Published: May 29, 2009 10:57 am      

It is time to let the pen do the talking

When my parents moved into my late grandmother’s house, we found dozens of notebooks filled with short stories and poems. My grandmother was the first writer in the family. She loved words, in books and newspapers. A secret hobby, my grandmother scribbled away in the privacy of her home, never showing anybody her work. Some of the poems were only four lines deep; some were half-way finished, left open to the reader.

In her slightly messy cursive handwriting, the blue ink wove stories on wide-ruled notebook paper. The plots were simple, rustic at best, with a limited vocabulary. The stories and poems would never be published or celebrated by the literary world.

At times, I wish my grandmother had written about her personal life. I wonder about my great-grandfather’s trip to America from Hungry. Why did he change his name? I wish she had written about growing up with two sisters. Did they fight over boys? And I would have loved to read her love story with my grandfather. Without this knowledge, I am left empty-handed, with a few speculations from other family members. Like most writers and readers, I want the hard evidence in my hand, shaped in loops and swirls of blue ink. I want a book or a letter — anything tangible.

But like many rural towns of Appalachia, oral history is a traditional way to record life. Stories are passed down from generation to generation, with little regard for pen and paper. They — my grandparents and their parents — saw no reason to write down their stories. Using their stories and conversations, they recorded births, weddings, deaths, travels and much more. Oral tradition accounts for a majority of old wives tales, ballads, songs, chants and phrases. Of course, all of this dialogue was accepted as the family gospel.

I do not disapprove of oral traditions. While I believe it has a place in the culture of Appalachia, I also see the disadvantages of a system which relies on word of mouth. Remember playing the telephone game? I loved whispering a phrase in the ear of a classmate and watching the words travel down the line until the very end. The initial phrase never matched the ending words. As children, we would laugh at the silliness and start over again.

Oral tradition is like the telephone game. Eventually — no matter how carefully grandpa tells the story — details will be left out of the plot. Settings will become sketchy. Characters lose the ability to reach out, becoming obscure and flat. And who will pass down the oral tradition? Is this generation capable of repeating the information of our grandparents? I am not sure we can see the importance of oral tradition, when faced with so many different ways to communicate. Why repeat a story a hundred times when it can be written once ? For this generation, oral tradition is being replaced by the written word. Books, letters, text messages, blogs, e-mails — all serve as a recording device, not oral traditions.

Every single person in the two Virginias has a story worth telling the world. Just like my grandmother, every woman has a love story or a sibling rivalry. Every man has a heritage, a legacy from the starting place of a family’s ancestry. These stories deserve their place in a notebook, in a book or scribbled on a half-folded napkin.

The medium — the use of materials to write the story — needs no fancy binding or gold leaf gilding. The challenge is to record history using any means possible to preserve the story. We cannot rely on word of mouth. This generation will continue on the ever-changing road of technology. By not recording information, we risk losing our past. The attention span of dialogue is short lived, with no real time to listen.

My story is told through all of these mediums — including the newspaper. At times, I don’t even realize I am weaving a story. I am my grandmother’s writer. The granddaughter — the only girl on the side of my dad’s family — who loves to read and write on a daily basis. It is my duty to preserve the family’s history. Taking my grandmother’s love for language — my writing genes come from her — I can become the family’s official secretary. One day future generations will find my notebooks and newspaper articles and have a real-life knowledge of past events.

Let other family members open up dialogue and share stories around the dinner table and at holiday parties. I will sit there with a pen and paper, happily recording life for generations to come. Paying tribute to Appalachia’s oral traditions but yet combining pen and paper is the best way to capture a family history. It is time to let pen do the talking in this family.

Jamie Parsell is the Lifestyle editor of the Daily Telegraph. Contact her at jparsell@bdtonline.com