Fair Warning

I love reading biographies of dead people. They are almost always written by someone who never met the person and I'm fascinated by the writer's ability to glean from public and private papers enough insight to make bold statements about the person's thinking and the motivations for their decisions and actions.

I have written two blog entries on this site about people I never met. My opinions about them and their motives are purely out of my imagination based on the few public papers left behind.

This brings me to this warning --

What will they say about you 100 years from now?

We no longer write long insightful letters to our loved ones for posterity to read. Instead are short cryptic notes on Facebook, Twitter and text messages.

At best there may be an email or two worthy of saving but for the most part our communication is quick, poorly written (and our spelling atrocious) making us look uneducated, brash and self-centered. 

But we are reasonably safe from scrutiny because it is usually deleted shortly after it is read.







Photographs used to be precious and few.  Before the 1900's they were primarily taken by professionals in studios and our family members are staged in unsmiling poses giving us the impression that their lives were painfully difficult and humorless.








Today we snap pictures with all sorts of electronic devices as well as cameras.  Many young people believe that the entire world (or at least the 7,000 people on their 'friends' list) want to see every detail of their lives.  These posts could live forever.

If you are lucky enough to have a scrapbook enthusiast in your family you may have the very best of your photos glamourized and decorated in large or small albums.

So, what do YOU want your great great grandchildren to know about you 100 years from now? 

What plans have you made, if any, to project the real you into the future?  Are you willing to take a chance on having some knot-headed relative make huge assumptions about you based on a handful of data?

Do you journal?  Do you have a box of favorite photos?  Do you write stories about 'the good old days' even if they happened just yesterday?

Personally, I'm leaving nothing to chance.  To be totally honest, I don't trust my future knot-headed relatives.  I still can't be sure that misjudgments won't happen but I'm doing my best to leave a paper trail.


And here's the best part.  If you do the writing, you can put whatever slant or spin on the stories you want!  And Photoshop is your best friend!

rita

Family History 102

Clara Bell Davis Gaylord was my father's mother.

Information about what she was doing before she became John's wife is not available to this writer. But what we do know is that she and her sister, Cora, were the youngest siblings in their large family and that they were close all her life.

Their father had been a pioneer in the Otter Tail Minnesota area settling there after his service in the Army during the Civil War and was an interesting character.










Clara age 22

She married the 45 year-old John Augustus eight days after her 20th birthday becoming step-mother to Garner who was almost 13 years old at the time of his father's second marriage.












Stan and Clara

She was made a widow at the age of 38 with 4 children to raise.  My father remembered pushing his brother, Warren, in a stroller and walking with his mother while on her meter reading route.




Her death was a shock to everyone. She had traveled with her brother-in-law, John Bixby, (Cora's husband) to a doctor's office to have her tonsils removed. It was a routine surgery in the early 1920's.  She and  her family expected her to return home later that day.  All went as expected until it was time to revive her from the anesthesia.

She took her last breath was the doctor was cleaning up. She apparently gave no sign before hand of being in distress. Her brother-in-law, John, was in the room with her at the time.

It's difficult for us to know much about Clara today.  There are no letters or personal affects remaining in the family.  But, if the integrity and character of her children can be a testimony of her strength and loving kindness, then we, the children of her children can know that she was a special woman and that her love continues to live.