Personal History

Just a couple of weeks ago James was able to get a book he has been wanting for quite a while. It is called "I've Been Thinking...and other writings of Walter Marion Everton". It is a compilation of articles James' great-great-grandfather, Walter Marion Everton, wrote for the Logan Herald Journal  during the 1940's about family history and a few other things as well. I wanted to share one of those articles here.  I find it very inspiring, and hope that others may as well.

ABOUT WRITING YOUR HISTORY

We assisted in writing a short biography of one of our early settlers a few years ago. Among other things there was a story of how she had worked as a "hired girl" for a number of weeks and had received a nice woolen petticoat as pay for her work. When she took it home she washed it and hung it on the line to dry. A stray calf came along and chewed her petticoat and she was never able to wear it.

As the subject of our sketch listened while we read her own life's story she stopped us to raise objection to this story and a number of similar stories being included in her biography.  "It's not important enough to bother to write it down," she said.

When you write your life story, do not spoil it, I pray you, by leaving out interesting stories because they are not important.  The best parts of the family history that I have been able to gather are the simple little stories which often reveal more to me about the kind of men they were than do the funeral sermons that were preached when they died. 

There is the story of the boy who refused to stay at the saw mill boarding house and instead built a little shack and "batched it".  The big leatherbound history of Thomastown, Maine records th fact that the boys at the mill poked fun at him, saying that he "cooked his doughnuts in a tin lantern".  It is easy to understand why it was that he became president of the bank. 

And then there is the story of the ancestor of mine who could not attend church services for a while because the services were held on the day of the week, and the hour of the day when it was his custom to wind the clock.  Even now, in the sixth generation of this family, there are some who are rather set in their ways.

Write the stories of your childhood though it takes a hundred pages.  Write the adventures of your young manhood or womanhood.  Write of your likes and dislikes.  Write of your faith and your hopes and your joys.  Write of your sweethearts, your wives and your children.  Write of the things you like to do and the things you like to eat.  Write of your ability, your accomplishments and your failures.  While you are writing all these, let your writing abound in human interest stories, little incidents which happened to you, or which you caused to happen. 

But in all your writing, write your life story that the memory of you may not perish from the earth when you are dead.