How to Write Family Memories about a Home

Sometimes it's hard to dredge up early memories without something to trigger them. Don't let the early days slip away. Write the memories down to share with your children and grandchildren. Here's how to use your memories of a former home to bring the memories back.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. 
   My family and home in 1928

   It's helpful to have some photos to get started. Looking at an outside picture of the house, start writing down what you see. Describe the color, style, and landscaping.

2. 

   If you have photos of people inside the house, look past the person to see the details of the room. What room is it? Can you draw a rough floor plan? Remember what room was next to the room in the photograph. Where was the kitchen, the bedrooms, the front door, the back door? As you answer these questions, more details will start to come back to you.

3. 
   Thanksgiving feast in the dining room

   Focus on a single room. What furniture was in that room? How did the family use that room? Try to remember incidents and occasions that occurred in that room.
   Here's an example from my own memory writing:
   Besides Mother’s rocking chair and an arm chair for Daddy, I remember a long library table with a lacy runner that Mother had crocheted. The library table was narrow with a shallow drawer in the front where Mother kept our collection of pencils, erasers and stationery and legal pads of lined paper. The table also had a shelf about a foot off the floor where the Country Gentleman and Redbook magazines were kept next to the Sears catalog and Daddy’s garden seed catalogs. There always was a calendar hanging near the kitchen door.

4. Try to visualize what was on the wall in the room (paint, wallpaper, pictures). What accessories and decorative items were in the room?
   Here's my example:
   On the wall between the window and the front door hung the large oval picture with Daddy in his World War I uniform in the center, surrounded by a background of the American flag with the American Eagle poised at the top. I can’t remember Daddy talking about the war and didn’t know until I was grown that while over in France he had been wounded in his lower leg from a piece of shrapnel.
   We had a shelf of much read books by B.M. Bower, Zane Grey, Jackson Gregory, Jack London, Peter B. Kyne and my favorite, Harold Bell Wright. My mother’s cousin, Charles Augustus Vining, was used as the character, ‘Fiddlin Jake’ in Wright’s most famous book, The Shepherd of the Hills.” Years later when I was researching family history, I interviewed his son, Lester, and Lester said that his Dad had never held any other job but fiddling for community dances.

5. Think about the feelings evoked by that room. Write those down.
   Here's my example:
   Evenings in the front room were the best of times. Daddy sometimes would ask Melba or me to play for him on the piano, to show how we were progressing, after which the lid was closed over the keys to keep the dust out. The rest of the evening was like it had been before the advent of the piano. Daddy would pop corn and we would all read while eating the luscious white kernels, slathered with golden, homemade butter. Sometimes Mother or Daddy would read aloud, especially after my younger sister, Carol, was born when I was ten years old.

[treasuresyw]

on 11/19/2009 I was so excited reading your article. I am writing a novel and the articulation and the detail you gave in this article made my heart pound with anticipation of getting more writing. This is great technique. Thank you. Peace to you.

[nancycarol]

on 7/30/2009 I really enjoyed reading this and the tips were right on the money. While writing about my family, in my mind's eye, I went back to that time and those places. You bring a new perspective to people who might be interested in writing about their youth. Thanks. 5*

[karileighk]

on 7/9/2009 What wonderful ideas, and awesome pictures with it.

[annvans]

on 6/11/2009 Wonderful article, very helpful!