History Close to Home

My first home in Tampa, Hyde Park, 1990, Built 1921

My family of dearest friends and fellow writers all believe that our history is important to our children and grandchildren’s lives, but not to them, yet. My adult children are repeating my life.  Just as they are now, I was also a busy young parent. Little time or interest was left for researching family history. I figured there would always be time to do so, when I had the time. History was the past. I was busy navigating the present.

I recently read a poignant and heartwarming story in Cedar Valley News, “The Chair at the Kitchen Table” by LeNora Conkle published by Evan Swensen’s Publication Consultants and Writers Book club. LeNora Conkle homesteaded in Alaska with her husband, Bud, in the 1960s. One morning when LeNora was seventy-five Bud’s chair at the kitchen table remained empty. LeNora realized she was the only holder of all their shared memories. If she didn’t write the stories down, they would vanish. She waited until she was ready. Ten years after Bud’s absence, when LeNora was eighty-five, she began writing.  She wrote, and wrote and wrote, eventually publishing five books. She began “reaching for the shape of a story Bud told a hundred times, finding only silence where his voice used to be.” She was writing memories. She was sharing and documenting the history of her and Bud’s lives together. She was keeping their history alive.

My Great-Grandfather Gerard Albert Plage

My great Grandmother, Jenny, around 1900

I have always been a lover of history. During my many childhood visits to the library I haunted the biography, history and autobiography shelves. The first book that captured me was in the fourth grade.  I read a biography of Ethan Allen. It was then I was bitten by the history bug. Wow! I thought. Real people, living real lives that are now part of history! At the time, I had not the least interest in family history.

  I advanced to fiction based on historical eras.  I was enraptured by Wuthering Heights. I saw myself sitting on a fence in the rain, waiting for Heathcliff’s return. I heard the whispers and cries of his and Cathy’s ghosts laughing as they ran over those ancient English moors. Eventually, I discovered Kate Bush and her song, “Wuthering Heights.” I was enthralled. Whenever I need a lift I watch Kate Bush on YouTube performing “Wuthering Heights, singing and dancing in her famous red dress across meadows, our country’s version of moors. My granddaughter, Kyndal, shares my love of Kate Bush’s red-dress dance and performs it perfectly. I can’t keep up with her kicks and spins.

Research has shown that crows, and other birds, remember human faces, the particular way we walk, even our voices. When a human is dangerous, crows retain this individual's traits into their collective memory to alert other birds to this particular human hazard. The amazing fact is that their memories are passed down through generations. Is it bred into their genes and genetic memory? Years after a crow has flown off and disappeared forever, the original alert remains. The crow’s descendants sound the same alarm their parents and grandparents screamed years before about the same dangerous individual. I wish I could retain the memory of everything my mother and father said, the sound of their voices, and the way they walked or what their mannerisms were. Just like crows.

My grandparents, as newlyweds, Mae and Henry, 1910

My own story mimics my mother’s life and history, decades apart. We have many similarities in our separate journeys. I remember asking my grandmother what events she recalled of her life in the late 1800s. “I don’t remember,” she would always say. My disappointment, on the eve of my blossoming interest in history, was overwhelming. I would not let my mother avoid my own quest for her history. Over the years I badgered her for her stories. She would always say, “Oh, Janie, I don’t want to talk about all that old stuff.”

History is the backbone of every family, bred into our DNA, hearts and souls. It is the fiber, the tissue, the genetic memories, connecting us to our past. I  did not become interested in my mother and father’s history until I had the time, and the curiosity to do so. As with my own children today, I was busy raising them, keeping my household together, going to and from the kids' activities, and advancing my career. When I was in my forties and my children were in college I had more free time. I turned to my mother for the answers to questions I previously had not had the time, or interest, to ask.

Today, my children are always very busy, busy, busy, just as I was. The sad fact of life is that finally, when we are no longer busy and have the time and the desire to delve into our family history, it may be too late.  Elder relatives might no longer be with us, or their memories have become fuzzy, or are entirely absent. When I began the march into my seventies I was faced with this ugly truth: I have more years behind me than in front of me. I would love to share my history with my children, and have done so through my writing. Every book I have written holds facts of my life, breadcrumbs to my past. 

These breadcrumbs always lead back to my mother. As Mom grew older, she finally began

confiding in me. I plumbed the depths of her memories over martini-soaked lunches and dinners. I took notes of her stories, her expressions, anything and everything. She drew maps for me on cocktail napkins, remembering perfectly her walk to her first school, PS 65, on Bushwick Avenue in Brooklyn. She laughed over the recollection of something my father said or did. She cried recalling the night he died in her arms when she was only forty-eight.  I wanted all the answers while my mother was still with me and able to unravel the past. I was fascinated with every story, journey, and bit of history she unearthed. At Marina Jacks, the Inn Between, or at my kitchen table she wove her stories. She and I would watch the waves on Siesta Key Bay as the ships bobbed their aquatic dance. We were bathed in sunbeams from my kitchen windows as her famous Tomato Basil Marinara simmered on the stove. She would spin her tales from the cobwebs of memories and I wrote, and wrote and wrote, just as LeNora Conkle did before her death at the age of 103.

Family letters 1936-1958

Years ago Tim and I purchased a property in Oregon. We cleaned out the house with all the art, craft projects, photographs and journals left by the woman who had lived there. I begged her son to come to pick up her belongings. I was certain he wouldn’t want to leave these relics of her life behind. I was wrong. As Evan Swensen wrote, he had witnessed the same loss of artifacts from past lives on numerous occasions. The children carried the manuscripts, journals, and letters to the curb, saying, “We didn’t know what to do with them.” Just as we did, leaving the woman’s belongings on Goodwill and Salvation Army counters. We kept one tiny bit of her history, a beautiful oil painting she created of the Oregon Coast, which now hangs on our wall.

My mother has now departed to her favorite cocktail party in the sky, where I’m certain she is entertaining her friends and relatives. I am fortunate to have published my mother’s life, in one form or another, in memoir, novels, journals and blogs. I have shared her photographs with my grandchildren. I have kept all the love letters she and my father wrote to one another.  “Time is not waiting for you. It never was. I’m not asking for you to write a masterpiece. I’m asking you to write one thing you’re afraid of forgetting….before another season turns. Write it for the child who will someday sit at your table and wish they had asked.” (Evan Swensen)

Make the time, no matter how busy you are, to ask questions. Dig into your family history and you will learn your own. Press those reluctant to “tell all those old stories.”  You don’t need to write a masterpiece or a memoir. Just write and remember, on a legal pad, in a notebook or on a cocktail napkin. 

Don’t wait until another chair is empty at the kitchen table.

Mom and Dad, the night of his death, July 7, 1958