Remembering … and a Little Bit of Research
Yesterday I gave a dinner talk to the Pioneer Valley Reading Council about my work, and part of my message was that all research doesn’t need to end up in that genre called a research paper. I spoke about how not having taken any history courses in college, my life writing about history began when I was in my twenties and sorted through some of my Grandmère’s things after she died. This archiving, which my uncles called cleaning, raised as many questions as answers about a woman whose accent and habits sometimes embarrassed her three sons, but as granddaughter, I was totally smitten. Genevieve brought a sense of style from Paris to New Jersey, even if she didn’t update it over passing decades: she stuck with blue eye shadow and espadrilles into her eighties, and never wore pants in her life. Here’s a picture of her when she was in her twenties, in that roaring decade.
Not long before she died, she’d told me that I might have anything from what was sometimes called her art studio, sometimes a side porch. Here are a set of her dried paints and some sketches she did of patients as a Red Cross nurse during WWI.
I saved paints with gorgeous labels and fragile sketchbooks, and tossed paintbrushes that didn’t brush. That kind of looking, assessing what to keep and what to throw out, pondering, seeking clues about a life, is what I do as a researcher. In my talk, I went on to suggest ways students might mix imagination, which may be as filled with treasure and junk as attics, with research.
When I spoke with some teachers who lingered afterward, I was happy that one told me, “You just gave me my June lesson plan,” but more came up to talk about their own family memories. One woman told me of a deferred need to put down stories, including one of an ancestor whose father forbid her to become a nurse, and who ended up nursing this man in his old age. Another woman told me that she recalled asking her mother about her grandmother’s stories, and being told, “They passed away with her,” and realizing she might soon tell her grandchildren the same thing about her mother. Cutting short the third time she told me, “I’m not a writer,” I said, “Just put down memories when they come to you, without worrying about language or structure. Use ten minutes here or there.”
She nodded. I hope that was a promise. Teachers are so busy caring for others, but I hope some take the chance to write when their students do, perhaps even sharing with them some parts of their real lives, which may be as important as anything on the curriculum. The first story I ever published was about going through my Grandmère’s paintings, paper fans, saved menus, and rosaries, learning from what my dad and uncles would have thrown away. So much of what I write now comes from what was saved, but often carelessly, remaining at least half-hidden. Fragile, shadowy, and important, like the short stories told in a rush as I packed books, wound an extension cord, and tried to let my colleagues know that everything they remember matters.