How to Tell Your Life Story One Memory at a Time

Transcript:

Host (Heather Haunert):
Hi everyone, and welcome to The Family Treehouse, a podcast series brought to you by Storied, where I chat with people that have a passion for genealogy, storytelling, or both.

I am your host, Heather Haunert, and boy are you in for a treat today. I get to chat with Dr. Flora Brown — she is, in my opinion, the ultimate storytelling resource.

Flora is a certified Guided Autobiography Facilitator. She has courses, she has books, and resources galore on her website. She is just the epitome of an expert when it comes to writing life stories.

So welcome, Flora.

Guest (Flora Brown):
Thank you, Heather, very much. Super excited to chat with you today, and I think our listeners and viewers are in for a real treat today.

Host:
So, Flora, why don’t you tell us a little bit about your background — how you got started in the field of family history and/or storytelling. Anything you want to tell us.

Guest:
The beginning would have to go back to my childhood, because I am from an era when children were to be seen and not heard.

My mother owned a home-based beauty shop, which means that the first room of our house — instead of being a living room — was the beauty shop.

And I had two sisters; we were just a year, a year and a half apart. They loved to go outside and play, but I loved to listen to the women’s stories in the beauty shop.

As you know, most hairstylists are therapists — women come and share their stories of woe (and usually many of them woe), and I used to love to listen to those stories… until I got caught.

Then my mother would say, “What are you doing sitting over there? Go outside.”

So I got fascinated with listening to the women’s stories.

The other thing that influenced my childhood was my father. He used to take me and my two sisters to the movie theater every Saturday of my childhood — a great way to get us out of my mother’s way, because Saturdays were the busiest day of the beauty shop. She could not be managing her customers and worrying where we were.

He would grab us up and take us to the movies, and we would be there all day, almost to the end.

So here I’m listening to the stories of the women in the beauty shop, and I’m watching all of the movies that came out in the 1950s.

I had visions of life in the Hollywood version, and then I had the real-life people.

I began to use their stories as my guide as to how I wanted to live my life. Adults used to always tell us, when we wanted to have our freedom, “When you’re 18, you’ll be grown and you can do what you want.”

That comforted me as a kid, because other kids would fight with their parents, and I’d keep thinking, “When I’m 18, I can do what I want.”

I began to listen to these stories and think about, “I don’t want my life to be like that. I’m going to do it this way, and that way.”

Matter of fact, I have a four-minute video that I made with a digital storyteller that talks about the impact of stories from that beginning. That’s kind of how I got into it.

Of course, I had relatives and my mother’s friends who would always be sharing stories — but they weren’t talking to us; they were having their own conversations.

If you asked a question, they wouldn’t always want to give you the answer, because they were very protective of their secrets.

A lot of things we didn’t find out.

Later, as I became more interested in genealogy — being a child of formerly enslaved people — there are only so many generations you can go back for genealogical information.

So the stories I was getting from all over, I just became more and more fascinated.

And I fell in love with school from day one — even before I went. That’s a whole story too.

Stories have always been a part of my life. It drives my kids nuts because… you have to tell your story.

Host (laughs):
I think all of us parents have that same problem. We will not be revered in our own lifetime with our children.

Host:
I want to just touch briefly on the comment you made about how, generationally, they held on to certain secrets they didn’t want those stories to come out.

I think that’s hard, because even though they’re hard stories and they don’t necessarily want them told, they’re still part of our story — and they need to be told.

Guest:
They didn’t understand the value of sharing those hardship stories. Occasionally they would, if it had a heroic outcome.

You know, the ones about “I walked to school uphill both ways” — those they would tell when we complained. But for the most part, they didn’t trust us with that information.

And in some cases, who knows what kinds of things they were hiding? Things that, to our generation, might not be as important, but to them they were very important.

Sometimes I think about — visualize — how people who were enslaved… a lot of people don’t realize that enslaved people weren’t allowed to read or to learn to read or to write.

We were property. You weren’t expected to have stories and celebrate your achievements and resilience.

So that’s part of the reason that learning about our relatives is so fascinating. I got more and more interested in that as I grew up — and I still am.

As a genealogist, I keep telling Toiya I’m in the kindergarten level with genealogy, because it’s a huge, huge field. But it’s extremely important.

Host:
Agreed. Why do you think storytelling is such an important part of that family history component?

In the past, it hasn’t always been so front and center like it is now. Why is it so important?

Guest:
It’s important because the photos, the memorabilia, the certificates, the marriage licenses — all those things genealogists find and document — are wonderful, but they are flat without the stories that go with them.

You can look at a still photo and see these happy people — well, matter of fact, in the old days they didn’t smile much in photos the way we do now.

There are stories behind those pictures. Until we know the stories, we don’t really know the whole thing. We don’t have all the context and pieces.

And those stories are important because they guide us — those of us who are reading them — in several ways. They encourage us. They make us proud. They give us tenacity when we find out what our loved ones went through.

It doesn’t even have to be our loved ones. If you hear someone sharing their story of overcoming, let’s say, a health issue that you have — but you haven’t told anyone because you think you’re the only one in the world with that condition — and then you hear someone you admire sharing all they’ve gone through to keep living their life, even with that illness, it’s encouraging.

It gives you a lift. You think, “Oh wow — if she can still get on stage and perform even though she has this illness, wow…”

That story is very important. It helps save other people’s lives. It gives them encouragement.

Yet the old-timers didn’t see it that way. I can understand them, because some of the things they might have wanted to share… if those things got out to certain people, it could have impacted their lives — even ended their lives.

Host:
Those stories and secrets were kept pretty close to the vest.

Guest:
Very close to the vest.

Host:
Flora, I know there are lots of different ways to go about writing a story, and every person is different. But talk to us about how you go about it — what is your process when you’re writing a story?

Guest:
Okay, let me tell you how I got to my process.

About four or five years before I retired, my oldest daughter gave me a book — as a matter of fact, I have it here — called The Book of Myself.

It’s a book with all these questions — prompts — and you just go through and write the answers down.

This is what I was supposed to use when I retired to start my “autobiography.” She called it that, but really it’s a misnomer — it’s a memoir or a life story.

So I started it very dutifully the first year I retired… and I only got about four or five pages into it before I just… I didn’t like approaching it that way.

Many people will tell you — or think — that you should do a chronological story. Someone even said, “Just number pages with the years of your life and go through chronologically.”

That didn’t work for me either.

What did work for me came from two influences.

One — I ran across a book written by a poet laureate from Mississippi. Her book is Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs by Beth Ann Fennelly.

I don’t know how I ran across it — maybe in a used bookstore — but I see she autographed it.

I fell in love with the format because she tells separate little stories. They’re not in any particular order (though you could put them in order if you wanted). Some are just a paragraph, some are two pages, some are four.

I loved that.

Two — when I started decluttering, I realized that every time I ran across something, it would trigger a memory.

Even little things, like handkerchiefs. In fourth grade, our teacher gave us a special award if we brought a handkerchief to class. She thought young ladies (and gentlemen) should always have one.

These weren’t my childhood handkerchiefs, but ones a girlfriend had found at swap meets and given to me. I had three, and they reminded me of that fourth grade teacher and how important it was to her.

Every time I ran across something, I’d go, “Oh my gosh, that reminds me of…” — and I’d write.

Sometimes just reading a book would do it. Once, while decluttering books, I flipped through one I’d never read and saw a sentence: “Something was wrong.”

Immediately, I thought of the time I was invited to be the guest speaker at my childhood church after getting my degree. It was Mother’s Day, and when I finished speaking, the pastor’s wife’s expression told me something was wrong.

Those three words — “something was wrong” — reminded me of that entire situation, decades later.

The key is: you have to hurry and write it down. It doesn’t have to be the whole story — just as much as came to mind.

That’s how I started my technique, which I call one memory at a time.

My goal was to build up to 52 stories, like Beth Ann did. It doesn’t have to be any set number — whatever you want.

It started a gusher for me. The least little thing I see can become a story. And the good thing about decluttering is you can take a photo of something (like those three handkerchiefs), give the object away, and still write the story it triggered.

Guest (continued):
Every time you think of something, you have to write it down.

It’s not going to be the finished story — it’s the idea. And it’s amazing how little you have to write to jog your memory later.

One of the things that Tania does — that I got the idea from — is she’ll just write something like “a story about the time that…” and a couple of words.

Once you capture that, you’ll be able to recall the rest because the memory is there — you just need to learn how to retrieve it.

Host:
Yes. When I hit midlife, I started keeping a journal beside my bed for that very reason. I’d wake up in the middle of the night and — if I didn’t write it down — I’d forget it by morning.

Guest:
You’ll forget it even within a few minutes.

There are times when I don’t have — well, I have plenty of journals — but I might not have one nearby.

The other day, I was going through old planners — the old-fashioned kind — from 2004. I was looking at all the little scribbles of places I went, things I did.

In the back, I had a list of things I did when I went to Santa Fe, New Mexico, to a special Catholic church that they believe Jesus Christ visited. They have a whole story about it.

I went there because I saw it on television and wanted to see it for myself. I hadn’t journaled about it back then, but I’d written notes in my planner.

Now I’m going to have to get that story into Storied.

Anyplace you can write it — do it. If it’s by your bed, great. But you might not be by your bed when the idea comes.

Fortunately, our cell phones are very handy — you can record audio or create a document and save it there.

There are so many productivity tools — like Notion, and others — where you can capture things and develop them later.

But you have to capture it when the idea comes, or it will zip back into the vault — and who knows when it will come out again.

Host:
For sure.

Let’s talk for just a minute — there are so many different tools out there. Do you have any resources or tools you recommend for anyone wanting to get started with either researching their family history or writing their family stories?

Guest:
One of the best resources for me — and many others — is what my niece calls the University of YouTube.

If you go there with a question — especially about technology, editing, or anything like that — you’ll find company tutorials, but also reviewers and people who give their opinions.

Another thing I tell people: find the people who are doing what you want to do and see how you can affiliate with them or join their community.

Libraries have community programs. Colleges have community programs beyond academics.

You find somebody, or a group, doing what you want to do — there’s no substitute for community.

We can all get a book (and there are thousands on how to write a memoir or life story). Journals with prompts are good.

But working in community, whether free or paid, helps you stay encouraged — because we get discouraged so fast.

We compare ourselves to people who are a zillion miles ahead of us.

And with life stories, everybody doesn’t want to publish them for the general public. My favorite target audience are people who want to write their stories but don’t know where to start.

They’re insecure. They wonder how much to tell. They have fears. They don’t want to publish on Amazon — they just want to preserve their stories for their family.

On Facebook, there are thousands of writing groups. Join and leave as needed. Over time, you build your own community.

Now I know so many editors, publishers, genealogy experts, memoir writers… that’s where you start — right where you are.

Host:
Don’t you think, too, that those groups encourage you, motivate you, and hold you accountable?

I just had a chat with one of my team members at Storied — sometimes I just want somebody to hold me accountable. I can try to hold myself accountable, but when I’ve got somebody else checking in…

Guest:
We’re not good at holding ourselves accountable, most of us.

Sometimes I ask myself, “How in the world did I make it through the doctoral program?” I was very focused and stuck with it — but the reason I did was because I got rid of everything else for those four years.

I was on a grant — someone else was paying for me to go to school — so I was highly motivated to complete it.

I had my children, my first two, and I was so focused that my life was: drop them at preschool, go to the university, do my work.

Even phone calls — I would say, “Hi, I’m calling you for three things: blah, blah, blah… talk to you later, bye.”

I was very focused.

But this is different these days. Back then, social media was barely starting (late ’90s). Now we have so many distractions and demands on our lives — it’s very different.

So having somebody — some programs have five-day challenges, for example, with something to do each day — that makes a difference. We need accountability.

Think about it: every successful athlete, writer, therapist — they all have coaches, therapists, or groups.

I read somewhere that Stephen King is in a little band — three or four of them — and they each play, but they’re all writers. They enjoy music, but they also have that camaraderie with people doing something similar.

We need that because we’re human. We’re going to get discouraged. We need someone to push us along when we say, “I don’t think I can finish this,” to keep us on track.

If you have someone checking in daily or weekly — “How’s that book going?” or “How’s your story coming?” — it makes a difference.

Host:
Yes, it definitely does.

This is my favorite part of conversations — I’d love for you to tell us your favorite family story. It may be different today than it was last week, but what’s your favorite right now?

Guest:
Oh my goodness, I have so many favorites.

I’ll tell you one I started writing about — I call it The Macaroni and Cheese Party.

As you know, recipes and food are a great topic for life stories because every family has stories around food and eating.

When my youngest daughter was at UCLA, she was a junior. She lived on campus, worked, and took classes. She worked in an office with counselors who went into the community to encourage kids to go to college.

Around the holidays, people in the office talked about their plans. My daughter would brag about my macaroni and cheese.

One day she calls me — I think I was at the beauty shop — and says, “Mom, what are you doing?”

When your kid calls from college, you know they want something.

She says, “I was telling my friends about your macaroni and cheese, and they said, ‘Why don’t you invite us to your house so we can taste it?’”

Now, UCLA is far from us. I said, “Adrian, you want me to have people over just to taste my macaroni and cheese?”

First of all, my macaroni and cheese is the simplest recipe ever — no box mix, just like my mom made: macaroni, cheese, eggs, milk. But it’s good.

I suggested she make some and take it to the office — people do potlucks. She said, “No, it won’t be the same.”

She’s persuasive, that youngest daughter of mine. She knew I love to decorate for Christmas. She said, “It would be so nice to have them over.”

So that year, I said fine. I think there were nine young adults. We had macaroni and cheese and other food.

I thought that was the end of it.

Guest (continued):
The next year, she calls me and says, “Mom, everybody’s asking when we’re going to have our macaroni and cheese party.”

I said, “What? Girl, that was a one-time thing. You need to learn how to make macaroni and cheese yourself.”

But she kept at it.

Because I do love to entertain and decorate, we ended up doing it again. That’s how a party that started over macaroni and cheese became an annual Christmas tradition.

We’ve been having it every year — except during the pandemic — and now it’s called our Friends and Family Holiday.

I got smart along the way and said, “We don’t need me cooking all this food anymore — it’s going to be a potluck.”

It grew to 30–40 people. Of course, they weren’t just her colleagues anymore — they were my friends and family, too.

After the second year, I thought, “We need games.” So we added those, and it became even more fun.

I even made a slideshow of photos from the last party before the pandemic — no masks, everyone together.

Some of the friends and family from the early years have since passed away, so those memories are even more precious.

We usually have it the second Saturday in December, before everyone gets too busy with holiday events.

We know the older folks will arrive on time, and others will drift in later — some will end up on the patio with drinks, and it becomes two parties in one.

Host:
That’s a great story — and I love that it’s continued on.

Guest:
The best part for me is that I’m not doing all the cooking anymore. I had to train people on what “potluck” means.

Some would drive 30 miles and show up empty-handed. I’d say, “What did you bring?” They’d say, “Oh, did you want me to bring something?”

Potluck means you bring something — and it needs to be ready to serve.

My granddaughter once brought raw yams she wanted to boil and cook for candied yams. No, no — bring it already done!

I even do this for other gatherings, like Easter brunch. I’ll tell family what I’m cooking and say, “Bring whatever your children like to eat.”

That way, if they bring something, fine; if not, I don’t care — the people who want to sit and chat can do so without worrying about timing.

I used to take a family picture for our Christmas card at Thanksgiving, but that plan was impossible unless everyone arrived at the same time.

Now, I just ask people to send me their own photos, and I collage them. Honestly, it gets harder each year — I might just put my own picture on there and call it a day!

There are a lot of stories around parties and food… but that macaroni and cheese party is the one that started it all. People still call to ask for the date.

Host:
I love that. Well, Flora, you have made my day. Your passion for storytelling is just so evident, and I appreciate so much that you — I’m honored that you — spent time with me today.

Guest:
You’re most welcome.

Host:
Until next time, friends — embrace the power of your family’s untold tales and embark on a journey of discovery.

Let the ink flow and the words dance as you weave together the threads of your ancestors’ lives. Start writing your family stories today, and let their voices echo through the generations to come at Storied.com.

Have a great day, everyone. Bye.

Narrator:
And that brings us to the end of this episode of The Family Treehouse, where we celebrate the power of storytelling and preserving our family legacies.

Storied is more than just a platform for sharing stories — dive into those historical records and newspapers, discovering the hidden gems that bring your ancestors to life.

Add branches to your family tree, connecting the dots between generations.

Thank you for joining us on this storytelling journey. Your stories matter — and through Storied, they have the power to resonate across time and touch the hearts of generations to come.

Keep uncovering your family’s history, and keep the spirit of storytelling alive with Storied.