Oral Histories
Column for Lodi
News-Sentinel
May 2001
By Ann Kerr
Last year I wrote a column on “video
histories,” and made the point that we should not procrastinate taking a video
of parents and grandparents because we never know how long they will be with
us.
This was really brought home in
March when my husband’s mother died unexpectedly from injuries suffered in an
automobile accident. She had never
written a personal history. Rachel, one
of her granddaughters, was asked to deliver the eulogy at her funeral and the
only information she had to go by (other than a few dates) was the video we had
made in 1995.
The audience laughed with fond
memories as Rachel told how her grandmother had eloped when she was 17. When she and her new husband came back to
Modesto from their marriage in Tahoe, grandma was afraid to tell her very
strict parents what she had done. So she
and grandpa each went to their own homes to live and told no one. This went on for two weeks.
One day grandma was sitting in church
with a girl friend who whispered in grandma’s ear taunting, “I bet I’ll get
married before you do!”
“Oh, no you won’t,” grandma smugly
replied. “I’m already
married.” Little did she realize that
her parents were sitting in the pew behind her and heard the whole thing. He father was livid. When they got home he announced, “I’ll have
this marriage annulled if it costs me a cow!”
Well, he got over it because grandma
had married a sweet wonderful man and everyone came to love him. They were married well over 50 years until
grandpa died in 1996.
But I got to wondering what
grandma’s father was like . . . this man
who seemed so strict and firm. He had
written a short personal history, but included only the main facts of his
life. What about him as a person? I was curious. Only two of his children are still living and
they are in fragile health.
My husband made a date with one of
them who lives in Oakdale, and we visited him with the sole purpose of learning
some interesting things about the life of his father. We used a small tape recorder so that later I
could easily transcribe his memories into the computer.
We asked questions, of course, but
some of the best memory joggers turned out to be a few snapshots we had found
in grandma’s home. One was her brother
(our interviewee) standing by a milk can near the barn. We learned how the family supported
themselves by milking cows and selling the milk to a local creamery. Every day they made ice cream and it was this treat that
got them through some very tough years.
And yes, grandpa was strict and
quite a taskmaster. But all this
children loved and respected him for it.
(After they were grown anyway.)
If you decide to make an oral
history, you can use the same questions we used for the video histories. If you didn’t get a copy, you can email me at
the Lodi Family History Center and I will send one to you. If you don’t have email, I will have some
copies you can pick up at the Center at no charge. Do it now, before it’s too late.
Here is a clip from our interview with my husband's parents, as referenced in the column. We call if "The Elopement."
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