Saving Libraries, One Story at a Time

The death of an old person is like the burning of a library.  Alex Haley

During my childhood, most Sunday afternoons were spent at my grandparents' farm with aunts, uncles, and cousins.  At lunchtime several of the cousins sat on an old farm bench, trapped against the windows by the adults who sat around the table for an insufferable length of time talking about the most boring things in the universe.  All we wanted was to escape the confines of the kitchen and the boredom and get outside to play in the woods and in the barns.  Sometimes we would crawl under the table through the tangle of grown-up legs and feet to make our escape.

One of those sitting around the table was my Uncle Chuck, a bus mechanic.  It never occurred to me to listen to anything he had to say, boring grown-up that he was.  Sometime after his death, I learned that he'd served as crew chief of a C-47 aircraft during World War II.  He'd received a medal for meritorious achievement for dropping paratroopers ahead of the Normandy invasion which, as history would have it, turned out to be sort of a big deal.

I wish I had known that.

I came across the above quote in this book about caring for elderly loved ones.  One of the author's suggestions is to take the time to listen to their stories.  These are people whose life stories have intersected with world history in fascinating times and places--the Great Depression, D-Day, the Korean Conflict, the battle for Civil Rights.  We can read about any and all of these things in history books, but hearing the stories from those who lived through them breathes life into them and makes them seem much more real.

Recently, I had the opportunity to spend about a year interviewing an elderly friend who was declining from dementia.  I knew she had lived a life and wanted to get as much of it down on paper as I could, capturing as many memories for her family as possible.  Her first husband had been a test pilot with Chuck Yeager and had been killed in the crash of a test flight.  My friend had had a front row seat to the events surrounding the breaking of the sound barrier and the inauguration of the space program.  She was certain that, had her husband lived, he'd have been one of the country's first astronauts.

One of my favorite stories of hers was of becoming a stewardess (pre-flight attendant days) during World War II.  There was a shortage of women available for the airlines to hire because many had been assigned to jobs overseas in hospitals or other war-related support positions.  She had taken a train into Washington, DC, for the interview not having told her parents what she was up to.  After her training, she was asked where she wanted to be assigned, and she chose Hollywood, California.  She often served on flights carrying Hollywood movie stars of the day and lived with some friends in a house near the parents of some famous celebrity.  At the time I interviewed her, she couldn't remember who the star was.

Last Christmas, I bound and wrapped my friend's memoirs for her to give to her family as gifts.  She helped me tie the bows and attach the labels for each of them.  My friend died this past summer, and I am thankful that some of her stories endure on paper.  One of her granddaughters recognized the story about the movie star's parents and filled in the missing detail--the mystery celebrity was Bing Crosby.  Learning that detail was a gift to me this Christmas.  Everytime I heard one of Bing's classic Christmas songs, I thought of my friend and smiled.

If you're reading this and have hung with me this far, let me encourage you to pay attention to the elderly around you and look for opportunities to listen to their stories.  It will bless them, and it will bless you.  And you'll get to be part of preserving the history of a life that matters.