Writing Your Family Story: Tips and Ideas

 This is a cross post from The Marmelade Gypsy for those who follow this blog but not that one.

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For more than five years I've been working on the genealogy of my mom's side of the family and pulling together the stories I've found into a "book" form to share with my cousins and their families.

After hours of research, phone calls and emails with many of my cousins, distant travels and loads of editing and rewriting, it is done. For now.

I consider this a final first draft. As I sent it off to the cousins and their children, I asked them to please let me know if there were corrections or memories that may have been triggered by stories in the book (currently in pdf form, till I hear back).

It clocked in at 300 pages and a little less than 56,000 words, counting the sources and photos. (It would probably be a lot fewer pages with smaller photos, but to me those are important!)

Here are a few thoughts if you are thinking of pulling together your own family story.

Decide on your content style and voice. I don't care all that much about the dates and places, or don't for this purpose. That's fine for the official online family tree. More than fine. Essential. But what mattered to me was the stories -- and when you go back to the 1700s, those can be harder to find. And, I wanted my voice to be conversational, not academic. I want the reader to more or less feel like we are having a talk.

Avoid Confusion. This isn't as easy as it seems! With so many second and third and fourth great grandparents, it was easy to mix up generations (especially when many of them have the same name!). Finally, I decided that any reference would be through my grandparents' perspective. So, J.P.'s great grandfather was referred to in that way, although he would be my mother's second great and my third great. I figured the later generations are smart enough to figure that one out, as long as they know what to look for and it makes it consistent. (Hence, the introduction!)

When doing research, my guess is that you are already mining sites like ancestry, myheritage or familysearch. But don't forget to look not only at census data and similar "legal" documentation but find sites like familysearch.org, hathitrust,org, archive.org and others and google books in which your ancestors might have appeared. I was lucky in that in the 1940s, someone compiled a very full genealogy of this line of the family with names, birthdates and death information, even wills going back to the 1700s. Those make a story.

Speaking of Books -- Tap family Bibles and cookbooks for notes and clippings. A treasure for me is my great grandfather's recipe book. He was a confectioner. I won't be making any of his recipes -- you'd need an enormous, professional kitchen! And a large supply of controlled substances! But I love reading them in his hand.

Tap Your Releatives' Memories -- and Those Who Knew Them. If you are lucky enough to have living parents find out all you can about their lives -- what were their childhoods like, what did they enjoy doing, going, studying? What was life like at home? What were the best and saddest times of their childhoods? How did they meet their spouse? What stories do they remember of their parents and grandparents.

And yes, memories cloud. You may have conflicting information. If you can ferret out a final answer, great but if you can't, list both. (In one case, on a honeymoon location for my aunt and uncle, I took best two out of three memories of my cousins.)

The point is, you're doing the best you can with what you have. People will have different perspectives and that's OK.

As for checking with "the people who knew them," you may find a friend who knew your parent as a child. One of my favorite parts of my "research" was long talks with my mom's childhood best friend who spent summers at the lake with her. She told me so many wonderful family stories, it made that time come alive. Whether it's a friend, neighbor, former colleague -- you may find marvelous information from a conversation.

Check newspaper clippings and other memorabilia you may have in your home. I came from a mom who saved news clips and lots of family ephemera. I learned a great deal about my grandmother who died before I was born by her obituary. News clippings told me of some of the volunteer activities in which my mom and aunt engaged and a wedding announcement for my great grandparents told me a bit about their reception. Some of this is online but check the family lore first. And yes, there are sites like newspapers.com where you can access some of this -- but look home and online first. And don't forget digging through the family Bible or those boxes of drawings and themes that your parents may have saved. The same goes for event programs and letters.

  

Mine letters for information. When my mother was ill, one of my cousins wrote her quite regularly, chatty delightful notes telling about her children and their lives far from my mother's hospital bed. Quoting from those letters not only added color and personality to my story but also said much about the kindness of my cousin and helped tell me more of their family as a young family -- things they didn't think to share when we spoke. Postcards also help tell a story. This one was sent by my grandmother to her neighbor in 1940. I found it at an antiquarian book fair. The card was fun for two reasons -- it showed the cottage area as it was "back then."  

And, it also was the only sample we have our grandmother's writing.

Don't Forget Diaries. I have a stack of about 25 diaries from my paternal grandmother (that's a post in itself!) But from diaries of someone not directly related, I learned the weather on the days that my maternal grandparents died, that one of my cousins had stayed with my other grandparents when her family came to the funeral. They are just little bits that can help enrich your writing and story.

Legal Documents can reveal a good deal. Death certificates can send you back another generation by giving you the name of someone's parents and their birth places. You can also find medical information and cause of death which can be useful in your own history. Other legal documents can help solve mysteries -- we learned my great grandfather was in an asylum for 13 years before he died.

Photos can tell you a lot. Use them in your writing, both as scanned art and to extrapolate information. You will write far livelier descriptions if you have a photo to look at. Did they live on a tree-lined street? What were some of their hobbies? There was no doubt at all when looking at photos of us water skiing as kids or my dad with a pile of fish what some of the family passions were. They give an idea of fashion at the time and a sense of place that words can't alone convey.

Know when to quit -- and when to start again. This can get exhausting. And frustrating (when you send out a request for info and don't get a lot of feedback). So, do something else. Come back to it. I could write more and probably will. But when Covid-19 came along I decided I needed to get a final draft done and distributed so that if I got sick and died that it wouldn't be stuck, incomplete, in my computer.

When I sent it out, I told people to add to it, to tell me things they wanted to include. Then I will print hard copy for people. But for now, stopping is good. It will be equally good when I pick it up again.

Include yourself and your next generation. With something like this it's easy to gloss over your own generation. Don't. The next one will want to know the stories that you and your siblings or cousins shared as much you may want to know your parents. And those memories are the freshest and the ones most easily shared.

Also, find out what you can about your generation's children and grandchildren. It may be sparse. You won't have loads to write about with someone who is still in school or just starting a career. Or eight! But include them and what you know. It is up to them to carry on the story. You are just giving it a head start.

When you're not sure about something, say so. We can often extrapolate information based on location and timing. For example, I don't know why my second great grandparents and their children decided to emigrate from London in the 1850s to America. But I do know that a London cholera breakout occurred within six or eight blocks of their home the year before. I found that fascinating. It may not be why they left, but it may have been a factor. Be sure to indicate if you are making a supposition or educated guess.

It is your story too. So don't forget to include your own memories, anecdotes or experiences. Traveling and discovering the graves of great and second-great grandparents was not only fun but it helped tell the story. I could visualize the road from the house to the Mennonite cemetery by the church and additional research filled in blanks on what that would have looked like back then. You're not telling just names and dates, but stories of lives lived and lost.

Don't forget to include information like an introduction, acknowledgements, appendices, and more. I listed a cast of characters in the beginning from the families involved so readers can go back and say, "now, he was who's son?" I also included scans of death certificates and cause of death, if known, when those weren't available as medical information is important. And do credit the people who helped you because without both moral support and information assistance, it would be a much harder journey. In fact, many of my "cast of characters" shared the best stories of their moms and it made my story all the better for it.

List Sources. You may not have them all, if you collected information some time ago. And this isn't your graduate school dissertation. But if you referred to certain publications or sites for information, it never hurts (and is recommended) to add them. I'm sure you would do a better job than I.

Finally.... some of you may be starting with information already done by another family member! You have options. You can continue simply adding to that or take that information and document and use it as a source to write things your way. 

There are remarkable stories about our family members we never knew -- we just have to find them. I never thought of myself as being from pioneer stock but like descendants of immigrants of the 1700s, I am. In our line we have farmers, business people, artists, weavers, city pioneers. There were Mennonites and mentally ill, candymakers and shoemakers. As I learned about them I found myself researching their occupations and including that information. It helped give context to their lives and stories.

Doing this takes time. Most of the people I know who have become involved in genealogy are older and largely retired. Younger people have children, jobs, and other things eating much of their time. But I would recommend to younger readers to do a couple of things now.

• Save things. Special letters, funeral cards, obituaries, newspaper clips, letters (especially ones that tell something about the person or their times), photos, birth and death certificates, and other information that tells you about someone. You can do it in archival boxes or page protectors or scan items. Just remember to back them up! Media storage will change over time. (Anyone still have 4" floppies you can't access?)
• Talk to the elders. Record them and transcribe or take good notes. They won't be around forever. 
• Record your impressions of others. Were they strong, did they laugh a lot, argue. You'll probably remember most of yours but time changes things.  
• Know your parents' friends and talk to them while you can. Not every friend, of course, but the ones who knew them best. Their memories will make your story richer.  

Don't wait too long. We've seen what has happened with Covid-19, taking more than 232,000 lives in the U.S. alone. A lot of stories died with those men, women and children.

Don't let your stories die when you do.

 

Connecting with Our Great Grandparents in England

If you've been following along here, you know Minnie Wood Leatherman was from Buffalo, New York and moved with her parents, William S. and Elizabeth (Bessie) Wood to Lansing around 1905. We also believe William was born "at sea" (U.S. Census records) and that Bessie was born in England.

For a long while, that's where the chain ended. But going through city directories, we learned her maiden name, Grainger, and ultimately, through census and city directory data, her parents (Stephen and Elizabeth) and siblings (twin Stephen, brother James and possibly sister Mary).

Census data indicated Stephen and Elizabeth came from England with Bessie and young Stephen and James as children. And the hunt was on.

I'm not sure how I stumbled on their Stephen and Elizabeth's marriage data or Bessie and young Stephen's christening info but the spot it revealed was in London -- St. James Church, Piccadilly. So, when Rick and I visited in October (2018), St James was on my "must" list.

And here's how it looked in the 1800s.

(It turned out to be on Rick's list, too, as he learned they have wonderful afternoon recitals there and enjoyed more than one!)

I contacted the secretary of the church who said they didn't have the records on site, but of course the church is there as it has been since the 1600s. It's a Christopher Wren building, quite unlike his more massive domed structures such as St. Paul's.

While Rick was enjoying a piano recital, I took a look around. One of the first things I noticed was the Grinling Gibbons baptismal font which dates back to the early days of the church and certainly before the twins' christening in 1852 or their parents' marriage at St. James two years earlier.

Gibbons was a Dutch/English sculptor and wood carver and was known for his work in England, including St. Paul's, Windsor Castle and many others. Regarded as the finest wood carver in England and the only one whose name is well known to non-students, he tended to work in lime wood and stone.

At St. James, he carved both the baptismal font, depicting Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and a wooden altarpiece or reredo, as well as the pulpit. His wood work here was in his favorite lime wood.

St. James had quite a reputation in its early days as the church of the very wealthy and indeed, it was said that buying a seat for a service in the 1700s cost more than a ticket to the theatre. But by the 1800s they had built benches for the poor. It is likely that shoemaker Stephen and his wife were more likely to be in these more humble seats than the pews.

The church itself is filled with light. It's high ceiling is accented in gold. After severe devastation during World War II, the church was restored and more than four thousand books of gold leaf were used on the ceiling and pillars.

It was interesting and somewhat emotional for me to stand at the back of the church's center aisle, looking at the magnificent Grinling carving at the altar and imagining Elizabeth walking down that aisle to meet Stephen. Of course, it may not have happened that way at all. They may well have come in by the side or married in the parish house. We don't know. What we do know is that they had witnesses (whose names we would later discover). Whether Elizabeth's father, Hugh Davies, was present or Stephen's father, Michael Grainger, we don't know. Both would have traveled far distances to come and it was 1850s. Travel was not easy for the common man.

Equally moving was to walk to the font, which is located near the left wall at the rear of the church. And again, imagination comes into play -- and this time, probably quite close. The parish priest or one of his associates would have baptised the twins with water from the Gibbons font, with Stephen and Elizabeth holding them, one each.

The church was once the parish to the wealthy and has many plaques honoring its members. One of particular interest is in memory of Richard Croft. He was the person overseeing the care of Princess Charlotte, George IV's daughter, during her pregnancy. His methods were highly unorthodox and the baby died, and Charlotte shortly thereafter. The death of Charlotte had some repercussions. After another of his patients died in similar circumstances, Croft committed suicide. He wasn't allowed to be buried on holy ground but some years later after the controversy had subsided, this plaque was installed in his memory.

The other consequence? Charlotte's death left England without a direct heir and his niece, Victoria, came to the throne upon his death.

While the church gives us a sense of place, it didn't provide the records. For these we had to go to the Westminster Archives. Here we unearthed that Elizabeth was a spinster and Stephen a bachelor and we can see their handwriting.

And we also learned the names and occupations of both Stephen and Elizabeth's parents -- these would be our third great grandfathers. Michael Grainger was a farmer. Hugh Davies was a mechanic. (We will never be likely to know what brought Stephen or Elizabeth to London). John and Ellen McCarthy were their witnesses. Who were they? Siblings to either Stephen or Elizabeth? Neighbors? Another mystery.

 Here's a better look.

 Our research at the archives also indicated that the couple resided at 71 Wells Street. This is Bessie and Stephen's christening record.

So, we were off on another quest. This is the site they lived in when Minnie's parents were born and from where they emigrated.

As you can see, the lower floor facade has been entirely modernized. But the upper floors seem consistent with the Jacobean and Elizabethan architecture style popular in the 19th century. (Thank you, Jenny Woolf, for that and information on the Wells Street neighborhood.) The neighborhood was active at this time (and had been since the 1700s), just off Oxford Street and a short walk from the site where Stephen went to work as a shoemaker. Rick and I disagree on this but I find it highly likely this is the original building or if not, was built shortly after as part of St. Andrew's school. (Update: this building was built for the school on the site of Elizabeth and Stephen's home several years after they emigrated to America.)

There will always be unanswered questions. And I'm pretty curious about Elizabeth Davies Grainger's Welsh family. Perhaps another search. Until then, some questions answered, some local color. A sense of time and place. And many more to ponder.

Henry's Story (A Repost from Marmelade Gypsy)

This post originally appeared in its entirety on The Marmelade Gypsy in August 2018.
 
Henry is the secret of my mother's family. Everyone has one -- a family secret, something that hasn't been passed from one generation to the next because it may have been too scandalous, too embarrassing, too-something. A secret that stopped with one person who never passed it along. (I fear this post is terribly long -- too long for some of you! But so many asked about the asylum, I really couldn't break it up into two posts.)

My mother and her sisters never knew their grandfather. My own grandfather's refusal to discuss it led to speculation. Was he a drunkard? Did his wife leave him? Why did my grandfather say he was "raised" by his older sister? What was his father's name?

His name was Henry and he was a Mennonite farmer with six children, my grandfather being the second-to-last of them. He was born in Ohio, his father part of a line that came over in the 1700s and his mother a Canadian whose ancestor, Nicholaus Erb emigrated from Switzerland to Germany in the 1600s, then to America and finally Canada. Henry moved to Ionia County, Michigan where he had what appears to be a relatively prosperous farm on 100 acres. He died in Traverse City, Michigan at the Northern Michigan Asylum, after living there for thirteen years. When he was committed, he was considered a pauper.

No one knows what it was that sent Henry, over the edge, dealing with mental illness in 1900. Probate records including medical reports by two different doctors spoke of delusions, visions, voices, mania, belief in supernatural powers. He was interviewed in the county jail and had $2.50 to his name when my grandfather, his brother and sister had him committed.

We can only guess that the fortunes of his farm had suffered. We do know that sixteen years earlier his wife had died, some of his children had moved away from the farm and that six years prior, over a two-week period, both a married daughter and his youngest son died. Did grief send this 63-year-old Mennonite farmer who loved music into a despair that evolved into mental illness? Or was this some genetic issue? We still don't know.

And would this have happened today? Remember, in 1900, one could be admitted to the asylum for any number of reasons. These might include epilepsy, depression (post-partum and otherwise), alcoholism, mental retardation, even menopause. Little was required to start the process -- fill out a form, have the judge sign off. By 1900, two doctors had to sign off on Henry's case before the probate judge approved the petition.

It was Henry's story that made me want to see the place where he spent the last sixteen years of his life, the Northern Michigan Asylum. Now a condo/shopping/dining complex, the buildings have been, in part, restored, maintaining the original brick and many features of its early existence, which hark back to 1885. While the main building of the complex has been altered to suit today's diners and shoppers, some of the remaining outbuildings of the asylum remain unrestored, in partial ruin. (Below, the music room in one of the men's residence halls.)

• It is important to remember that what I write here about treatment at the asylum and mental health is as it was reflected during Henry's time -- 1900-1913. As time moved forward, treatments changed, wards became over crowded and perceptions of mental illness evolved. The Northern Michigan Asylum, later the Traverse City State Hospital, achieved a much dodgier, less compassionate reputation. I'm focusing on the earlier days for the majority of this post; some thoughts on the later years near the end.

The asylum was built on what was known as the Kirkbride Plan. Thomas Story Kirkbride was a psychiatrist who, while traveling in Europe, learned of how Quaker sanitariums were managed. They operated on a moral compass, with the belief that beauty and love were the best possible therapies for one dealing with diseases of the mind.

Kirkbride brought this concept back to the United States in the design of many sanitariums and asylums around the country. The Northern Michigan Asylum consisted of numerous buildings including one very long, segregated unit -- men on one side of the quarter mile building, women on the other and administration in the center. This Italianate-style of architecture featured elegant cupolas which provided a dual purpose in the ventilation system. The infirmary and chapel were also in this building.

The grounds included additional residence buildings homes for inmates as well as numerous farm buildings.

Each patient room had a 12-foot ceiling, a window with discreet security mesh "bars," and art was plentiful on the walls. (If you look carefully at the photo below you will notice a discreet steel or similar mesh on the bedroom window.)

Fixtures on the heating vents were made of intricately scrolled ironwork and chair rails along the halls were polished to a shine.

Even the floor of the showers featured a tiled mosaic (remember, this was before the days of laying mesh-backed tile) with a pattern. All this work was done by hand.

Armchairs and tables -- many made in the workshops of the asylum by the inmates themselves -- were comfortably placed in hallways. Inspiring quotes and sayings were stenciled on the walls.

Remember -- construction on the buildings of the asylum began in 1883 and was finished two years later, a massive project when one considers that the motorized equipment we associate with buildings such as this did not exist at that time. Yet it featured a central heating system and electric lights. The ventilation system was state-of-the-art for the period, designed to alleviate the recycling of air to prevent the spread of disease.

Beneath the property, an underground system of tunnels allowed staff to move from one area to the other without having to bundle up to go outdoors in the cold Michigan winters. (The tunnels remain one of the "high points" on the tour for some of the participants. They are musty, dim, dank, with spiders clustered on the overhead pipes and awkward, uneven floors.)

The residence buildings had a music room and large dining hall and kitchen. Residents ate off of white tablecloths and many would have contributed to some way to the meal, whether it was through gathering and tending to the produce or caring for the extensive dairy herd.

It's curious to imagine what Henry would have thought of this place upon arrival -- if he had the capacity to think much about it at all. He was a Mennonite farmer who lived a simple and perhaps somewhat austere life. He probably would have been accompanied to the asylum by train, arriving in Traverse City in March, long before spring had come to Northern Michigan. Unlike the day we visited in August, when Henry came through the drive pictured below, it would have been cold and no doubt snowy. More than likely he was transported to the asylum by carriage. The first automobile was driven in Traverse City in 1899 and while the asylum may have been an early adapter, that is unknown. Did any of his children accompany him on that journey? No one knows.

Upon arrival, Henry would have seen (if, indeed, he was aware) a long, elegant building of golden brick and many windows. After intake and exam he would have been assigned a room either in the main building or one of the residence halls, and eventually a job.

Everyone at the asylum was given a job, a way to contribute. This served a double purpose -- it not only helped the institution become self sustaining, it also provided a sense of personal value and self worth to the inmate. They may work in the gardens or woodworking shop or on the land.

I would like to think that Henry found a spot working on the rich northern Michigan farmland, perhaps in the orchards or with the livestock.

Superintendent James Munson believed strongly in Kirkbride's Beauty Is Therapy approach, which was at the time, a revolutionary concept. Remember, this was more than a half-century before psychiatric drugs were first used. Munson believed that the emotional well-being of a patient would be enhanced by a beautiful environment, inside and out. Gardens, orchards and farmland was visible from the windows in each patient's room.

No strait jackets or restraining devices were permitted except in extreme cases. Munson felt the patients were now "home" and the environment should reflect this. Henry would have joined his fellow inmates in the dining hall at a table with a white linen cloth and fine china that was marked with the state seal. His table -- and other areas in the buildings -- would have fresh flowers from the asylum's prolific greenhouse (which delivered blooms and produce in all seasons). Staff dined on an elevated platform (barely visible at the right in the photo below) so they could keep an eye on their patients.

The beauty is therapy approach was also the reason great care was taken to include art and music as part of the inmate's daily life. Inspirational sayings would be stenciled to the walls and the halls were lined with art. It is said that Henry was a wonderful singer and perhaps he found some joy in singing with the others.

It is easy for me to imagine that Henry was in a good place for the last years of his life. Photos of the asylum paint a pleasant picture and wouldn't we all like to spend our last days, if not at home, in a place where we were surrounded by beauty, felt a sense of personal worth and value and were well cared for?

These may be rose colored glasses and I freely admit it. We don't know how ill Henry really was or if he was a danger to himself or others. Did this beautiful environment of white tablecloths, art and fine china fly in the face of his more simple upbringing? Did his family visit him? Today it takes four hours by car to get to Traverse City from Lansing where my grandfather lived. In 1900 one would travel by train and even during Henry's lifetime when the auto came into somewhat more common use, the trip would take two or three days. The journey wouldn't have been an easy one.

I mentioned earlier that the asylum had its bad days, too. It evolved into the Traverse City State Hospital. Our guide tells us that as a school boy, he would visit as part of his classroom activities, spending time with the residents, much as school children today might visit a nursing home. But he also recalls people at the gates and the windows screaming to be let out.

And therapies changed. Electric shock therapy and insulin therapy (in which one is put into an insulin coma and removed from it before they die, returning docile -- until it needed to be repeated) were two of the more extreme therapies that evolved as the century progressed. Lobotomies became more common -- often with disastrous results.

Rooms became wards and wards became crowded -- not just here but at other such places as well. Eventually, many of these state hospitals or asylums were closed and their populations simply released into the streets where many became homeless or imprisoned.

Commenter Karen mentioned in my "birthday" post where I first spoke of the asylum that her grandmother's sister was admitted to this asylum when she was 14 years old and died there at 104 and said that "It was a horrible place." Author Steve Luxemberg, in his profoundly beautiful and moving memoir/investigative work "Annie's Ghosts," speaks of another Michigan institution called Eloise and of his family secret, an aunt named Annie, who spent many years there. It is likely that had Annie's story been one of today, she would have lived her life independently or in a group home.

There is much to be said, good and bad, about the evolution of mental health in the years since Henry was in Traverse City. On the good side, many medications can help those once "locked up" deal with depression and other even more significant mental illnesses. Psychiatry and counseling have lost the stigma they once had. For some, group homes or mental health financial assistance make relatively independent living possible.

On the down side, many can't afford to seek help or pay for their medications. Countless people who could be helped may well be living on the streets or in jails. Too many fall through the cracks and sometimes those who most need a patient advocate to work through the complexities of the system may not even know what a patient advocate is. Their worlds are crumbling in much the same way as the unrestored buildings of the asylum itself.

Chances are likely that if we look around us, we will know at least one -- and probably a good many more -- individuals who, during Henry's era, and even many years after -- could well have been an inmate at the Northern Michigan Asylum or some other mental health institution. Some now lead seemingly perfectly normal lives and yet their interior world may be a private hell. Others may have issues more obvious. And some have found the support and assistance they need, perhaps with well regulated medication combined with a solid human support system.

All are human beings who deserve to be heard, to be respected. We may not always understand. But we can try.

The archival photographs in this post are from the book "Angels in the Architecture: A Photogrpahic Elegy to an American Asylum" by Heidi Johnson. That, an other books on the asylum (later Traverse City State Hospital) are available at Amazon.

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