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Bringing Family's Stories to Life for the Next Generations
Lil Blume leads workshops about writing family stories.
Often people who come to the workshops have already done genealogical research, and gathered a great deal of family history information, but they are looking for a way to bring it to life.
She encourages participants to start by talking about the their favorite anecdotes, and then start writing them down bit by bit. She helps people form writing groups to share stories and encourage each other.
Lil says that writing the stories helps people to remember details and become more attached to the stories and the people in them. She finds that people come to understand themselves better, and by sharing the stories in their families, they open new doors for family closeness.
Pam Hitchcock tells about her experience in Ryerson's Recording Recollections program, explaining that it is not a typical adult education course, but rather an interesting mix of people who get together to inspire each other to write their family stories.
For Pam, the meetings motivate her to write new material each week so she has something to share with the group. Hearing other peoples' stories inspires her with new ideas to write about from her own family experience. Her primary audience is her family, but sometimes the Recollections group reads their work to seniors' groups or to school children.
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