The Tennessee State Archives for their permanent collection recently accepted a manuscript written by my mother.  Because of this, I became a "time traveler"  reflecting back on past life and the olden days, back before our time, when computers and even electricity were not around.  In rural Tennessee back in the 20’s the modern world went on someplace else and people continued to live a rugged, almost pioneer type existence of the same kind that was lived by generations before them.

My Mother is a storyteller, a spinner of tales.  She has a million stories and will talk forever if you let her.  Her stories are mostly about rural Tennessee and her life growing up on a farm with a large family of eleven children.  When my sister and I were kids, we loved hearing the stories and often asked her, “Tell us about the olden days.”  

My sister and I grew up hearing an oral history about the previous generations.  We always knew about our Tennessee roots and who we were.  As we grew older, however, the stories, so remote and different from our own life, became less significant to us.  By that time we had heard them all dozens of times anyhow. 

As Mother became older, probably growing increasingly aware of her own mortality, she decided to write a memoir about her childhood experiences.  The memoir was shared with family members.  My copy was read then tucked away in a drawer for 14 years until several weeks ago when my daughter, having heard about its existence from her grandmother, asked for a copy.  I dug it out and made a copy for her, and then I made an extra copy with the thought of the State Archives in the back of my mind.  

Our family is not famous or important.  Does the history of common people really matter?  I had heard the Tennessee State Archives might accept family histories for permanent retention.  So,  somewhat hesitantly, I approached the archives staff with a copy of the memoir.  Wonder of wonders - the selection committee was interested and accepted the manuscript. 

Mother's book is a simple  accounting of her recollections.  I think that doing it was a way of bringing her life into focus and giving it significance.  Educated and intellectual people write most history.  My mother is neither.  Yet, she made her contribution, left her mark. 

She had little in the way of material things growing up in rural isolation on a farm in a poverty stricken area of Tennessee.  The family farmed, grew much of what they ate, made their own clothes, and slept in featherbeds with homemade quilts.  

The richness of my family heritage is not in valuable possessions passed from one generation to the next, but in love, memories and family values, things that our society sometimes seems to have lost today. 

NEXT:   The Good Ol' Days