since she was a teen.
You can give a priceless Christmas gift to your family, and it won’t cost anything but some time. The gift is a booklet of your special memories.
You may think that you aren’t a talented writer, but you don’t have to know grammar and punctuation rules to communicate with your family. If you can’t type or use a computer, your handwritten pages will be treasured by your children and grandchildren. You may think that your life hasn’t been eventful enough to be interesting, but your experiences are unique and will record a different kind of life than your grandchildren will experience.
Get started by writing about your everyday life, especially how your early life was different than today’s. For instance, many folks my age and older from Bergton, Criders, and Fulks Run went to one- or two-room schools like Caplinger and Genoa before Bergton Elementary and Fulks Run Elementary opened. If you are one of those students, you well-remember having three or four grades in one room with a rest room outside and no cafeteria. My husband Dan recalls walking to Miller Turner’s store at lunch to buy a bologna sandwich when he was a first grader at Caplinger School.
Fulks Run Elementary has changed since 1961. Grades 1 through 6 each had a teacher, but the principal was also the seventh grade teacher. There was one classroom per grade, and though some grades had up to 40 students, there were no aides, no music teacher, no librarian, no physical ed teachers.
Recording your school experiences is a good place to start your memory book. Where did you go to school? How was school different when you went compared to now? Who were some of your teachers? What was your favorite subject?
There are services online that can help you get started if you use a computer or smart phone. For example, you want to get your Mom to record her stories. Storyworth.com lets you choose one question per week that it sends to her automatically. She answers just that question online, and Storyworth sends her answer to the list of people she has chosen to receive the answers. I’m sure there are other similar services. An older friend of mine wrote that she and her sister took turns staying home from school on wash day to help their mother carry water from the creek to do the family’s wash.
I treasure memory books from local people. Herman Turner, father of Clayton, Larry, and Roger Turner and Mary Turner Hinkle Dove, wrote of everyday activities such as corn planting and harvesting, planting wheat, threshing time, poultry growing, and making sauerkraut. In “Laundry at the river” Herman wrote that his mother and sisters took dirty laundry to the river where they had a small shelter containing the tubs, washboards, and other equipment. They dipped river water into the kettles and boiled the clothes. Herman wrote more than a page about Bell Snickeling (belsnickling) that was popular when he was young.
Shirley Cullers Miller wrote “Growing up in Bennetts Run at Bergton, Virginia” with chapters on Gathering, Foods that We Ate, When Babies Came, Sickness, and other topics. She added family photos and drawings. Shirley’s mother used natural remedies for illnesses, like peppermint tea for an upset stomach. A thin layer from a hornets nest stopped bleeding from cuts and bruises. Shirley recorded a neighborly tradition of holding a Pounding for new homeowners. Goldie Middleton sponsored a Pounding for Shirley and her husband “Bud” Miller where the neighborhood was invited to bring a pound of items, such as a pound of butter, coffee, rice, cheese, or sugar. When everyone had gathered, Goldie served refreshments.
Rev. Joseph Webster Lantz of Criders kept a journal intermittently from 1905 until 1948. His journal recorded life as he lived it, not looking back on his youth, so it is a little different than a memory book. In 1905, Rev. Lantz was a young man in North Dakota where he was baptized by immersion in Painted Wood’s Creek. By 1908 he had moved home to Criders. He preached in school houses like Shaver and Hupp and at churches, traveling by foot or horse in the first years of his journal. Rev. Lantz mentions many names of community folks. On March 19, 1911, he preached the last sermon in the old log church on Crab Run. The next month it was torn down and replaced by the current Crab Run Church of the Brethren. In 1911, schools closed for the summer in early March (Hupp, Caplinger, and Mountain Top).
Priceless memories. They’ll be treasured. Please share a copy with me.
Photos:
3336 cropped.jpg Rev. J. Webster Lantz preaching at Damascus Church of the Brethren.
