"Tracing Our Roots" Newsletter Archive (A monthly genealogy newsletter written by the late Brenda Kellow, dec'd, for the Plano Star Courier newspaper. We've included all the ones we could recover.)
It was our usual routine every morning at Plano High School. At 8:27 a.m. Celia Daniel and I would wait on the east stairwell and listen quietly as one of the local ministers started the day with a prayer broadcast over the public address system, and wait for the 8:30 bell to ring. By cracking the door just a little we could hear when Mr. Williams, affectionately called Baldy behind his back, brought the assembly to order in the huge study hall on the third floor. All four grades, 9 through 12, would be sitting in their seats waiting for him to finish so they could go to their classes. After he had begun his announcements Celia and I would slip through the door into the hall and enter the study hall and go to our double seats which were just a couple of rows from the front where Mr. Williams was standing. Everything stopped and stared when we entered. It was perfectly quiet except for a couple of snickers from some of the braver students who were aware of our shenanigans. We smiled confidently as we entered the study hall. We were confident because we always wore the latest fashions, and we knew we were impeccable in our appearance. After we were seated, Mr. Williams would announce that now that Celia and Brenda were here we could continue! Why did two good students choose to be tardy every morning? Our reason was twofold. One: we knew all the boys in the study hall would look at us; and two: it was a fun thing to do.
We got the idea from the senior English teacher, Mrs. Skaggs, who always was the last teacher to enter. She never wore the same dress twice in a season. All the girls waited to see what she was wearing. Thus, she was indirectly responsible for our tardiness.
And so it went with my memoirs over the weekend while I was filling out the entries in Grandmother, A Record Book of Memories by Linda Spivey. The book was a gift from a close friend who made me promise to complete it and give it to one of my grandchildren. The job is done, complete with memoirs from my childhood, pictures of my pets, favorite school friends, my baby blanket lovingly made by my maternal grandmother, favorite dolls, stuffed animals, wedding day, elementary school plays, and pictures of the great-grandparents. The purpose of this book is to record grandmother s life for the grandchild and to be read as a bedtime story. In so doing, the child can commit to memory the important and meaningful things to the beloved grandmother.
Memoirs can be as interesting as a novel because they are supposed to be true events brought from the deepest recesses of memory. They are focused in time and do not cover a span of years which is indicative of an autobiography.
If you haven t begun yours, there is no time like the present to begin sharing your memoirs with your children and grandchildren. You might even create these for your historical society or library. Remember, once you are gone, or your memory taken from you, there is no way to share your childhood and hometown memories. You deserve better.
Resurrecting things from the past has become the norm since September 11, 2001. Just look at the revival of the old TV series and motion pictures. Bringing back to life the histories of our families and their environment is not new to any genealogist. Begin yours now and enjoy it as much as I have.
Heritage Quest: Currently Heritage Quest supports Genealogy and Local History, a ProQuest Product. Plans are underway for Heritage Quest and Genealogy & Local History to be merged, but not until the end of May. This means we continue to wait!
AMERICAN INDIAN AND MILITARY RESEARCH: The next GenFriends' Saturday Morning Seminar will feature two topics of general interest: American Indian Research and Military Research. The speaker will be Kris Richens. The event will be on Saturday, May 18, 2002 at the Gladys Harrington Library, 1501 18th Street, Plano. The program runs 9:30am to noon (doors open at 9:10am). Admission is free. Sponsored by Genealogy Friends of Plano Libraries, Inc.
Brenda Kellow, dec'd, Certified Genealogist and Certified Genealogical Instructor, had a Bachelor s Degree in history and taught genealogy courses at the local Community College and computer genealogy at the University.
