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Enjoying this thread. I think there's a lot of truth that the young generation as a whole won't appreciate our history until they are older. I say most but it will vary. Have on child who has no interest while the other surprised me when he was interested in keeping some stuff when we were downsizing.
Histories, I do think there at least needs to be a written, typed copy. Someone said they lost stuff when a computer crashed. Mediums change. I have a DVD made from a VHS tape made from the old 16, or was it 8, mm film of family from the '50's and '60's. Who knows if it will last?
I do have a question about where to donate. I am the recipient of my grandmothers diaries that are almost continuous from the late 1920's to the late 1950's within a few weeks of when she died unexpectantly. Remember those five year diaries? She actually filled a couple of them! Others are spiral journals. I've read some, interesting how little notice my parents wedding or my sibs and my birth there were. It's mainly that of a Midwest farmer's wife, what she sewed, how many eggs gathered, what price they sold, what she gardened, cooked, who visited, going to church. Love it. Haven't had time to read all and wished I could copy it as its all in pencil and slowly fading. Someday I may try to. In the meantime, someday I would like to donate it if anyone is interested in the daily life of a farm wife. Should I start with the local historical society? I'm afraid it may just sit there. I was wondering about a state university but no idea how to approach that. Anyone have any experience in this?
Try your local historical society first. Some of them are headed by professionals and have people cataloging the incoming materials. If your town isn't interested, try the surrounding towns. Even if none of them wanted the diaries, they might give you some leads as to a place that would want them. Often there are state libraries. It will depend upon what organization has been appointed as the repository for such materials.
When my mother passed away I donated large photographs that her brother had taken to the historical society. They went to the city my mother had grown up in. Her brother had been an amateur photographer and when the New England area suffered a historic hurricane in 1938 he had taken pictures of the river rising and the old train bridge being washed away. I knew I had no use for the pictures but maybe someone researching that disaster and that era would gain from looking at these first hand pictures.
I think some of this is peculiar to American culture. By its nature, this culture worships the present and after that, the future. The past gets short shrift. David Brooks has quite a bit of insight about these characteristics. Such characteristics are good if one wants to avoid the seemingly ossified class structures and lack of innovation in The Old World. However, we may be throwing out the baby with the bath water in doing so. The other thing I'd mention is America no longer yields the level of economic mobility it once did, in fact, the Old World recently eclipsed us in that regard.
Sigh...another old person who has been passed by. The world doesn't beat to the drummer you heard. Everything you learned i can find online and copy for later access in a drive the size of a quarter. I have no need or desire to hear old people tell me stories about the hardships they faced and their struggles. They were your life and you lived them and you get to cherish them. The sad fact is nobody ever really cared what you did, but in the old days there were fewer options and there was more civility, so the kids listened to the elders.
You are a sad and rude person. Hopefully lonely as well.
You might read about something someone learned but you will never taste it. Therefore, you will never really know...ever.
The sad fact is no one would care if you never appeared here again.
The OP sounds like he wants to sit in an armchair and pontificate while onlookers listen in awe. That's extremely one sided.
A great opportunity to tell your stories starts by asking other people to tell their stories.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yakscsd
Sigh...another old person who has been passed by. The world doesn't beat to the drummer you heard. Everything you learned i can find online and copy for later access in a drive the size of a quarter. I have no need or desire to hear old people tell me stories about the hardships they faced and their struggles. They were your life and you lived them and you get to cherish them. The sad fact is nobody ever really cared what you did, but in the old days there were fewer options and there was more civility, so the kids listened to the elders.
^^^^^^
Hmmm, and they are concerned that younger folks aren't listening to them? Hmmmmmm I wonder and I wonder why? Not saying folks don't have a right to believe what they do but getting upset when not everyone else listens and embraces as the OP suggests?
There are many ways to be involved with the Kansas Historical Society. Consider donating to our collections, or making cash contributions to our foundation, Kansas Historical Foundation
This generation can't see it because they were born into it and have nothing to compare it to. The revisionism is blatant and in some cases totally the opposite of what I was taught. It's been a challenge to sort through it all to try to determine the truth. When I talk about how much more honest, caring and functional it was when I was growing up I hear responses about euphoric recall and a litany of the sins of the fathers.
But they weren't there and I was. Hah.
I know it's not as simplistic as that. Time does change perceptions and my values system and I have changed also. What I can see very well is the change in social values. And that bodes ill for the future. I soothe myself by remembering that the wheel turns and it all comes 'round again.
When I was growing up just after WWII almost everyone in my little So. MN town still spoke Norwegian on the streets and the old customs were still practiced. We were all Evangelical Lutherans and first or second generation Americans. It was nearly like a big family.
We all were very proud of our ancestors and their choice to come here. And we were proud to call ourselves Norwegian. That's passe today. Exclusive, insular and backwards. I feel sometimes like I've been robbed of expression of pride in my culture. And our indigenous and Black citizens have taught us what that's all about. That should terrify everyone. Why can people see the loss for minorities but they can't see their own loss and the dangers?
It feels nearly like a revolutionary act to express pride in a northern European background today.
I'll stop here. I came to type about what I've done to express my culture and pass it down and got caught up in a distracted, but I think necessary, introductory rant. Later I'll return with a constructive post.
That history is just as revisionist as anything. Nobody brings up the parts about how the Solums got suckered into a cult, or pastor Gulbronson's brother killed himself, or all the Severuds were all alcoholics. Scandinavian American immigrants were never robbed of their pride. Most of them were escaping dire straits and wanted to shed their past. My great grandparents forbid their kids from speaking Danish and Norwegian because they wanted them to be Americans.
I'm new to being an elder, but I do believe that the world I knew and understood and lived in is nearly gone. I wish to pass along that life to those who come after me without historical revisionism. It was what it was, bare and unvarnished. Both good and bad.
I'm finding that no one cares? And I don't understand it.
My great aunt who I loved dearly was born in 1883 and I have in my head her image and memories. She was divine and shaped my life. Her memories of a hundred years were passed on to me. No one cares.
I grew up in the cacophony of the changing of the civil rights south, they were tumultuous times, and no one cares.
I grew up with the early beginnings of television and with a transistor radio under my pillow at night, which radically altered the world, and no one cares.
Everything in history is built on what came before. Do we try to leave a legacy of what came before to those people who inhabit the world now, so that they have some understanding of the continuum of civilization? Or do we abandon the idea because no one anymore seems to remember anything before yesterday on their Facebook feed?
It is my feeling that there is kind of a intentional collective forgotteness now that people wish to believe, as though somehow the lessons of history and human character no longer apply.
>Political correctness disallowed in this thread. For god's sake spit it out and tell us what you think.
We can't go back and I doubt most of us would want to, but I understand what you are saying and I don't really have an answer. I will tell you something I just completed which was a suggestion from my grandson in law a few years ago. I spent the last couple of years writing about my childhood as I remember it. I entitled it, "my life as I see it" Much of what I wrote did deal, in a very light way with the changing times, what it was like when dad was in the Navy during WW2, the prices of things, what we did for fun, a lot of very funny, interesting things I probably have never bothered to share with the kids. It starts at the beginning of my life and ends at the birth of our first grandchild. My husband, a retired journalist just finished editing it (it needed a lot) and we will have it bound for all the grandkids for Christmas.
You may not think they care, I really do not think the younger generation wants to sit with us and hear our stories over and over, but I bet they would enjoy seeing it is writing. I know my grandkids will. Let me say though, which surprised it is very time consuming and not something you decide to do over a weekend.
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agreed, but
