About Me

Knowing our personal history helps us better understand ourselves.

For as long as I can remember, family stories captivated my attention. As a young child, I dreamed of large family reunions with lots of cousins who provided life-long friendships. What I experienced, however, was a small, insulated family of four, with a handful of cousins who lived thousands of miles away. 

To compensate for our quiet lifestyle, I took snapshots of milestone events. This hobby continued throughout adolescence and into my adult life. I never did much with these photos, however. They sat for years in a box under my bed. 

In the mid-90s I attended a Creative Memories class. While I enjoyed creating colorful scrapbook pages, it was the Mission Statement that grabbed my attention: 

• preserve the past
• enrich the present
• inspire hope for the future. 

Organizing the photos into albums was a start. But a picture only captures 1/125th of a second. What about the moments leading up to the photograph - and the events that come after? 

A picture may be worth 1,000 words, but I believe a written account completes the narrative.

In 2017 I delved into genealogy. Both my parents had passed, and I was approaching the third act of life. I thought learning about my ancestors might help me better understand my parents -- and me.

At first, my goal was to learn about my country of origin. As far as I knew, I was a southern mutt. In a short period of time, however, I realized genealogy put me in touch with those distant relatives I've yearned to meet since childhood. 

My family is extensive with many distant cousins ... and the buried stories contained within the vital documents and census records need to be discovered and preserved for the next generation.

My passion for family history marries well with my passion for writing. As a recently retired English teacher, I can apply the lessons I taught my high school students to my own family narrative: 

• How to research 
• How to organize that information 
• How to structure a compelling essay
• How to show and not just tell 
• How to develop believable characters 
• How to increase the tension that leads to a climax and then a satisfactory conclusion
• How to develop a theme and weave it throughout the story

It is my sincere hope and desire that what I share here will encourage you to take that first step ... to begin writing your story ... and to leave your legacy for the next generation.