personal history

When A Place Still Exists

October 11, 2010 By martha_jewett Leave a Comment

An important building in the Jewett family's Civil War experience still stands. It is a church. Thanks to Vic and Dollie Masters, parents of Civil War historian Vicki Profitt, for providing the current photo. And kudos to Clay Feeter, publisher of Standup Journal, for the old photo. Side-by-side they show the Downtown Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee (on the right) and Hospital No. 8 for wounded Union soldiers (on the left). Same building. Different purpose.

My great-great-great aunt, Mary Jewett Telford (1839-1906) , was the only female nurse caring for the 600 Civil War soldiers in Hospital No. 8 for eight months from 1863-1864. When Mary first applied for a nursing position with the U.S. Sanitary Commission, she was turned down. She told no one of that rejection letter, but "throwing it into the grate made of it a 'whole burnt offering to her righteous wrath.' " With her parents' blessing, she set off from her home in Lima, Michigan, to Nashville, Tennessee. Eventually she was offered a position as a nurse in Hospital No. 8, after proffering letters of recommendation, including one from Michigan Governor Austin Blair, her father's friend.

After eight months, exhausted and ill, Mary resigned her commission. She returned home and married Jacob Telford. They became adoptive parents of Civil War orphan girls. She was granted an Army pension. She went on to be a founding member of the Woman’s Relief Corps, a post-Civil War veterans support organization, speaker on the temperance circuit, and activist for woman's suffrage in Colorado.

Check out Vicki Profitt's profile of Mary on page 4 of the latest issue of Historigram, a publication of the Perinton Historical Society.

Was the building originally a church before it became Hospital No. 8? Was it re-commissioned as a hospital for Union soldiers during the Civil War? Does anyone know? If so, I'd love to hear from you.

Photo of Mary Jewett Telford

Courtesy of Floris A. Lent

Filed Under: Mary Jewett Telford, Tweets Tagged With: Civil War, Civil War nurses, Clay Feeter, Colorado woman's suffrage movement, Downtown Presbyterian Church Nashville Tennessee, Historigram, Jacob Telford, Jewett Family of America, life stories, Lima Michigan, Mary Jewett Telford, memoir, memoir writing, Michigan governor Austin Blair, Nashville Tennessee, Perinton Historical Society, personal history, Standup Journal, stories about ancestors, temperance, Vicki Profitt, Women's Relief Corps, write your memoir

He Was A Statistic. He Was Also A Person.

October 7, 2010 By martha_jewett Leave a Comment

Check out Di's blog memoir: He is a statistic. He is also a man. She writes about her grandfather, one of the 850 WWII vets who die every day: "He was special in the sense that every kind and wonderful person is special. And he deserves to be remembered." In my blog about Frank McCourt, I said that his memoir, Angela's Ashes, taught us that we are all ordinary. But our memoirs can be extraordinary. Do you have an ordinary grandfather? Have you written something extraordinary about him? HHH H

Filed Under: Memoir Publishing, Memoirs On the Web, Tweets Tagged With: family portraits, how to write a memoir, Life of Di, life stories, life story, memoir, memoir ideas, memoir storytelling, memoir writing, memoir writing tips, personal history, World War II, World War II veterans, write your memoir, WWII, WWII vets

Memoir Tip for People Who Hate to Write

August 15, 2010 By martha_jewett 1 Comment

Want to tell your story, but hate the process of writing? Here's a creative idea: you can talk into your computer using voice recording computer software. That's what inter-network marketing specialist Jerry Clark recommends in his recent blog. He says, "You can get a no cost voice recording app known as 'Audacity,' from audacity.sourceforge.net."

He has two other helpful suggestions:

You can record onto mp3s the significant events in your life.
Don't be judgmental of your recordings.

Filed Under: Techniques and Tips Tagged With: Audacity, childhood memories, how to write a memoir, Jerry Clark, memoir, memoir ideas, memoir storytelling, memoir writing tips, personal history, write your memoir, writing

Even A Bridge Can Be A Memoir

July 23, 2010 By martha_jewett Leave a Comment

Can a bridge be a memoir? Heck, yes! Add bridges to the list, along with all your other stuff from my last blog. Nj.com and the "New Jersey" section of The Star Ledger reported this week that Paul Bartick, of South Orange, New Jersey, is working with Miriam Sumner, Lynne Smilow, and the Village of South Orange to name a bridge over the Rahway River in South Orange after Jonathan Felsman, a beloved South Orange community leader who died at the age of 57 of cancer on July 9, 2009.

Jonathan’s community initiatives included the South Orange Performing Arts Center (SOPAC), the town soccer league, building baseball dugouts at Meadowland Park, beautifying the Rahway River waterfront, and programming ideas at the public library.

“He didn’t give a damn about people’s reactions to his ideas,” says Bartick. “He sold his vision by capturing people’s imagination. Then he took action to make his shared vision a reality. Jonathan really was the bridge that brought people together to make things happen. That’s why the bridge is such an apt memorial.”

Have you built or created something that is a memoir? (A wall, a bridge a window, a shrine, a monument, a statue?)

Write to me about it. Send me a photo.

Filed Under: Techniques and Tips Tagged With: architecture as memoir, Jonathan Felsman, Lynne Smilow, memoir ideas, memoirs, Miriam Summer, Ondine Landa Abramson, other forms of memoir, Paul Bartick, personal histories, personal history, Rahway River waterfront New Jersey, Richard Khavkine, South Orange New Jersey, South Orange Performing Arts Center (SOPAC), stories, storytelling, stuff, stuff as memoir, The Star Ledger New Jersey

Your Stuff, Your Memoir?

July 14, 2010 By martha_jewett Leave a Comment

I used to think memoir consists of three things: (1) writing, (2) in the first person, (3) about a thin slice of a person’s life. “The reader doesn’t want the whole iceberg, just the tip,” to paraphrase Russell Baker.

Now I realize memoir is much broader. First of all, you have a lot of other objectives–besides the act of writing itself–when you create memoirs. You want to:

record family stories
research family history
find lost relatives
socialize with lost relatives once you've found them
discover your DNA
collect and preserve family data
get over something traumatic
tell the story behind a family memento
create personal documents (video, audio, shadow boxes, etc.)
get rid of something heavy which you've been carrying around (secret, imposition, demand)
catalogue, organize, and archive family documents, photos, and memorabilia
take the sting out of something painful
save and identify family heirlooms
capture family information that would otherwise be lost.

I now have a working definition of memoir which is much more broad. Memoir is the communication of what you want to remember and what you want to be remembered. Which leads me to two more points. First, you can get really creative and use any of the following as the basis of a memoir:

letters you quote
recipes
random memories
your hopes for the future
a secret you no longer want to keep
family sayings
something that always got on your last nerve
a mystery you never figured out
funny family anecdotes
what you want your legacy to be
describing what’s going on in an iconic family photo
a list of your favorite things and why
describing how you got around a long time ago
how a business used to make money
your worst vacation
how you kept the house cool in the summer
the most expensive thing you ever bought
a portrait of a relative using your five senses (see, hear, feel, taste, smell).

Second point. You don’t have to write at all. Lots of your "stuff" can be turned into a memoir:

Photographs
Video
Audio
What things cost
Collages
Political buttons and pins
Jewelry
Fabrics
A telephone bill
“Shrines” you create
Scrapbooks
Songs
Guns
Music
Portraits
Paintings
Statues
Pottery
Drawings
Furniture
Clothing
Games
Puzzles
Tools
Maps
Drawings
Self-portraits

Even a packing list from 50 years ago could be the basis for a great memoir. So, I ask you:

What do you want to remember?
What do you want others to remember?

Tell me about the memoir you create. Send me a photo.

Filed Under: Techniques and Tips Tagged With: childhood memories, food memoirs, genealogy, how to write a memoir, memoir, memoir ideas, memoir storytelling, memoir topics, memoir writing, memoir writing tips, memoir-with-recipes, memoirs, personal history, recipe memoirs, Russell Baker, stories, storytelling, why write, write your memoir, writing

Lucinda Mock's Ginger Cookie Recipe

April 2, 2010 By martha_jewett Leave a Comment

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

Filed Under: Recipe Memoirs, Sample Memoirs, Tweets Tagged With: cookie recipes, family portraits, food memoirs, geneology, Lucinda Frances (Locke) Mock (1846-1940), memoir storytelling, memoir writing, memoir writing tips, memoir-with-recipes, memory triggers, memory writing triggers, personal histories, personal history, personal memoir writing, recipe memoirs, stories, storytelling, why write, write your memoir

Memoirs on Overpowering Topics

November 19, 2009 By martha_jewett 3 Comments

At the Self-Publishing Book Expo I attended recently in New York, I met three women whose memoirs successfully tackle these potentially overpowering topics:

leaving your country of origin;
growing up in a faraway land;
being raped or sexually abused.

Past experiences such as these may seem too big to write about comfortably. But perspective changes everything. Check out these three memoirs and how each woman’s viewpoint has shaped her storytelling.

When A Place Still Exists

He Was A Statistic. He Was Also A Person.

Memoir Tip for People Who Hate to Write

Even A Bridge Can Be A Memoir

Your Stuff, Your Memoir?

Memoirs on Overpowering Topics

Ready To Write Your Life Stories?

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When A Place Still Exists

He Was A Statistic. He Was Also A Person.

Memoir Tip for People Who Hate to Write

Even A Bridge Can Be A Memoir

Your Stuff, Your Memoir?

Lucinda Mock's Ginger Cookie Recipe

Memoirs on Overpowering Topics

Ready To Write Your Life Stories?

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