EPILOGUE
San Francisco, 2009
Christine looked out over the audience and took a centering breath before hitting the button on her remote to bring up her first slide. Each audience was different. Younger people had to be convinced that genealogical research was worth the long hours, the detours, and the dead ends they would encounter. Older people needed to be encouraged that it was not too late to tackle such a daunting project. Her job was to paint a vision of life both temporal and timeless. Hardest of all, both groups needed to learn to use their imaginations.
She always watched for the moment when the energy dropped in the room. Then she would depart from the data projected on the screen. The statistics would remain on the screen for a time, and then go dark. She would close her computer and open up her life.
“Some people live forever in the hearts of those who loved them. Others live in the imaginations of those who barely knew them. To tell a good story, you must depart from data. Recall what you learned from the cautionary tales your family told around the dinner table. Study your ancestor’s photos, puzzle over scrapbook clippings. The black sheep in your family fold have stories to tell.”
The inevitable question would come during Q&A. “Is the story you told in your book true?” Christine always gave the same answer, even though it rarely satisfied.
“Every family story is a fiction. Some parts are fact, but what we don’t know, we make up. It’s living history. As you interpret what you see and reenact what you’ve heard, your story gains some and loses some. That’s what makes it worth revisiting.”
Then she would pull an old scrapbook out of a green canvas bag, set a letterbox on the table in front of her, unfold yellowed sheets of legal paper covered with faded, typewritten copy, and tell her stories.
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