Pulled in multiple directions

You can have too much of a good thing. Sometimes it's hard to tell which is the better thing, or the best thing.

Recently I started paying more attention to presentations and workshops presented at a number of branches of the Ottawa Public Library. When I reviewed what is being offered it seems that they are all aimed at me. So many offerings so little time. I did a little picking and choosing.

The first one I attended was about tracing the history of a house in Ottawa. Hey - I need to do that. There are two houses in fact. One is the home of my great grandparents which was expropriated in 1969 and has been demolished. The property is now a parking lot. The other is the home that my grandfather built and in which my family lived until I was almost 12 years old.

I'm writing my maternal grandmother's life story - or rather, I'm trying to do justice to a wonderful strong woman who was not sufficiently appreciated while she was alive. Everyone deserves to be remembered and just because you were not a public figure or a member of the aristocracy doesn't mean that this doesn't apply in your case. I really do want Agnes McGrath Sunderland, my Nanny, to be remembered.

I had started writing about her and was struggling to put together a smooth readable narrative from the facts and anecdotes I had assembled. It wasn't working. I might just as well have printed out the "lifestory" option from our family tree on Ancestry.com and tossed in a few photos.

Lo and behold the Library came to my rescue again. Denise Chong, the Ottawa author of The Concubine's Children, was giving a presentation to aspiring writers at a branch not too far from my home, although not at the branch I regularly use. Denise is a non-fiction writer who tells the true stories of her characters in a very readable way. I can't hope to come close to her wonderful style. She researches exhaustively, assembles all the details from documents and interviews and then begins to write.

I had assembled the skeleton of Aggie's life. I have birth, marriage and death records. I have copies of the censuses in which she was enumerated. I had personal recollections and stories from her other grandchildren but since she had passed away in 1969, I couldn't conduct an interview. Neither could I interview my mother who lived with Nanny almost her whole life. She has also died. There is one living niece with whom I speak from time to time on long distance phone calls. She did offer some help as she spent quite a bit of time with Aggie who was her closest aunt. Somehow all that information was not easily translated into flowing prose.

With inspiration from Denise's talk and a copy of her latest book "Lives of the Family", I was finally able to start writing the story. I began by describing Aggie at a particular place and point in time. She was almost 9 years old. From that beginning it was a little easier. Now I'm absorbed in the process.

There are so many resources which I can use to put context around Aggie's life. I still have not decided where I will draw the line and tell myself "that's enough". I have still to conduct the research on the stories of each house. City directories have provided information that was a surprise to me. Just how much of the history of those homes will be included? I still don't know.

Stories of Aggie's parents and grandfather keep creeping in, as do stories of Aggie's son and daughter and sister and ...

How will I incorporate the stark facts of her life? Well, there will be an annex to the book which will include the family tree and the various religious and secular milestones in her life. Pictures will be grouped and inserted in sections to break up the text, they will not be sprinkled in with the text. I'm not an editor or graphic designer yet I would like the presentation to be attractive.

Tomorrow the library is beckoning again. This time it will be to learn a bit about how to take better vacation photos. I'll take lots of notes.

For now, it's time to start making supper. I will try not to write this evening but spend some time selecting the pictures to use and scanning those I don't yet have in digital format. Two weeks ago, at the library of course, I learned about preserving family photos. I will have to spend a good deal of time getting pictures in order. Digital format is not the best way to preserve a special picture. Printed pictures, well cared for, will outlast digital every time.

I did go for a short walk today and have decided to try downloading audio-books to my phone so that I can "read" while I walk. The story will come into my ears and not through my eyes glued to a page. I hope it works.

I'm trying not to be overwhelmed with the prospect of all the writing that lies ahead. So many ancestors, so many lives to recount, so little time ...