Family Stories - Write it Down

[Wayne and Carolyn Mathews]

You are so right, Parrothead. My parents and my husband's parents are long gone, so we'll never know a lot of our family history. Part of the problem in not learning it when everyone was still alive was that my mother was pretty close-mouthed about a lot of her history. My mother-in-law told us detail after detail of her family history. However, she changed the facts, faces, and places, to suit her fancy, and none of the stories ever matched. We didn't mind that too much, because everything she said was so funny.

I do have a lot of letters my mother and father exchanged before they married. My mom was teaching school in Wallis, Texas, and she created a scandal when she and my dad took a picnic lunch down to the San Bernard River during one lunch hour. Alone! An unmarried teacher with a MAN! She almost lost her job once because the senior play, which she was in charge of, had a boy kiss a girl on the cheek in one scene. That's funny now, but it wasn't then; her letter to my father about that incident was heartbreaking. She loved her job and was terrified that the school board would indeed revoke her contract. Later, My mother took a graduate class taught by J. Frank Dobie at the University of Texas. She had to submit a paper to him, and I still have that work with Mr. Dobie's comments and correction as well as his signature on it. I'm a Dobie fan, so that paper means a lot to me.

Journaling is more than a way to record events. It's a way to learn who you are, because as you write in a journal, you think, react, relive, and have time to examine so many aspects of your life that flew by when they were happenning. I require that my senior students do a "My Life" journal as the final activity the year. They have ten areas such as most terrifying moment, an object that means a lot to them, favorite pet, etc., and they have to write a one-page personal essay for each topic and include a photo that suitably illustrates that topic. Boy, you should hear the griping and moaning and groaning when that assignment is made . . . followed later by the begging to extend the assignment, usually prefaced by "Can I add a topic because I want to write about . . . "

Write on!

Carolyn