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Fast Forward to the Past - Gifts of memory

With the holiday season approaching, you may be looking for the perfect gift for your family. Preserving memories for future generations is a priceless, personal, one-of-a-kind gift.

With the holiday season approaching, you may be looking for the perfect gift for your family.  Preserving memories for future generations is a priceless, personal, one-of-a-kind gift.  Recording your family tree is an important project, but preserving memories takes the process one step further and turns those names on a page into living people.

A wonderful book to get you started is “To Our Children’s Children: Preserving Family Histories for Generations To Come” by Bob Greene and D.G. Fulford. The book stresses the importance of a “precious legacy, one that is often lost: memories.”

The book is made up of a list of questions that the reader can peruse and select whatever interests them. Write down your answers. The questions go beyond family ancestry. They cover everything from describing the place where you grew up, everyday life, travels, hobbies, and foods and traditions.

How would you describe the house where you grew up? What was the neighborhood like?  For your grandchildren or great-grandchildren, who might grow up in a bustling city, they will find it interesting to read about life on the farm, the fun of playing in the hayloft or looking after a calf, or being snow-stayed at the neighbor’s farm after an evening of playing games and visiting. Children growing up in today’s busy world may not even be able to imagine living on a quiet, tree-lined street where all the neighborhood kids could play on their front lawns on warm summer evenings, or build forts out of lawn chairs and beach towels on lazy summer afternoons in a grassy backyard.

What was Christmas like when you were growing up? Did you have special holiday decorations that got used every year? Did you have a tree? Live or artificial?  Did Santa come to your home? What favorite foods did you have with your Christmas meal? Your future family would be interested to know that you had a special tablecloth that you used on Christmas Eve, or that you always stood by the kitchen window watching for the first star on that very special night, or that you always took a few new toys to the Salvation Army as part of your holiday tradition.

What hobbies do you have? The family would like to know how you got your interest in woodworking or sewing.  Maybe you love gardening and do a lot of canning that you enjoy all through the winter. What is your favorite canning item? Do you have a favorite salsa recipe that you make every year?  Why did one recipe for dill pickles stand out above the rest? Do you like to bake? Who taught you this skill? Did you ever sneak frozen cookies out of the freezer?
Who made that sampler that has always hung in your hallway?

You get the idea.  These memories and so many more tell your future family who you are and what your life was like.  In a time when daily life has probably changed more in the last fifty years than in the previous two hundred, your memories of getting your first television, playing records on the stereo, the first time you were on an airplane, buying your first car, and so many other special memories will be a priceless record of your life.

The Yorkton branch of the Saskatchewan Genealogical Society will be meeting again in the new year at the Yorkton Public Library; till then, the group wishes you a very Merry Christmas and a new year full of health and special memories!
submitted by Debbie Hayward