Capture Those Family Stories
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| Generated by CoPilot 16 March 2025 |
Why Preserve Stories?
Have you ever casually said, “when I did . ..” and your
children looked at you and said, “Huh? you did what?” When this happens to you,
it is time to record the story. Thirty or 100 years from now, that story will
mean much more to your descendants than any family tree you create.
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| Inland Empire Students at Music Sessions, The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, 24 July 1949, p. 24, col. 2-3. |
If you think, “Someday, I will write a family history,” but you go right back to researching the marriage date of third Cousin Mary Missing, within five minutes the incident will have flitted from your mind. Kevin Kelly admonishes us to write down the idea within five minutes before it is gone. My list of experiences, events, and incidents is getting really long, so I have decided to get started so that my descendants will have SOMETHING.
The summer of 1949, my mother attended a short course at the
University of Washington to prepare her to become a Sanitary Inspector on the
Columbia Basin Irrigation Project in eastern Washington. To keep me occupied,
Mother enrolled me in the High School Music Institute at the University of
Washington. I’m not sure how she managed it, because I was not in high school,
but if you had known my mother, you would have been confident that she could
pull it off.
The High School Music Institute operated at the University
of Washington from 1934 to 1965, to expose Washington high school students to
an intensive five week course in band, orchestral and choral music. .Even
though I had several years of piano lessons before that summer, it was my first
exposure to music theory and formal choral instruction. The Curriculum even
included private voice lessons. Mother was disappointed when the instructor
informed her that I would never be a soloist.
I believe mother and I lived rent-free in the home of a
professor and dietician who were on sabbatical that summer in exchange for
caring for their cat, Gypsy. Never was a cat more appropriately named. She was
forever getting out and mother would chase her down in a panic. The homeowners
had a large collection of classical music recordings which I enjoyed. We had
not had a record player up to that time. It was safe for a young girl to go out
alone in those days, and I learned to use the Roosevelt Branch of the Seattle
Public Library. I also learned to be responsible for another person’s property.
One time I spilled a bottle of white shoe polish on the lovely brick terrace,
and I had to work with a scrub brush until I got every bit of it out.
Perhaps my children and grandchildren will not care about my
experiences in the summer of 1949, or perhaps it will put some later events in
context for them. I’m sure my grandson who just graduated from the U of W has
no idea that his Cougar Grandma ever went there, and the High School Music
Institute is mostly forgotten. That is why it is important to add these stories
to your family tree.
Barbara Boye Mattoon
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Background Vectors by Vecteezy March 2, 2025
March is Women's History Month!
Whom would you like to celebrate? Do you have an ancestor you would like to have met? Do you have a teacher or other woman in your life who inspired you?
Please accept this opportunity to introduce our readers to your special woman. Write a paragraph (or more) about this person and submit it to m.strickland@skcgs.org by March 19. We'll feature your paragraphs in our March 24 and 31 posts.
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