Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
“I wanted to use a different part of my brain on something that was just for me,” Gena reflected. It was her birthday, and writing about her grandmothers, her “Mamaws,” Ida Mae and Mary Agnes, was a gift she was giving to herself.
Ida Mae was her great-grandmother and Mary Agnes her grandmother. They were mother and daughter.
Growing up, Gena had spent a lot of time with them in Ida Mae’s little white house while her mom worked the weekend shift. Ida Mae “sure knew how to wrap those arms around your waist and snuggle you close to her. I loved these two women with all of my heart.”
But by the time she was 18, Gena had lost her mom and both grandmothers. It was devastating.
She tucked away the bits and pieces she knew about their lives for decades. Now, as a mother with grown children of her own, she was taking her memories out one by one and putting them on paper.
Writing Her Family Story in Slices
One of the first things I teach family story writers is how to write their story in Slices. It’s a small piece that’s no more than two pages. This technique helps anyone write a big family story one tiny bit at a time.
I read each Slice and let writers know how their story is landing with me, an outsider who knows nothing about their family. I tell them what I understand, what confuses me, what moves me, and what I want to know more about. It helps writers see what they are communicating about their family to their kids, and someday, grandkids.
Get started writing in Slices: How to Know What to Include in Your Family Story
After reading Gena’s first Slice and discussing her reasons for writing the story, I reflected back what I understood she was exploring.
“I vividly remember you asking me if I wanted to tell the story of how far my family had come from poverty, and I thought, yeah, that’s it. An hour later, I thought, wait. My dad never said he was poor. No one ever said they were poor. Why do I think they were poor? That’s where I need to start.”
Gena had carried that understanding about her family since college, when she’d gone to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., for a class. She’d found Ida Mae on the 1900 census, living on a farm with her father, mother, siblings, and 28 paupers.
“I had questions!” Gena exclaimed. At the time, she’d called her dad to find out more. He told her they’d lived in the poorhouse. “And I just stopped there.”
What the Newspapers Revealed
I suggested Gena take a look at Newspapers.com to see what she could find. “I just put in my grandmother’s name, and I think 20 stories popped up.” Newspapers were the Facebook of their day, and they’re often a treasure trove of family details waiting to be discovered.
Within hours, Gena found things no one in her family knew. Mary Agnes had been present at a duel?! Ida Mae’s father had corresponded with Ohio Governor and President William McKinley?! She also found out more about the poorhouse.
The discoveries led to many conversations with her father and two aunts.
The Truth About Her Family
What she learned changed how she understood her family story. Ida Mae and her family lived in the poorhouse because they ran it. Poorhouses were farms for the neediest in society, people who had nowhere else to go. Ida Mae’s father was the caretaker, which meant he ran the farm and cared for everyone who lived there. The whole family was involved, including Ida Mae.
The story continued in the next generation after World War II, when Ida Mae’s children, Mary Agnes and her brother, created the Maze Rolling Grocery Store. It was a truck with everything a family in a small rural town could want, from flour to livestock feed to candy. It served rural communities too far from supply stores and made regular stops at the edge of the hollows.
In a local history Facebook group, Gena found people she’d never met sharing memories and photos of the Maze Rolling Grocery Store and what it had meant in their lives.
She Discovered a Kindred Spirit in Her Grandmother
Most importantly, the newspaper articles and Facebook group revealed qualities about Mary Agnes that Gena hadn’t known. It started conversations she’d never had with her father and aunts about who Mary Agnes was as a person. Gena was surprised at how similar they were in their approach to life.
“Let’s attack whatever’s in front of us. Let’s make do with what we have. Let’s not sit and wallow. When we’re faced with something hard, we’re sad, and we mourn, but that’s not the end of the story. We’ve got a new story to write.”
“The way my grandmother did things is the way I do things.”
Decades later, it was a comfort to know that she and her grandmother were so much alike. “No one had ever said to me, ‘Oh, you remind me of your grandmother.’ I discovered it on my own.”
Gena’s Advice to New Family Story Writers
“One of the most important things I’d say about this process is, you’re doing it for yourself. You’re doing it for your children, yes, but first, you’re doing it for yourself.”
Gena began with her grandmother’s name. Here’s how you can begin: How to Start Writing Your Family History with Names
Image: Safekeeping Stories
