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Tell Me a Story: Using Heirlooms and Artifacts to Inspire Your Writing

At a recent meeting of local genealogists, we discussed the article entitled, "Story Triggers: Finding Inspiration for Writing Family History"—about how our senses can help us tell family stories. The article's author, Sandra J. Crowley, noted that these triggers can fall into several categories aligned with the senses, such as visual, auditory, environmental, etc.1  As I considered what I tend to gravitate to, I find that artifacts and heirlooms are what inspires me the most: a photo, a piece of crocheting, a baby book, an embroidery, etc. A single artifact can appeal to several senses at once: to the visual, the tactile, and even the olfactory. Think about a fragile marriage certificate that nearly crumbles to the touch, yet is still colorful, and carries a faint smell of old paper.  I've found heirlooms and artifacts are rich inspiration for my writing, and penned an article, "Tell Me a Story: Using Heirlooms and Artifacts to Inspire Your Writing," for th...
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Memorable Vacation

 

While I'm on vacation this week, I'm borrowing some writing I've done of my memories for our son. He gifted me with the book Questions You'll Wish You Asked: A Time Capsule for Mothers and Sons,* by Melissa Pennel, for Mother's Day a few years ago. It's filled with prompts to encourage the recipient to write about their own life experiences. I have been chipping away at the various topics little by little, and think of it as "future family history." Rather than write my responses in the book itself, I've begun a separate, private blog just for him, and I share the post links with him whenever I complete a new post. He also wants a printed version, so at some point I will copy them over into a Publisher document to print. 

Here's this week's prompt: Was there a vacation you took that stood out to you as a child? Why?


As a family, there is only one real vacation I can recall taking with all my siblings and both my parents. We didn't have a lot of money for any kind of big trips back then. Any outing we took usually was just a day trip here or there.

Our destination this time? Niagara Falls! I was probably about eight or nine years old, as I do recall my sister Sharon was with us, and I was 6 years older than her. 

I remember it was during the summer, but by the falls it was still cool. The falls were immense, especially to my child's eyes. Their sound and the spray all made an impression for sure. And it was really beautiful to see, of course. I also remember being pretty cautious by the guardrail overlook. I didn't want to fall over! I know someone has photos of us there, because I remember seeing them. 

We were able to see the Maid of the Mist tour boats which go right up to the falls. Everyone was outfitted with raincoats and rain hats, because everyone gets wet from the spray. We didn't do that excursion but it was fun to watch others do it.

In addition to seeing the falls we also went to two other attractions that also were memorable. One was the Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, where they had lifelike wax figures of various historical people like kings, queens, celebrities, presidents, etc. I wish I remembered more about who exactly was represented, but it was over 50 years ago!

We also went to the Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum. That was cool! In particular I remember a life-size sculpture of an Asian man, and the story was that he sculpted it himself by looking in a mirror. It doesn't sound quite as impressive now as it did then! 

Postcard of the sculpture!

 

But wait, I just went online to look him up. It is ever cooler and weirder than I remembered! The sculpture is made of 20,000 pieces of wood, and the artist even used his own hair, nails, and teeth in it! He wanted to look as lifelike as possible as a remembrance for his girlfriend after he passed away. Yikes!

Here's a video on the piece: https://www.ripleys.com/weird-news/hananuma-masakichi-sculpture/

I know we only stayed in Niagara Falls for the day, driving to and from Cleveland the same day. It's only about a three hour drive give or take from where we lived. Though only a day, it was the closest thing we had to a "vacation" - we may have even crossed over to the Canadian side! 

 

Until next time... 

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© Nancy Gilbride Casey, 2024. All rights reserved.

* I am not endorsing purchasing the book on Amazon; it was just the first link that came up.




 

 


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