By Cheryl Mattox Berry
The holidays are here. That means shopping, gift-giving and family gatherings. When your family gets together for dinner, that’s an excellent time to find out about your family history. No, I don’t want you to draw a family tree with a million branches and names. Your assignment is to ask elderly relatives to tell stories about their lives. It doesn’t take much to get your relatives talking. A simple question like, “Nana, where did you grow up?” will jump start the storytelling.
You’ll be surprised at the gems unveiled during these conversations. My grandmother would entertain us with stories about living on a farm in Mississippi. Her father was a preacher who always brought company home for Sunday dinner without telling his wife beforehand. It was then that I discovered why my grandmother was so sociable; she got it from her father. I also learned that my great-grandmother was a fiercely independent woman. A sharecropper, she stood up to an unscrupulous landowner at a time when most women tended house, not a farm.
In my family, we pass these stories down to our children during holiday get-togethers. It’s fun to swap stories about the mannerisms, style of dress, idiosyncrasies and sayings from family members who have passed on. We also include their favorite dishes in our holiday spread. I’m still trying to master my grandmother’s sweet potato pie. The one my brother baked this year for Thanksgiving dinner was good, but it wasn’t like Granny’s.
My siblings and I chide each other for not getting her sweet potato pie, teacake and biscuit recipes. Don’t make the same mistake. Volunteer to help bake and write down the ingredients and cooking instructions. While you’re cooking, ask your relative, “Where did this recipe come from?” If there is funny story that goes along with the recipe, write it down. That’s part of your family history, too.
Also, ask family members to bring old photos to family dinners. Seeing loved ones will bring back long forgotten memories. Keep a video camera or other recording device handy to memorialize the storytelling. Volunteer to create a collage of family photos. Group parents and offspring, siblings, cousins and generations. The collages make great presents.
Consider the holidays a time to go on a treasure hunt. You’re looking for pieces of yourself. When you start digging, you will find lots of interesting stories about family members. No doubt, you’ll find plenty of role models, too. You might hear about the first person in your family who graduated from college or the first person to own a business. You’ll also hear about obstacles and hardships some relatives faced, and how they overcame them. As you uncover your family’s history, you’ll learn a lot about yourself in the process. We know where our physical traits come from but not where we got our mettle. You only have to look back a few generations to find the answer.