Stories to Keep

By Sally S. Stich

The six Lorenz children always loved the tales their father Ralph told them. He enthralled them with accounts of his immigration from Austria, his war experiences as a naval officer, his exploits in the hotel business. A special favorite was the one about the origins of the family's dining-room table. Ralph told how during his tour of duty in the South Pacific, he and some of his men rescued a fallen teak tree from an island, sawed it into smaller pieces and had it shipped to Detroit, where it was eventually made into the table the kids grew up around.

Ralph died 10 years ago, but his adult children continue to enjoy his stories. About a year before his death, they commissioned a writer to transcribe all his cherished narratives and assemble his personal history. Says son Scott, 47, of Plymouth, Mich.: "In this book--actually a three-ring binder--he lives on."

The Lorenzes were in the forefront of what is a growing trend for families: gathering--or hiring someone else to gather--the history, anecdotes and reflections of an aging relative before it is too late. The practice has given rise to the Association of Personal Historians, made up of people who specialize in creating such accounts. In its seven years of existence, the APH has gone from seven members to 310, across the U.S. Many have journalism backgrounds; others are service-oriented professionals with applicable skills--a nurse, for example, who had studied stenography. According to Lettice Stuart, president of the APH, business is thriving, especially with baby boomers. Stuart, 56, a former stringer for the New York Times in Houston, finds that most of her clients are adult children, 50 to 60, who want their parents' stories preserved. Many of her colleagues report that the average age of their clients is 70-plus; they are parents who want to pass on a legacy to their kids and grandkids.

Though telling family stories is hardly novel, the increased interest (and willingness to pay someone $500 to $30,000 to put them in writing) is a sign of the times. "Besides being a generation that is used to paying others to do almost anything for them, baby boomers were also the first truly mobile generation," says Stuart. "We grew up, left home for college, rejected our parents' traditions and values and communicated by phone, not letters. Now as we age, we feel a sense of urgency to record family stories before our parents die. We realize success and achievement aren't as important as 'real' things--like family and close connections."

In personal histories as in almost everything else, technology has transformed the landscape, making life stories easier to preserve for future generations in formats that are vastly more creative. While some personal historians turn out spiral-bound word-for-word transcripts, others, like Richard Rosing, owner of Telestory in Nashville, Tenn., offer accounts on DVD, VHS or CD-ROM that not only cost upward of $15,000 but also rival an episode of TV's Biography in production values. "I add mementos, photos and music and try to show not only the life but the time in which it was lived," says Rosing, a former multimedia producer. "I also try to lead the project so it goes beyond the details of the person's life to what the life was about--because that's the real legacy. A life story is hardly ever about just one person; it's about that person in the context of the whole family history."

One of Rosing's subjects who zeroed in on what he saw as his real legacy was Jack Segal, 84, of Tarzana, Calif. Segal, who was a prominent songwriter in the mid-century decades (anybody remember 1949's Scarlet Ribbons or 1957's When Sunny Gets Blue?), singled out as his most profound experience his return, late in life, to a belief in a higher power. "It was important for my kids and grandkids to understand that after almost 60 years as an agnostic, I had to acknowledge that my musical ability was a God-given gift," he says. "God had given me talent as well as a mother who nurtured that talent. I wanted my family to remember why I now embrace God with all my heart."

It's a human need to want to leave something behind--experiences, values, feelings that may not have been fully expressed. But a concrete legacy is only one of the benefits of creating a personal history. Experts agree that reviewing and assessing one's life also has emotional and physical benefits. "Research has shown that the act of telling your life story increases self-esteem, reduces depression, alleviates loneliness and helps people deal with grief and loss," says John Kunz, manager of the International Institute for Reminiscing and Life Review at the University of Wisconsin--Superior. Kunz's institute, whose members include psychologists, gerontologists, therapists and social workers, is devoted to research and education about the value to older adults of the examined life.

At the University of Texas, psychology professor James Pennebaker conducted a study showing that writing or talking about life experiences--particularly emotional ones--can lower one's blood pressure and contribute to a stronger immune system. Pennebaker also found a significant drop in doctors' visits by participants in the study after they wrote about emotionally charged experiences.

For many, life review can be an effective tool for healing old wounds--although experts caution that some people are not candidates for revisiting past traumas (particularly those who lost a parent at a very young age, for whom talking about the past may lead to depression). "It's therapeutic without being therapy," says Dr. Robert Butler, president and CEO of the International Longevity Center. "It's an opportunity to come to terms with various aspects of life." After 27 years of therapy for depression, Lydia Hubbard, 69, of Clackamas, Ore., finally found solace when she decided to hire a personal historian four years ago. "I did my life story for me," she says. "And for the first time, I related in detail about being sexually molested as a child." As she reread and revised her drafts, she felt a lifting of the shame she had carried all those years. "Psychiatry offered me treatment," she says, "but telling my story finally provided healing."

As we live longer, we confront the possibility that as many as four generations of a family could be alive at the same time, points out Harry Moody, director of the Institute for Human Values and Aging. By telling family stories, the eldest generation can create a connection with the younger ones that benefits everyone. That's what motivated Reita Vance, 68, of Orem, Utah, to hire Jan Jenson of Jan's Journals to do her personal history. "Even though there's fewer than 68 years between me and my grandkids," Vance says, "our lives seem worlds apart. I wanted my grandkids to know what it was like growing up on a farm with no electricity, no phone and no car. I wanted them to know what it was like when my mother got diphtheria and was quarantined. And I wanted them to know what it was like being chased by a bear on my way home from school. But mostly I wanted them to know that feelings like love and fear and joy are the same whether you grew up in the 1930s or in 2002."

No matter what the final product--an entire life from the start to the present in full color on DVD or selected stories typed on plain white paper--the most important thing, say experts, is to get it done before family members die and take their memories with them. The tragedy of 9/11, among other things, has reminded us that "none of us knows what tomorrow will bring," says Andrea Gross, a personal historian in Denver, whose company, Legacy Prose, coaches clients on how to write their histories. Capturing the richness of mature lives can at least ensure that yesterday will keep providing gifts to tomorrow.