I showed them to my sister-in-law’s mother and she said, “You’re doing genealogy.”  I had never thought of it that way, but it is true.  I realize that my trivia game isn’t going to save souls, and I am not excusing myself from the serious family records research that needs to be done, but this is so much more fun!  There are many ways to tie generations together and sharing memories and information is one of them.

In researching answers to questions about how my brothers met their wives, I inquired if I had it right that Richard and Linda had met at a softball game.  That’s the short answer.  The long answer is much more interesting.  Richard’s co-worker was Linda’s cousin and wanted to introduce them.   I had always thought it was an accidental meeting, but it turned out there was malice aforethought.  Richard had seen a picture of Linda and had gone to the ballgame to scout her out, and not as a ballplayer.  In fact, her cousin, knowing that Richard had an Indian teepee. jokingly told him that she knew someone who would make a good squaw.  Suddenly the story came alive with the addition of just a few more details.

How they met stories are always interesting, especially if, like detectives wanting to get at the truth, you interview both parties separately and see how well the details match up.  My father’s version of how faithfully my mother waited for him on his mission and her version are very different. 

I remember asking my grandfather how he met my grandmother.  “I went into church and there was a group of boys standing around talking about the cute new girl who had just moved into our ward, so while they were standing there talking about how cute she was, I went in and sat next to her and introduced myself.”  For me, that is much more valuable than if Grandpa had written, “Don’t just talk about doing something, do it.”  He also told me a fun story about how he had been out driving his dad’s horse and buggy and had seen her coming the other way, out driving with another guy, and how he was so jealous and trying so hard to get a good look to size up the competition that he ran his horse and buggy into the ditch.

I remember one of my friends once telling me that her family had come into possession of some pioneer journals of an ancestor.  When she got a chance to read them, she said they were the most boring things she had ever read, with the same notations every day about how many miles were traveled and other mundane facts.  For me, having only names and birth and death dates is about as interesting as balancing the bank account.  Who were these people?  What did they worry about, dream about, fight about? 

Linda’s mother also mentioned that a perfunctory testimony left behind by an ancestor sounded just like what anybody might say on any given Fast Sunday.  Don’t just tell us you know the Church is true.  Tell what experiences built your faith.  Tell us what tried your faith.  Some people in trying to be spiritual forget to be human.  Tell us what made you drive your buggy into the ditch.

My work-study job in college was transcribing oral histories.  Most of the storytellers were older people with stories that needed to be recorded.  I still remember some of the stories, and these were not people I had ever met.  How much more meaningful are the stories of our family members? 

Here is a short excerpt from my personal history, aptly entitled “Working to Deadline.”  (I called it that because I am a writer, and also because it reminds me that I need to finish it before I die.)

*  *  *

When I was four, Mom bought me a metal dollhouse, and it was full of plastic furniture.  I would set it up and put the furniture in place just the way I wanted it and then two-year-old Richard would toddle over and pick up a couple of handfuls of plastic furniture and throw it on the floor.  I would patiently pick it up and put it back in place only to have him return for more, gleefully laughing as the little plastic sofas and beds bounced across the carpet.  Again I would patiently retrieve my doll furniture and set it back in place.  This scene would play itself out time and time again, until I would finally get mad enough to hit him.  Then I would get in trouble, because I was the big sister and I needed to be nice to my little brother. 

I swear this is still my pattern for dealing with stuff—patience and long-suffering beyond the call of duty until I can’t stand it anymore, and then I explode and let someone have it.

Mom tells of once when we were downtown in Salt Lake and she said, “Susan, hold Richard’s hand while we cross the street so he doesn’t get hit by a car.”

I looked up at her and said sweetly, “No, I want him to get hit by a car.”

*   *   *

It was at my grandmother’s funeral when I heard the story of Grandma and Grandpa’s trip from Idaho to Logan to be married in the temple.  They got to the temple in time for a session only to discover that they needed to go into town and get a marriage license before they could be married.  Grandpa asked if there was any way that they could hold the session for them.  They were informed that they would just have to go get the marriage license and come back the next day to be married.  Grandpa said, “By tomorrow, we won’t be worthy.”  They held the session.

In writing my personal history, my hope is that my grandchildren will hear my stories while I am still alive and won’t be left wishing they had known more.  I will likely never be the dutiful family member who traces the names, dates and places and links the family to Adam, but I just put together a Law Family Trivial Pursuit Game that contains quite a bit of family history.  I am glad there are many ways to contribute to linking the hearts of the children to their fathers.

As a grandmother, I am already starting to collect stories about my grandchildren.  My little three-year-old granddaughter, Lucy, is lots of fun.  She may not have my genes, but she is a kindred spirit.  Recently she gave a reality check to her three-year-old cousin, “No, you’re not Spiderman.  You are wearing Spiderman pajamas.”  Last week I attended her nursery class.  During singing time the chorister selected a child to come up and pick a laminated fish out of her posterboard fishbowl, and she held it to her ear and announced, “The yellow fish wants us to sing Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam.”  Lucy looked at me, rolled her eyes, shrugged her shoulders and said, “What the heck?  Fish can’t talk!”

Little Ellie is almost two and just beginning to talk.  I have taught them both the importance of kind words.  Lucy is a quick study, so now when she wants something from Grandma, “please” is often followed by the phrase “you’re beautiful and skinny.”  Believing one is never too young to learn, I have been working with little Ellie on this as well.  I was driving with her mother recently and we were chatting away.  Then we became aware that Ellie was saying something.  She had dropped her sippy cup and wanted Grandma’s help picking it up.  She was saying over and over again “peese” and “kinny.”  Too much fun!

What will your family lose if you don’t write down the things that make your history unique, that show your personality, that will give future generations a feel for who you really were?

Family history – Are you doing it?