A Universal Regret

How often have we regretted not asking more questions of family members before it’s too late? Before they passed away? Or before they could no longer remember details of their lives—or of their loved ones?

For decades, my grandparents willingly shared information and family stories with me. And I mistakenly thought I’d always remember what they’d said.

My grandparents passed away before I started writing family stories and histories. And after I’d forgotten a lot of what they’d told me.

So, how can we avoid this universal regret?

Passion

Regrets about forever-lost opportunities may light a fire in our bellies to become proactive and pursue possibilities. Push us irrevocably past passiveness. Commandeer commitment. Instigate investigations to gather family facts, stories, and histories while we still can.

Opportunity

As a young adult, I knew a little about my grandfather’s mother. As a grade-schooler, I could rattle off the names of her eleven children. Yet, three generations of descendants called her “Ma”—the only name I knew her by. From a photo I’d seen of her, I would have summed her up as “Ma—grim wife and mother.”

In my 50s, while attending a family reunion, I gave my 96-year-old grandaunt Gertrude a kiss on her weathered cheek and commented on her pretty brooch. She touched the pastel pin lightly. “Pansies were Ma’s favorite. I still miss her. She was a wonderful person.” Fascinated, I asked grandaunt Gertrude, along with 98-year-old grandaunt Darlin and 94-year-old grandaunt June, more questions about Ma who had died 70 years previously. These three women were Ma’s two youngest daughters and a daughter-in-law, the last survivors of their generation. They seemed delighted to answer my questions as they provided me with a treasure trove of details about Ma’s life.

At that same reunion, two of Ma’s grandsons, who were in their 80s, gave me additional insights into her life and temperament.

My family’s gatherings provide plenty of opportunities for gathering family stories and histories. I hope yours do, too. These get-togethers may include weddings, births, baptisms and christenings, funerals, reunions, holidays, and vacations. Or family meals, outings, or a series of visits.

I like one-on-one conversations best, but that’s not always an option. Other information-gathering possibilities include telephone calls, emails, texts, social media, and old-fashioned notes and letters. Occasions may arise when we’re given a family photo, artifact, or recipe.

Sometimes we have no known surviving family members to turn to interview for family stories. However, we can brainstorm and look for other opportunities, such as looking for collateral family members to interview. Or search for our now-deceased family member’s friends, neighbors, or coworkers. We can ask relatives if they have family members’ letters, diaries, scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, written community histories, oral histories, or military unit histories.

Intention

Although the conversations with my grandaunts at the family reunion were serendipitous, I deliberately took advantage of the unplanned opportunity to ask them a lot of questions about Ma.

Later, I asked my mom and uncle more questions. Although they were small children when Ma died, they shared stories they’d heard growing up. Thankfully, two of my aunts are interested in genealogy. They provided facts about Ma, including her given name, Alice.

That evening, I made notes of all I remembered and gathered copies of vital records and other documents.

Several weekends later, I made a special trip to visit with my grandaunts and other family members to fact-check what I’d written and to gather more stories about Ma.

Preparation

We can’t anticipate every possibility or orchestrate every outcome. But we can plan visits and travel.

We can increase our chances for successful interviews with some preliminary sleuthing to improve the quality of our questions before we get together with family members.

Depending on the preliminary information we find, we can prepare general or specific questions to fill in blanks or satisfy our curiosity. For example:

• “What was a normal day for you when you lived on the farm?”
• “How did Grandma and Grampa meet?”
• “Why did your parents move from ___ to ___?”
• “What impressed you about (a person, place, thing, or event).”
• “If you were me, who else would you talk with for more information?”
• “Who are Grandmother’s other family members or friends who might have stories or information about her?”

We can also plan by asking our young children, teenagers, adult children or grandchildren if they have questions. Depending on their ages and experiences, we might add to our list of questions something like:

• “What chores did you do when you were a kid?”
• “What was your favorite subject in school?”
• “What games, books, or movies did you like when you were a youngster?”

We can be prepared to set our prepared questions aside and go where the conversation leads us.

We can also plan for follow-up visits. Not everyone can remember details of an event that took place 50 years ago. But sometimes the person we’re interviewing may remember more later.

We can also carry with us a notebook and a pen—or a phone with video and audio capabilities—to capture ideas, facts, and stories.

Attitude

Great dollops of a positive attitude help us collect family stories and histories. Our resulting behaviors show up in different ways.

Story gathering requires patience. Many people like to be helpful, and they also like to share stories and information about their family members or themselves. Often there is a lot of hopscotching between topics. Sometimes there is a bit of rambling, misremembering, fogginess, and repetition. Another grandaunt, while in her 90s, often forgot she’d already told me about hiding in a cherry tree as a grade-schooler to avoid a spanking. I didn’t mind because each repetition helped engrave her story in my memory bank.

We can be attentive to what the person is saying and show kindness by listening for what isn’t said. Some people feel frustrated, anxious, or consider themselves “failures” when they can’t remember a specific name, date, or location. If that appears to be the case, we can make them “winners” by reframing the question or changing topics.

Sometimes we’re given information we’re not interested in, but we can develop empathy by trying to see it from the story-teller’s perspective. One wise woman set up a series of interviews with her father so she could write his life story. He wanted to talk about the heavy equipment he had operated. She kept trying to redirect the interviews to get answers to other questions. Then she realized how important the equipment had been to him in his role as provider for their family, his contribution to the community, and his satisfaction in his work done well.

When we visit with others, we can show respect in many ways. We can arrive promptly and keep to the time allotted. Turn off digital devices’ bells and whistles so we can better concentrate on the person who is providing family stories and facts. Ask permission to write notes or record their voices or images. Try to understand the context of others’ decisions.

Some people have other commitments to keep, need naps, or eat at specific times. If we’re not finished with the interview—but the person providing the information is—we can give them the gift of flexibility by adjusting to their stamina level and attention span. We can ask if he or she would like a break or if we can return or call back another day.

Sometimes we might want to know stories about things people aren’t comfortable, willing, or able to talk about. But we can temper our curiosity with consideration for some topics involve unprocessed trauma or shame and sometimes the person we’re interviewing is protecting another individual’s privacy. The people we’re asking for information may not want to talk about a child’s death. My callous younger self learned the hard way that some people don’t want to be asked how many times they’ve been married. Instead, we can become more considerate, respect others’ reluctance, and lead them back to a topic more comfortable for them.

While involved with the Veterans History Project,[1] I worked hard to set the veterans at ease. After our introductions, I’d say something like, “I’m looking forward to hearing more about your military service. But if I ask a question you’d rather skip, just let me know.” I believe this approach helped me gather stories I might not have heard otherwise.

And although I speculated some veterans would take fascinating—but untold—stories to their graves, I respected their right to do so.

We can show our gratitude by thanking people for their time and efforts, their stories and information. And later we can share with them the fruit of our labors.

While gathering stories and family history, we can meet others’ humanity with patience, attentiveness, kindness, empathy, respect, flexibility, consideration, and gratitude. And so much more. For the amount of “material” we gather isn’t as important as strengthening our relationships with family members—those currently living, our ancestors, and generations yet to be born.

I’ll always regret not asking my grandparents for more family information and stories. But that regret is like a sharp elbow that prompts me to go after yet another family story or history. Like when I gathered information about Ma, wrote a six-page story about her, and shared it with my family. In the conclusion, I wrote:

“I’m glad grandaunt Gertrude wore the pansy broach to the reunion, for it sparked my curious about Ma’s history.

“I no longer think of Ma as a grim wife and mother. Now, I recognize in her photos a determined wife and mother who stuck out her chin and did the best she could for her family.

“If I were to paint her with words, I’d say Ma was an iron-willed, competent, hard-working woman—who loved pansies. She loved her children fiercely—and had trouble letting go of them when they were grown. Despite her health issues, she could—and would—tackle any project and do a bang-up job.”

• How have missed opportunities to ask questions prompted you to become more intentional about interviewing family members?
• What are your favorite opportunities to gather family stories and histories?
• What are your two favorite interview questions to ask?
• What attitudes have you carried into an interview that helped or hindered you while gathering family stories and histories?

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[1] Library of Congress Veterans History Project, https://www.loc.gov/programs/veterans-history-project/about-this-program/