STORYTELLERS

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

Every family has at least one — and I’m not talking about the black sheep (we’ll save that for another day) — but the ones known as storytellers.

I always look forward to this time of year. The fireworks, the picnics, but mostly getting together with family and friends I haven’t seen in a while is exhilarating. It’s like emerging from hibernation for the warmer months, seeing everything with a new perspective and wanting to quench a hunger gnawing at our soul.

When my dad starts reminiscing about when he was a kid or someone tells a story about how the town was fifty or sixty years ago, my ears perk. I’ve learned to ask leading questions, then sit back and gather it all in like sun-dried laundry. Holding these memories close while they are fresh, I mentally catalog these treasured moments.

In any writing group, there is a significant number writing either their memoirs or family histories. I admit, I used to privately wonder why they thought their particular family stories were important enough to record. Now I understand.

When my husband’s grandmother passed on at 101 years of age, we lost a treasure trove of stories. I wished I’d asked more about the times when she was growing up on the farm in Indian Territory, living through the Great Depression and what it was like to court when she was young. Instead, we probably argued politics, exchanged recipes and talked about the kids. Not that I begrudge any of those memories, but I wish I’d asked more what her life had been like and how in hindsight she interpreted her choices.

My mother has said more than once, “I wish I had Mama’s recipe for homemade hot dog buns. They melted in your mouth they were so good. I was too busy to pay attention when she made them and I could kick myself.” We do have Grandma’s Pecan Praline recipe – almost. She’d written down the ingredients in the back of a cookbook and my mother guessed at what happens next.

Being the first granddaughter, I know I was the apple of Grandma’s eye, but only from Mother’s renderings. Grandma died when I was 10 and I barely remember her, though I wish I did. Mother’s stories help, but I have to pry them out of her like stiff peanut butter. “In my day, people didn’t talk so much about themselves,” she says.

I’ve always been amused at people who do their genealogy and only find royalty in their family tree. Mine has bootleggers, Confederate army spies and railroad-riding hobos. I find their stories more interesting than those belonging to the princess lineage.

Melodie mentioned our story ideas sometimes spring from ordinary musings, but they also come from bits and pieces of information festering in our subconscious until they appear as a great idea for a start or conclusion of a story.

One of my favorite acquisitions is from an auction where I purchased a leather-bound photograph album filled with black and white photos from the early 20th century. No names or other identifiers as whose family photos I now own are evident. One photo is of a house in the middle of a prairie and one of the few with a caption. It reads: Our new home in San Jacinto. San Jacinto is one of the oldest sections of our town, originally for the wealthier citizens. Now the houses there are crammed together. If the house still stands, it will be a feat to find it. However, I do plan to do just that one day. Traipsing through the photos has been a delightful trip for the Muse. Together we have imagined lives for the photo’s inhabitants.

Men in Dough Boy uniforms, women dressed in their Sunday best – complete with hats and parasols – for a picnic – and one of my favorites, the couple whose apparent love surpasses time stands beside a Model T.

A photo of two soldiers in a plane makes me wonder what happened to them. Did they return safely from The Great War? Were these peoples dreams fulfilled or dashed? Who were the black sheep and the favorites in the family?

Who were the storytellers? Have their stories disappeared with their fashion and vehicle styles?

Now, wouldn’t those be interesting stories to share?