, go ahead. It’s not like you’re writing a memoir.

But, if you do decide to write a memoir? Everything is fair game.

Someone doesn’t like how you portray them? Then they should have treated you better.

You get a date wrong?

Memoir: a historical account or biography written from personal knowledge or special sources.

“in 1924 she published a short memoir of her husband”

Don’t worry, it’s not a text book. Do your best and tell a good story with plenty of ‘unpacking’ and ‘circling back.’

Just remember, not everyone will be happy with your version of family history.

My own dear mother somehow found a post on my blog, read it, and took me to the woodshed.

I believe she had help, but if you get called out, take it graciously.

Did I change things my Mom asked me to change? Yes, I did.

Would I change things for anyone else? Not likely.

A writer can only go so far.

And that, dear readers, is where you want to go.