Comment on Parental Rights 1869-1940
I finished the second installment of my grandfathers biography I wrote in the Wannaskan Almanac for today, late yesterday evening.
http://wannaskanalmanac.blogspot.com/2020/08/thursday-august-6th-2020-parental.html
I had worked on it for a good day, by Wednesday, including a few hours on Tuesday too, and in my waning energy for it decided just to wrap it up, rather than keep slogging through dozens of transcribed interviews, page after page, searching for some item that would fit my story, chronologically. In truth, I wanted to be writing something fun.
It wasn't like I wasn't interested in what I was mired in; I enjoy a good slog once in awhile myself, but my dilemma was how do I keep it interesting to others and not get bogged down? I could've just copied pages to be sure, but I needed it to flow somewhat smoothly, and not become just a repetitive list of names, dates and places. Argh. But the harder I tried, the worse it got. Too many subjects wanted to enter into it; the story was about his behaviors, not the dozens of other actors with whom he lived and worked.
How do I do that and not include the linch pin of the family, my grandmother, Annie Barnhart, CC's wife of forty-six years and eleven kids? It was just too much story for too little of a format. But I did manage to squeak her in, a tad, yesterday, just tiptoeing around her achievements as a superb mother-despite-the-odds. I'll have to expand on her here one day if I can rally my energies.
I finished the second installment of my grandfathers biography I wrote in the Wannaskan Almanac for today, late yesterday evening.
http://wannaskanalmanac.blogspot.com/2020/08/thursday-august-6th-2020-parental.html
I had worked on it for a good day, by Wednesday, including a few hours on Tuesday too, and in my waning energy for it decided just to wrap it up, rather than keep slogging through dozens of transcribed interviews, page after page, searching for some item that would fit my story, chronologically. In truth, I wanted to be writing something fun.
It wasn't like I wasn't interested in what I was mired in; I enjoy a good slog once in awhile myself, but my dilemma was how do I keep it interesting to others and not get bogged down? I could've just copied pages to be sure, but I needed it to flow somewhat smoothly, and not become just a repetitive list of names, dates and places. Argh. But the harder I tried, the worse it got. Too many subjects wanted to enter into it; the story was about his behaviors, not the dozens of other actors with whom he lived and worked.
How do I do that and not include the linch pin of the family, my grandmother, Annie Barnhart, CC's wife of forty-six years and eleven kids? It was just too much story for too little of a format. But I did manage to squeak her in, a tad, yesterday, just tiptoeing around her achievements as a superb mother-despite-the-odds. I'll have to expand on her here one day if I can rally my energies.
Comments
These family experiences are etched directly onto our very bones. Any person who writes their own story helps a reader revisit her/his/their story.
Besides, nobody told me that writing was easy. Your hard work was good for me.
It's fascinating to me that I wrote/read in the following order: 1) read and responded to your WA post --> read this WW post --> read Woe's comment to this post --> hit myself in the forehead with the not-coincidences between Woe's remarks and what I had just commented on in your WA post. Two Stenzels can't be wrong. See? The species we are part of loves stories, and even more, loves stories about themselves and those he/she knows. That's why your stories resonate so deeply with the likes of us. Your stories remind us of our stories and remind us of other stories, and because we love our stories, we love you for telling us yours that resurrect ours that lead back to yours that magnify ours and on and on like birds calling to each other in the Forest.
See what I mean?
The bottom line is that you are weary because you've just done some fine work that is so valuable to many of us, and that's the most intimate thing one human can do for another.
This all reminds me of a Jim Carey movie where he's up to his usual insane antics, and at one point, he hits himself in the forehead and says, "Somebody stop me!" That sounds like your war cry. Lucky for us, you don't mean it. Stop? What? Breathing? Writing? Same-same.
I'm CC and Annie's youngest grandchild. There are still some cousins 'out there', my two older sisters two of them. My oldest sister was born in 1930; my youngest, 1940. We've never really talked about him, the three of us; nor have I been privy to other conversations about him, so the relative mystery about him I had hoped would stir a few of those people wondering the same things and maybe create some discussion. As I've mentioned to you before, my parents and family were so old by the time I rolled up, there were few left who knew the old stories. This genealogy collection is almost invaluable.'