In today’s digital age, everything from baby’s first steps to loved ones’ last breaths are easily documented and shared through social media with as wide a circle as one wishes. Technology is a great aid to writing families’ stories and histories, making it easier in many ways. I like to think there is room to expand the practice of documenting and recollecting to share with family and friends.
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Two diaries belonging to my mother were unearthed from an old cedar chest that has held the last of her things since her passing eleven years ago. I was thrilled at the prospect of reading them. The earliest one was a Christmas gift from her mother in 1950. My mom would have been 18 years old.
The first entry in her new diary was New Year’s Day, 1951 and noted a family supper and a skating party in Dundalk. She and my father had become engaged a couple of weeks earlier so she’d added that news as well.
I pounced on these treasures like a scavenger, excited for any new morsels of information and insights to family history. Flipping through the pages, it quickly became apparent that the notes consisted solely of facts. The diaries were largely a record of births, deaths (including the death of King George VI in 1952), weddings and who’d been ill and prayed for at church. Read more