Science waits to be discovered. History, on the other hand, can be lost. Scan the obituaries and you'll see brief descriptions of people who had fascinating stories to tell. Most likely those stories were lost.
For several years I've been bugging an old friend and frequent adversary, a man who was involved in Arizona politics and who held high office, to dictate a short memoir. He resists and says he's too busy with various community projects. Since he's in his eighties, I suppose he's saving that task for his golden years, perhaps his early hundreds, when there is less risk that a second volume will be required.
All of us can make excuses and yet preserving our stories and those of friends and relatives should be given a higher priority. So too should our own stories. The anecdotes which we think we'll never forget will be forgotten. The incidents which we regard as barely worth mentioning will be some day be exotic.
History is closer than we think but unless preserved, it quickly fades away.
4 comments:
So true. Just one example from my family. My Great-Great Grandfather was born in Alsace region, became a missionary that went to India in the 1830's. My Great-Grandfather was born in India, but eventually emigrated to the U.S. where he became a Pastor of a Reformed Church in Missouri. What stories they could have told, but we have nothing other than dates and a few pictures. Ancestry has helped some, but not much.
Bob,
Wow! That story sounds like a motion picture.
All of us need occasional nudges to capture the history that is around us. I know I've certainly missed the chance to preserve history in my own family.
Michael
How timely! My husband's grandmother passed away on Monday at the age of 94. She was born in 1919, the same year prohibition became the law of the land.
She had chronicled much of her adult life experience in her "obituary" (yes, she wrote her own obituary); including all of the jobs she has held, where she has traveled, who she had married (4 husbands over the course of her lifetime), the clubs and organizations she had been a part of, etc. It's all there, except details of experiences from her childhood, which we understand was not a happy one. We're hoping we may discover more about this part of her life as we go through her things.
CincyCat,
It sounds as if your grandmother had a remarkable life. I like the idea of writing one's own obituary. Why leave the job to amateurs?
Michael
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