Writing a Memoir, Writing a Biography | Write Your Memoir

My husband’s maternal great-great aunt, Feige Cohen, spent the Fourth of July of 1905 in New York harbor, waiting to clear immigration. She was onboard the S.S. Statendam (built for Holland America by Harlan & Wolff Limited, Belfast, Northern Ireland, 1898). The Statendam sailed from Rotterdam, Netherlands, on June 24, 1905, and arrived in New York on July 2, 1905.

Were there fireworks in the harbor? Did Feige see them? Not sure. But thanks to Ancestry.com,  we know she was released by immigration on July 5, 1905, at 1:10 pm, to be met by her brother, Harry, who paid her fare. Feige, who gave her last place of residence as “Ostrow,” could read and write. She was 17 years old and had $15 in her pocket.

One-hundred years later, Feige’s great-niece Maxine (Shanbar) Marshall, my husband’s mother, cruised on the successor Statendam (same name, different ship), now a luxury cruise ship for tourist travel.

Have you taken a special journey on the Fourth of July? Do you have a travel story that happened on the Fourth? Let me know.

And have a great Fourth of July!

Tom Jewett, my younger brother, builds and flies airplanes. Tom is a lifelong aviation expert-amateur. When he was a little boy, he told Mother he wanted to learn how to read in order to build model airplanes. He went on to earn an aeronautical engineering degree from Purdue. In the photo above, he’s at Centennial Airport in Colorado, showing off the upgrades he recently completed in his Long EZ. Tom has an April birthday. On his birthday, he always has Ton Cake, his favorite. Here is Tom’s recipe memoir about Ton Cake:

Ton Cake Recipe Memoir by Tom Jewett

Here’s another recipe memoir. Lucinda was my grandmother’s grandmother, so her recipe for ginger cookies is probably the oldest family heirloom we have. I made these cookies one Thanksgiving. In spite of the fact that they are not as rich as the cookies we are used to eating today, the high school kids gobbled them up. Lucinda Frances (Locke) Mock lived from 1846 to 1940.

Lucinda Mock’s Ginger Cookie Recipe by Martha Jewett

Recipe memoirs are fun to share. I wrote one about my Grandmother Jewett and her Quick Chocolate Cookies. Grandmother Jewett used to pick up my cousins Clay and Kurt after school in Sonoita, AZ, in her Chevy Coupe, and take them to choir practice at the Patagonia Methodist Church, about 12 miles away. Grandmother Jewett was the church choir director and accompanist. The boys were allowed to each have just one cookie when they got off the bus. They always tried to pick the biggest one in the tin. The rest of the cookies were for the choir. I made the cookies for Clay and his partner, Joyce Bilodea, when they came to visit. Clay said they were true to the taste he remembered from childhood.

Take a look and get some ideas. Let me know how your recipe memoir works out.

Helen Jewett’s Quick Chocolate Cookies by Martha Jewett

Mary Jewett Telford (1839-1906)

In honor of Women’s History Month, Civil War historian Vicki Profitt and I are working together to honor Mary Jewett Telford (my great-great-great aunt). My husband,  Evan Marshall, and I attended Vicki’s talk Illuminated History: The Civil War Soldiers of Perinton, which included a profile of Mary Jewett Telford.

Mary Jewett Telford lived the fullest life possible for an aspiring white woman in 19th-century America. She was a Civil War nurse, wife of Jacob Telford, adoptive mother of Civil War orphan girls, post-Civil War veterans’ humanitarian as charter member of the Woman’s Relief Corps (WRC), suffragette, magazine editor and writer, and speaker on the national temperance circuit. Her parents, Dr. Lester Jewett and Hannah Southwick Jewett, a Quaker, were progressives who believed in the education and achievements of women. The Jewett family were abolitionists and their farm in Seneca, New York, was the second-to-last stop before Canada on the Underground Railway, according to Mary. 

This month, we are asking you to share a minibio about a female ancestor. We would like to interview you about your female ancestor and share your stories on our blogs.  Please contact us below.

Thank you for honoring the important contributions of women.

Martha Jewett

Vicki Proftt

Selecting food as a memoir topic is always a good way to get un-stuck if you are stuck. Food looms large in our childhood memories and brings back so many associations. For example, I always think of Mom when I see a lima bean. She cooked them until their insides were sawdust. I wrapped them in my napkin. I stuffed the napkin into the top of the table leg. At the top, just under the table, the leg attached to the table with three prongs, making a little nest. I got away with disposing of the lima beans that way for awhile. But my brother, Tom, wasn’t as lucky. He says he dumped his lima beans down the garbage disposal, but Mom found out and served them to him again the next day. 

In “Hungry Men” in the November 9, 2009, issue of Fortune, Daniel Okrent reviews just-released food memoirs by two “world-class eaters.” The books are: Eating by Jason Epstein and Far Flung and Well Fed by R. W. Apple, Jr. (FYI: Neither author has a website. R. W. Apple, Jr. died in 2006.) Check out the titles at your local online or bricks-and-mortar bookstore.

Epstein and Apple apparently had refined palates and enjoyed fine meals. In contrast, the stories (and memories) in my “recipe memoirs” are often better than the food. One of my favorite recipe memoirs is “How Train Wreck Got Its Name.”

What follows is a recipe memoir I have shared with my family, which always brings lots of smiles.

How Train Wreck Got Its Name

My mother, Mary Jewett, used to make a macaroni casserole we called Train Wreck. I thought it was Tom, my little brother, who gave Train Wreck its name. But Tom says Mom always credited George C. Papanicolaou.

George was a Union College student from Greece, who  lived with us at 3 Douglas Road in Schenectady, NY, our home from 1962-1965. George had the third-floor room with the Palladian windows under the front gable. George is now a math professor at Stanford. As Mom told it, George bounded down into the kitchen, looked in the pot on the stove, and said, “Mrs. Jewett, that looks like a train wreck!” To complicate matters, Aunt Ellie (Mom’s sister-in-law, Ellie Jewett) says, no, it was her son, Rick, who christened Train Wreck.

Train Wreck has many variations and names, including American Chop Suey and Hungarian Goulash. Here’s my recipe.

TRAIN WRECK

1. 1 lb. ground beef

2. 2 T oil

3. 1 onion, finely chopped (or more to taste)

4. 1-2 cloves garlic, finely chopped (or more to taste)

5. Other spices. I buy from Penzeys: Penzey’s Italian Herb Mix (1 T),  Penzey’s Granulated Garlic Powder (2 T), Penzey’s Onion Powder (2 T), and Penzey’s Bay Leaf Seasonings (2 t); sugar (2 t); 1 bay leaf (remove before serving); and salt & pepper.

6. 1 26.5-oz. can or  26-oz. jar of spaghetti sauce

7. 1 28-oz. can crushed tomatoes

8. 1 16-oz. box macaroni, cooked al dente and drained (I like shells)

Cook beef, drain fat, and set aside. Simmer items # 2-5 until onions are soft. Add water as needed. The longer you simmer this before adding the rest of the ingredients, the better it tastes. Add the meat and items # 6-7 and simmer at least 10 minutes. Add item # 8. Correct seasoning.

Do you have a food memories that would make a good memoir? Let me know.

Memoir opens a window to a different life.

In starting my research for a new family memoir about my great-great-great aunt, Mary Jewett Telford, I learned how flowers were used to commemorate Memorial Day over one-hundred years ago.

I’ve been reading through the “red book” (i.e., rule book) of an organization Mary Jewett Telford founded as a charter member and national corresponding secretary: the Woman’s Relief Corps (WRC). The WRC was formed in 1883 to assist the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), a huge post-Civil War organization of Union veterans. Before the inception of the federal Veterans Administration, the WRC raised money for veterans relief, through entertainment, services, and membership dues. The Relief Committees of the local WRC “corps” (i.e., local chapters) buried veterans, supported homes for Civil War orphans, visited the sick, and helped satisfy the ”temporal wants” of veterans, widows, and orphans.

How did they use flowers on Memorial Day? They placed them in large bodies of water. In 1903, the Corps decided “That Corps adjacent to large streams or bodies of water strew floral tributes on the waters on Memorial Day in memory of our sailor-soldier dead, providing that it does not seriously conflict with ceremonies of other patriotic organizations” (The Woman’s Relief Corps Red Book Containing the Rules and Reulations of the Woman’s Relief Corps, Auxiliary to the Grand Army of the Republic, Adopted by Twenty-third National Convention, Denver, Colorado, 1905, Revised Edition, May 1914, page 155).

Mary Jewett Telford (1839-1906) received a Civil War pension for her service as the sole nurse in a Nashville hospital of over 1,000 wounded Union soldiers. She and her husband, Jacob Telford, adopted three girls who were Civil War orphans. She went on to be a church and temperance worker and was active in the Colorado woman’s suffrage movement.

This Memorial Day, I’d like to honor Wallace E. Jewett, my first cousin four times removed (meaning four generations ago), who died in the Battle of Gettysburg in the Civil War.Wallace was 21 when he enlisted in Saginaw City, Michigan, on October 7, 1861, with the rank of 1st Sergeant.  He was a brave, capable soldier and was promoted often:

• July 1, 1862—Sergt. Major
• July 29, 1862—2nd Lieut. (As of Co. K)
• February 2, 1863—1st Lieut. (As of Co. K)
• April 1, 1863—Actg. Aide-de-Camp (As of 3rd Brigade, 1st Div, 5th Corp)

On July 2, 1863, Wallace died on Little Round Top. Little Round Top was at the extreme left side of the 3-mile-long Union line. Lieut. Wallace’s regiment, the 16th Michigan, “was at the right at the front edge of the rocks and was much more exposed than other parts of the line.” (Col. James C. Rice, July 31, 1863.) 

The fighting started at 4 pm on July 2, 1863. For the next hour, the Confederate forces charged again and again. “At every charge, he was repulsed with terrible slaughter,” wrote Col. James C. Rice (July 31, 1863). “Despairing of success at this point, he made a desperate attack upon the extreme right of the brigade” [where the 16th Michigan was], “forcing back a part of the Sixteenth Michigan. This regiment was broken, and through some misunderstanding of orders, explained in the official report of the commanding officer, it was thrown into confusion; but being immediately supported by the 140th NY Volunteers, the line became again firm and unbroken.” (Col. James C. Rice, July 31, 1863.) “The enemy again and again attacked the center with great vigor, and the extreme left with desperation. Passing one brigade of his forces by the right flank in three columns, he pushed through the ravine toward the left of our brigade, came immediately to a ‘front,’ and charged upon the Twentieth Maine. Now occurred the most critical time of the action. For about a half an hour the struggle was desperate.” (Col. James C. Rice, July 31, 1863.)

Somewhere during this time, Wallace E. Jewett was shot.  Benjamin F. Partridge, a Captain in the 16th Michigan at Little Round Top, wrote after the Civil War, “Lieut. Wallace Jewett of Co. ‘K’ was killed by a ball through his head just over his right eye, while cheering his comrades and men with uplifted sword.” (The Bachelder Papers, Vol. I, page 244.)

Wallace E. Jewett, was buried on July 3, 1863. He is memorialized in the National Cemetery at Gettysburg. You can easily find Wallace’s gravestone–Lieut. W. Jewett. Co. K. Regt. 16.–(MI plot H-2), by walking along the Michigan row of graves there.

 Wallace E. Jewett was 23.

This Memorial Day, why don’t you write and share a memoir about someone who gave his or her life?

Photo courtesy of Clay Feeter, my cousin and Civil War historian extraordinaire, who provided the research.