Okay, we admit it. We really like the REI campaign #OptOutside.
For the past three years, as an alternative to #BlackFriday, REI has encouraged its customers to get outside and into nature instead of spending time and money buying junk at the mall. Take a hike and skip the lines, they say. Hmmm…a company that doesn’t particularly appreciate the pointlessness of hand-to-hand combat over a motorized, app-controlled vacuum cleaner? (Although the below video, I’m afraid to admit as a new father of a wonderful little girl, makes me VERY SLIGHTLY second guess my cynicism.)
What are the #NoMoreStuff and #WhiteFriday campaigns? It’s our effort to encourage people to re-think the relationship they have with the objects and things that surround them before they head out holiday shopping for things they may not really need or even truly want.
To our supporters, this refrain probably sounds familiar.
That’s because our #NoMoreStuff campaign—which started in 2012—also encourages people to skip the chaos of consumerism and instead invest in experiences during the entire holiday season. As the creator of The Heirloom Registry, we really hope this means taking time to document family history while the family is together. Family history certainly beats politics, wouldn’t you say?
Two years ago, as part of the #NoMoreStuff effort, we launched our #WhiteFriday campaign as a direct response to #BlackFriday. What is #WhiteFriday? It’s easy, that’s what. Three steps, and you, too, can be a #WhiteFriday participant this year. Drumroll, please…
(1) Sleep in;
(2) Have a delicious breakfast;
(3) Gather family and a few family heirlooms from around the house, talk about them, write down their histories, and perhaps even do some estate planning.
To help you along, please use our free Heirloom Registry Registration Sheet. If you want to save these stories permanently online and label each object with a unique Heirloom Registry ID number (and even take a picture of the people sitting at the table that you can attach with the online entry), purchase these at www.houstory.com.
All this anti-#BlackFriday stuff got me thinking: why limit yourself to one kind of non-shopping experience? Why can’t you mix #NoMoreStuff/#WhiteFriday with #OptOutside? For example, in the morning you talk about the old grandfather clock, and in the afternoon you go for a hike? You’ll get EXTRA CREDIT for talking family history while you run/walk/ski.
For EXTRA, EXTRA CREDIT: take pictures of doing #NoMoreStuff-y like things and post them online using the #NoMoreStuff and #WhiteFriday hashtags. Make sure to follow us on Facebook, too. We also encourage you to take the pledge (provided by one of my favorite nonprofits, The Story of Stuff Project) not to buy more stuff on Black Friday.
Well, it’s that time of year again: Our 2016 #NoMoreStuff Campaign kickoff! What is the #NoMoreStuff Campaign, you ask?
Simple: Our effort to encourage people to re-think the relationship they have with the objects and things that surround them before they head out holiday shopping for things they may not really need or even truly want. Things like, I dunno, family heirlooms.
Last year, our official kickoff was #WhiteFriday (the day after Thanksgiving). This was our direct response to #BlackFriday. As part of our message, we encouraged people to stay home with family and chat about family history (with actual family!) instead of getting in hand-to-hand combat over “Little Live Pets ‘Snuggles My Dream Puppy’ Playsets.”
So, let’s fast forward to 2016.
This year, it’s safe to say Thanksgiving dinner in the U.S. will be pretty interesting for many families. Lots of important conversations to be had.
And quite honestly, I hope you all have deep, challenging interactions with friends and family because we absolutely need meaningful, authentic conversation that include lots of listening and throughful dialogue—now more than ever.
However, it can’t all be serious stuff, right? If you want or need a break—if even for a few minutes—we have a possible nonpartisan solution: focus on family history.
Here’s how you do it:
Eat.
Clear the table.
Place five (5) family heirlooms in the center of the table.
Share all the information you can about each heirloom. Go around the table and join forces in this effort.
Then, document these stories using our free Heirloom Registry Registration Sheet. If you want to save these stories permanently online and label each object with a unique Heirloom Registry ID number (and even take a picture of the people sitting at the table that you can attach with the online entry), purchase these at www.houstory.com.
For extra credit: take pictures of doing #NoMoreStuff-y like things and post them online using the #NoMoreStuff and #WhiteFriday hashtags. Make sure to follow us on Facebook, too.
And remember: one thing that will always bring families together, regardless of differing beliefs, values and vision is…family.
Maybe.
At least it’s worth a shot, right?
If you want to learn more about the origins of our #NoMoreStuff campaign, I invite you to check out our post from December 2012. Thanks!
Dan and I are both in transit this week. Dan is setting up a new home in Portland, Ore., where his wife will begin another temporary assignment as a traveling speech therapist and I’m in Miami where I’m helping my daughter create a new home from scratch after being accepted two weeks ago from a wait list into the physical therapy program of her dreams – with the provision that she be ready to start class five days later. If you look at a map of the U.S. and put one finger on Miami, Fla., and the other on Ferndale, Wash., – well, you’ll see that creates quite the adventure.
Uncle Tom
But given it’s Memorial Day – and Houstory is a company created to honor and preserve memories and home – I thought I’d share just a few words about the powerful memories created by stuff.
My uncle, Thomas Walsh, is one of those we will be remembering this Memorial Day. He was killed in Vietnam in September 1966 when the plane he was piloting was shot down. He had just arrived in Vietnam a month or so before. He was my mom’s older brother and her only sibling. In addition to my mom and her family, my Uncle Tom left behind four of my cousins and my aunt, who was pregnant with my fifth cousin. My uncle was 27.
I was 2 ½ when died and have no real memory of him. But I’ve heard lots of stories, of course, and seen lots of photos. He loved baseball and golf. He was a great big brother to my mom growing up in Bellingham, Washington.
Stories are important and photos are great, but there is one thing in particular that helps me regularly remember my uncle (and also his mom and dad, my grandparents, who are also now both gone): their pasta pot.
This is Dan: I don’t know why the picture shows up sideways but you get the point. 🙂
They had a metal pot – which includes a fitted inner strainer – made specifically for cooking pasta. My mom tells me it was in their family kitchen for as far back as she can remember. My grandma used it pretty much every week, my mom says, to prepare dinner for my grandpa, her and her brother. It’s nothing fancy and — if you saw it in garage sale you’d probably feel taken if you didn’t barter the price down to less than a couple bucks. After my grandma quit cooking, I received the pot. I’ve now had it for well over a decade and — like my grandma — I’ve used it almost once a week to create meals for my family. And while I certainly don’t get all mushy every time I pull it out (unlike my pasta sometimes when I get distracted), I love that banged up pot and the memories that it holds.
My grandma filled that pot and my uncle washed and my mom dried that pot — it was pre-dishswasher days — over and over and over. I’m sure they weren’t thinking they were holding a family heirloom at the time, they were just scrubbing a dirty pot. Nevertheless, that’s what it is today. It is an irreplaceable piece of our family’s history that will one day be passed on — and used (because it really works well) — by my daughters. Stories are wonderful and photos are great. But it’s also hard to beat holding that one very used pasta pot.
Since 2010, Houstory’s Home History Book archival journals have helped Real Estate agents, bed and breakfasts and homeowners around the world tell the stories behind their homes.
Now, we want to say “thanks” for your support while clearing out our inventory.
Now for a limited time, we have drastically reduced the cost of all original Home History Books in our Deluxe line. Regularly $300, all Deluxe books are just $149. This includes free shipping in the U.S., a free bookstand and a personalized brass address plate.
Quantities and styles are limited. When the original Deluxe books are gone, they’re gone.
‘Corner Houstories’ is our attempt to reach you, The Houstory Nation, on the street and communicate your stories of home. With your help, we can also inspire others to save their stories and remind them why it’s important to do so. Oh—and I think we can also have some fun!
Houstory(pronounced “House Story”) was founded with the idea of telling and sharing the stories of home.
Yours truly at Antiques Roadshow,when the PBS TV program visited Corpus Christie, Texas, in 2012. Man, look how excited I was to be there!
When we say, “the stories of home,” we mean it. What makes a house a home? When was it built? Who has lived in it? What has happened within its walls? What do you know about the precious belongings—the family heirlooms—within its walls?
Unlike single-dimensional, statistical information such as dates of birth and census information, these physical elements—the places we live, the walls we build and the objects we touch—have clear and powerful connections to our past.
In other words, to know grandma was born in Pittsburgh in 1911 is important.
To flip through the kitchen-stained pages of grandma’s favorite cookbook with her handwritten notes is transcendental.
The object, whether it’s a house or a family heirloom, is a connection point.
With that in mind, our new project, “Corner Houstories,” is about as simple as it gets: We are going to randomly ask people on the street—maybe even on street corners—about the stories of their homes. Everyone has them, no matter how boring they think their lives may be. You just need to ask the right questions
Q: What is something now in your home that your mother gave you?
Q: In which room do you spend most of your time in your home? Why?
Q: What’s one item you no longer have that you wish you still had?
Q: What three things would you grab from your home in case of a fire?
Q: Do you own a chair in your home that someone famous sat in?
Q: What’s an item you would like to get rid of but can’t or won’t because of guilt?
These questions will spawn more questions and more answers. These are the stories of home.
It never ceases to amaze us how often we hear people say that their stories are either nonexistent or not worth sharing. We beg to differ.
To kick things off, I’m posting a video I took when Antiques Roadshow visited Corpus Christie, Texas. It was 2012 and I was living in Austin at the time. What you’ll see are some of the stories of home that people shared with me about the family heirlooms they brought to the event.
We were in Texas, right?
World War II memorabilia, carved monkeys, antique tables, china sets, swords…it was all there. And so were the stories. Stayed tuned for more Corner Houstories.
Let us know what you think. After that, fax your aunt and uncle and tell them how the Houstory Hearth changed your life and helped you lose more than 30 pounds in just six months. Or you can just leave a comment.
I’m guessing there are probably more than four steps that you can take to prepare for your death. In fact, the list is pretty much endless. For example, unless you die naked, who is going to clean the clothes you are wearing? What about the enormous pile of dishes you may have left in the sink? Do you have someone lined up to destroy your gutty attempt at a novel? In reality, none of us can fully prepare to die, right? But what about preparing to die when it comes to passing down family history?
Luckily, there is some pretty low-hanging fruit out there that you may want to consider if you have a little time on your hands. And by “a little,” I mean a few hours.
I can hear you already: “But Dan, I don’t have time. I mean there is some much going on with the kids and work. Plus I need to take out the trash.”
I hear you. Don’t worry: what I’m proposing will not get you in trouble with Child Protective Services, your boss or the local sanitation department. As you’ll see below, following these steps take less than a sliver of time. The best part is that once you finish these tasks, you’re done for the most part. And trust me, you family will be really, really grateful that they don’t have to go searching for your legacy when you’re no longer around.
As a point of reference, I’m going to throw out this number:
8,760.
That’s the number of hours in a normal year. Each task will take time off this total. So, let’s do this thang. No better way to kick off the new year then to write about death, dying and all that jazz!
This is perhaps the lowest hanging fruit of all. Creepy? Maybe. Important for passing on your family history? Definitely! Who better to write your story then… you? Hopefully, if this finds you in good health and you’re not risking your life on the job, this obituary will be very incomplete. In other words, you’ll have a lot left to write and you’ll likely need to update it in many, many moons.With that said, even if you were to take two dinky little hours this year to write down just a few basic details, such as where you had lived and what work you had done during your life, imagine the value that would provide for your loved ones. Not everyone knows your story, and don’t assume they do. Once you are finished, store it with your other estate-planning documents (life insurance, will, advanced directives, etc.). As someone who knows, having to scramble for obituary information about a recently departed loved one in the hours, days and weeks after they die is rough. Someday that “loved one” will be you.
Extra credit: And if you get swept up in the idea of telling your own story, record a video/audio file talking about your life: How do you want people to remember you? Do you have life lessons, advice and stories you would like to pass on to family and friends? Doing this well takes time, so plan it out. Much of the time allotted for this task is pre-planning: decide what you want to say and what order you want to say it in. Keep it clean and simple. Otherwise—like a friend returning from an overseas trip in which they decide to share 1,700 photos of their trip to Turkey with you— this might be painful for people to watch. Make sure you designate where this personal history is stored and who is in charge of presenting it to family members and friends. You can also hire someone, too, like these guys.
Yes, this is a direct call for you to buyour stuff. But it’s only because we believe in the service and there is no one else out there doing it. There is a reason we’ve been around for nearly a decade. We’re serious. When you mark heirlooms with physical ID numbers, the story and the family heirloom stay together so that anyone can understand the item’s significance and look it up at any time, now or in the future. Don’t you want your kids to appreciate the items in your house as much as you did while you were not dead (i.e. alive)? Hint: It’s not as overwhelming if you start one room at a time. Make it your modest goal to take a walk through your house and pull aside five items that matter to you.
(4) Make a favorites/dislikes/hobbies/day-in-the-life list (1 hour)
It may seem boring to you, but imagine if you recorded in writing or audio just one day in your life. Sure it may seem dull that you spent the first half of a Saturday in your boxer shorts making breakfast while listening to This American Life on NPR, then went to the grocery store to pick up groceries for the week that cost $53 (including $4.89 for a gallon of milk) and then came home to take a walk around the neighborhood before eating a dinner. But imagine how gold these details will be to your great-great grandkids.
Or, if you don’t like angle, make a Top 10 list of your favorite books, movies or food. For those with darker dispositions, you can do the same thing with dislike lists.
It’s all about hidden insight that people can’t derive from genealogical records alone. Time capsules baby!
Extra credit: Write some Love Letters. Death, I believe, is much, much harder on the living than on the dearly departed. Hopefully, all of your significant others already know how much they mean to you. But that’s not always the case. And certainly, putting those thoughts down in writing now—and tucking them away—would make for a beautiful, comforting and lasting gift right when they need it the most and for years to follow.
That’s it! In just 5 hours (.0006 percent of the year’s total) you’ve now prepared a SUBSTANTIAL gift to the future.
And great news! You still have 8,755 hours remaining that you can waste or use in whatever way you’d like. The nice thing is you can spread it out. There will be plenty of rainy weekends or times when you don’t want to deal with other humans. By going through this list, you’ll have a little fun traveling down memory lane; you’ll make life easier for your family who have to clean up after you (it doesn’t matter how great you think you are, it’s a pain); and you’ll effectively be able to share and save a family history that will live on well after someone has cleaned your last load of laundry.
Now, on to The Herd for this month…
“The Hearth Herd” is a roundup (or “Herd”) of a few stories we’ve seen recently that we feel our fellow Houstorians would be interested in. The Herd’s content will generally focus on three things: 1) House and property history; 2) Family heirlooms; 3) Environmental sustainability. If you see something that you think belongs in The Herd, we’d love to hear from you!
Herd-Worthy Because: “What is a family memory jar? It’s a glass jar or any container in which you can store family memories. It can be filled with short messages, everyday moments, photos or just about anything you want to preserve.”What a wonderful idea! Essentially, this is “Houstories” in a jar and an instant family heirloom. The day-to-day things are what makes a house a home.
Herd-Worthy Because: Our good friend Denise Levenickwrote this last spring, but it’s still pertinent. Also, we appreciate her mentioning a certain service that we happen to be big fans of. “Digital images of photographs, family letters, and treasured heirlooms will never fully replace a lost keepsake, but pictures and stories can preserve the memories of a special piece of furniture, a quilt, or a framed photograph… After you’ve assembled your heirloom history, share it widely with family, friends, and other researchers. Consider uploading images and stories to genealogy sites such as Ancestry.com or to the online heirloom history site The Heirloom Registry.”
Let us know what you think. If not us, then let that guy next to you in bus know what you think. After that, call your mom and tell her how great the Houstory Hearth is. Or you can just leave a comment.
I live in the Pacific Northwest, and earlier this year there was an article in the New Yorker that created quite a stir (you probably saw it). It was about the impending Cascadia earthquake that is likely to kill thousands and decimate regional infrastructure. The sub-headline of the article provided this chilling message: “An earthquake will destroy a sizable portion of the coastal Northwest. The question is when.”
That’s always fun to hear, right? Especially in your own backyard.
In response, I’ve since prepared emergency supplies for my wife and I while creating a disaster preparedness plan for my immediate family living in the area. This first-level preparedness has provided me with piece of mind when it comes to survival and basic needs. Water, food, shelter. Check, check and check. Undoubtedly, these are the most important considerations when disaster strikes.
But now that I’m prepared on that surface level, let’s dig a little deeper. What is the second level of preparedness? Much like end-of-life issues, getting your house in order ranks highly. This includes compiling and organizing medical and financial issues in such a way that physical destruction doesn’t mean they disappear forever. Just because your house has been burnt, floodedor destroyed doesn’t mean your life ends.
This whole process got me thinking about what people are doing when it comes to family history and specifically family heirlooms.
If you look back at 2015, the list of natural disasters that have occurred around the world is astounding both in frequency and in severity. If you live in the American South and Midwest right now, you know all too well what I’m talking about with the historic-level flooding that is occurring. In other words, things are getting wacky, kids.
Might I suggest you to make 2016 the year you prepare yourselves for what may come? No matter where you live, being prepared can provide peace of mind. After your have addressed your basic needs, financial and medical issues, move on to sorting and organizing your family heirlooms. Obviously, we can help with this process: use The Heirloom Registryto ID your family heirlooms offline and save their stories online in about 10 minutes. Done. Whatever system you use, start the process. You’ll be thankful you did even if you don’t ever face mother nature head on.
Keep track of heirlooms no matter where they end up: Give them traceable IDs!
#NoMoreStuff 2015 campaign wrap-up
Another year, another #NoMoreStuff campaign.
Our fourth “No More Stuff” campaign—which officially kicked off with “White Friday,” an alternative to Black Friday—ended today. We thank everyone who supported our efforts to save their family heirloom and family keepsake stories and avoid the urge to needlessly consume! Below are a few of the tweets from campaign supporters. We’ll be back next year to continue the effort. Until then, consider the importance of honoring the items you currently own instead of reflexively buying the latest junk you probably don’t really need or truly want.
“The Hearth Herd” is a roundup (or “Herd”) of a few stories we’ve seen recently that we feel our fellow Houstorians would be interested in. The Herd’s content will generally focus on three things: 1) House and property history; 2) Family heirlooms; 3) Environmental sustainability. If you see something that you think belongs in The Herd, we’d love to hear from you!
Herd-Worthy Because: “A smartphone app from StoryCorps can bridge generations by turning anyone into a documentarian.” Man, this is getting too easy. The technology is there. It’s up to you to take a few minutes and do it.
Herd-Worthy Because: “History is largely comprised of anecdotal material. What difference does it make that you then wrote on cheap paper with an ordinary fountain pen or even a borrowed pencil.” In other words, just do it!
Herd-Worthy Because: “Knowledge of family history has been shown to reap surprising rewards for children. A 2001 study on the subject by Drs. Marshall P. Duke and Robyn Fivush of Emory University suggests that children who know more about their family narrative have higher self-esteem, a stronger sense of control over their lives, less anxiety, and fewer behavioral problems.” As an added bonus: researching family history is also lactose free and has that delicious taste all dogs love.
Herd-Worthy Because: “When I walk into houses that are clean and tidy — those of people who have simplified, organized and decluttered — I see a house cleansed of memories and heritage.” Amen, Amy. Amen.
Let us know what you think. Do you like the Houstory Herd? Do you have a problem with something we said? Do you think we are full of beans? Do you like monkeys? Talk to us!
On this this third episode of “Houstories: The Stories of Home” podcast (entitled “Origins”), we pack up for a weekend trip. Not just any trip, though: My first hunting trip. Initially, my goal is to discover the origins of the food I eat by going to the source (in this case small game in Central Oregon). However, along the way, I discover the origins of a unique family cabin constructed with nearly 100 percent recycled materials!
A shell casing near the homestead.
Sense a theme here? Make sure to check out the pictures later in this post to see images from a very interesting weekend.
Paul Bloom spoke of, “The Origins of Pleasure” in a TED Talk several years ago (see video link in this article). In it, he talked about the pleasure — and often monetary value — associated with knowing the story behind objects.
“So one reason why you might like something is its utility,” he said. “You can put shoes on your feet; you can play golf with golf clubs; and chewed up bubble gum doesn’t do anything at all for you.But each of these three objects has valueabove and beyond what it can do for youbased on its history.The golf clubs were owned by John F. Kennedyand sold for three-quarters of a million dollars at auction.The bubble gum was chewed up by pop star Britney Spearsand sold for several hundreds of dollars.And in fact, there’s a thriving marketin the partially eaten food of beloved people.(Laughter)The shoes are perhaps the most valuable of all.According to an unconfirmed report,a Saudi millionaire offered 10 million dollarsfor this pair of shoes. They were the ones thrown at George Bushat an Iraqi press conference several years ago.”
Without a doubt, origin stories are powerful (and often times valuable) things.
We also asked our good friend Denise Levenick, aka The Family Curator, five questions that have nothing to do with family history, genealogy, family heirlooms or house history. The way she performed, I’m pretty sure she’s done this before. Well played, Denise!
Denise Levenick, The Family Curator
Mike also told you of his “Tinker Tour” adventures, and his eventual path to the Playboy Mansion, where he hand-delivered a Home History Book to one of the most famous homes on Planet Earth. You can read about both of these here.
Finally, if you like what you hear on our podcast and you have a spare moment, would you mind giving us a good review on iTunes?
LISTEN HERE! WELL, NOT HERE. JUST BELOW. YOU GET THE POINT.
View of the “Outhouse Resort” homestead from afar…
Cliffy.
A view from the outside…
Up the ladder to the…outhouse?
Vegas in Oregon…
Cozy cabin…
Saturday night hunting…
Cooking rabbit.
Cooked rabbit.
Eaten rabbit.
Back-to-school ideas for budding family historians
If it’s September, it’s back to school: learning new things, meeting new people and reconnecting with old friends. For those of us in the northern hemisphere, it’s also the beginning of the end of long summer days and the return to more indoor activities.
With this in mind — and the perfect “genealogy weather” on the horizon — Mike and I thought it would be a good time to see what sort of educational resources exist (particularly those aimed at kids) that might spark an interest in learning about their family history, helping them feel connected to the bigger picture and their place in it.
As the folks at Family Search note, “Many people desire to know where they come from, but a sense of belonging is especially important for children and youth. A knowledge about their family history gives children of all ages a sense of their place in the world.”
Not surprisingly, Family Search is one of our favorite resources for inspiring budding family historians. While the site is large and contains a number of helpful resources, a good starting place is their Youth Wiki Page where they’ve listed several activities and loads of resources. Many of the activities are aimed at stimulating discussion between generations while such sharing can still occur. It’s a theme we talk about frequently at Houstory. It includes such things a list of basic questions a young person can ask when interviewing an older ancestor.
Another useful site is Family Tree Kids!hosted by our friends at Family Tree magazine. The site includes a “Junior Toolkit” with links to basic family tree forms that kids can use to trace their roots and instructions, tips for making a family reunions “kid friendly” and — as Halloween approaches — instructions for creating a tombstone rubbing. The site also includes information about resources aimed at parents and teachers.
And since we’re all about telling the story of important family stuff (aka family heirlooms), we especially liked the “My Family! My Story!” Genealogy Project Series created by the Victoria Genealogical Society, which includes tips for preserving the stories of family keepsakes. As FamilySearch notes, for young people especially, “holding something that once belonged to an ancestor can be a powerful experience. Pictures and heirlooms make the past come alive.”
Send us your obits contest!
Finally, we still challenge listeners to send us a paragraph of your own obit! Yes, your living obituary — just like the one I penned for my father-in-law. If we read your words on air during our next podcast, we will send you a pack of Heirloom Registry labelsso you can preserve and pass on the stories of your family heirlooms. Send those entries to info (at) houstory (dot) com. (If you just want to inspire others, but would prefer we not use your real name when reading it, let us know.)
Herd-Worthy Because: Planning ahead isn’t just about end-of-life care or estate planning. Think to the very end and become plant food! “Composting makes people think of banana peels and coffee grounds..(but) our bodies have nutrients. What if we could grow new life after we’ve died?”
Herd-Worthy Because: Family stories connect us to loved ones, the past, and each other. The New England Historic Genealogy Society invites you to Share the Story of a Lifetime at our 2015 Family History Day on Saturday, October 3, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Sheraton Boston Hotel. This day of lectures, demonstrations, and consultations with genealogical experts will help you learn about essential resources and delve deeper into your family history. Visit AmericanAmerican.org/FHD to register and learn more about the day’s events. Special offers available for members, students, and groups. Presented byAmerican Ancestors(NEHGS), with the special participation.
Author: The Weekly Genealogist, a publication of the New England Historic Genealogy Society
Herd-Worthy Because: “Mayes came up with his 14 reasons by making site visits to historic places, reading articles and books on the subject and conducting interviews with people outside the preservation field — people such as archaeologists, architects, historians, artists, developers, writers and businessmen.”
So we’ve been getting a few questions regarding our podcast. Specifically, how often episodes will be produced and when they will be released.
We are planning on coming out with new episodes about once every three months (quarterly). The next episode is scheduled for early-mid September 2015. On a related note, we are happy that we’ve gotten good reviews so far, and really do appreciate the kind words! If you like what you hear and you have a spare moment, would you mind giving us a good review on iTunes?
And please, let us know if you have a family heirloom or house with a story. Or maybe you know someone else with these types of stories? We’d love to chat with you (or them) on our podcast. Your words may inspire others to save the stories that are so important to family history.
P.S.: Good news! There is still time to enter our multiple contests (if you are reading this before June 1, 2015). For more details on how to win, visit last month’s Herd.
So I belong to a local Toastmasters group in Eugene, Oregon. I joined the club to work on my communication skills (giving speeches, making presentations, producing podcasts, etc.).
The meeting allows members a chance to speak on a variety of topics in an effort to improve, and one subject that was recently presented to me was this biggie: “What is your favorite place in the world.” Well, I could list off a lot of places I love, but the one that came to mind was a location that held an important place in my family history called Granite Creek Campground, near Anchorage, Alaska. It was an oasis for me growing up, a campground that brings back memories of catching my first fish and action-packed getaways with my family.
Dan and Dad in Klamath Falls, Oregon.
To me, I remember Granite Creek felt like home. If you want to know more about me and my life path, you need to know about Granite Creek and its importance in my personal history.
The second episode of our new Houstories podcast examines a similar concept: What places do you connect with family history? For this episode, we travel to Klamath Falls, Oregon., to delve deeper into the topic. That’s where I have a chance find out a little bit more about what makes my dad tick. How? He lived there 60-plus years ago as a little kid, and I recently joined him and his brother (my Uncle John) on a journey to learn a little bit more about their connection to the area.
In this episode, my brother Mike and I also chat about one woman’s unique and humorous approach to preserving her legacy in the face of battling a terminal illness.
Finally, we ask Allison Dolan of Family Tree Magazine penetrating questions about life outside of genealogy, including the longest she has gone without bathing. (Thank you for being a good sport, Allison!)
Allison Dolan
Yes, it is mostly fun and games at Houstory. Speaking of games, Allison has graciously offered to give away Denise Levenick’s new book, “How to Archive Family Photos.” If it is anything like her outstanding book, “How to Archive Family Keepsakes,” you will learn much from The Family Curator.
To enter the drawing for a chance to win her book, send us an email at info (at) houstory.com telling us who taught Dan’s dad to play basketball. [Hint 1: The answer is in the podcast!] [Hint 2: It’s between the 12:12 — 15:15 minute mark.] Winner will be randomly selected from among the correct entries. One entry per person, please. Final entries due May 31.
And for those of you who want to start saving your stories of home, send us your obituary. Yes, you heard that correctly.
Give us one paragraph telling us what you liked to do while you were alive (hobbies, interests, etc.). Yes, your living obituary — just like the one I penned for my father-in-law. If we read your words on air during our next podcast, we will send you a pack of Heirloom Registry labelsso you can preserve and pass on the stories of your family heirlooms. Send those entries to info (at) houstory (dot) com. (If you just want to inspire others, but would prefer we not use your real name when reading it, let us know.)
Finally, make sure to check out the links we mentioned in the podcast with our Herd stories at the end of this post, as well as photos of Dan’s Klamath Falls trip. And of course listen to the podcast, too.
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