Issue 37.09
If you’re like most people, HISTORY of any kind was your most boring subject in school. I remember memorizing facts from elementary school on to college, just to pass tests while having NO interest at all in the subject. It wasn’t until I matured (read aged a bit) that I saw the relationship between history and ME. This awareness came when I got interested in searching for my genealogical roots. Learning that I had ancestors who emigrated from England to America, I was curious about their homeland and life there. Later, traveling in Europe and other places in the world made me aware of the great differences between countries and cultures. Which led me to say…How come?
Well, being a curious person, I started to read more carefully history books for my own personal satisfaction and not to fulfill requirements for a class or to study for a test. Now I was motivated to learn. Perhaps if I’d had an enthusiastic history teacher sometime in my early school days, I would’ve had more interest in this subject throughout my life. Nowadays, I’m amazed by what I don’t know. Reading the newspaper or watching TV, I keep finding subjects that I want to study. Lately, my husband and I have been watching documentary DVDs about the history of America. I’ve learned more about this nation’s development and struggles than I remember from the many U.S. history classes I’ve taken through the years.
From my interest in genealogy and researching the lives of my immigrating ancestors, I’ve realized their stories need to be collected or written. What historical events occurred during their lifetimes that caused their immigration? What challenges did they face? I want my family members to know more about their heritage and background. Few wrote their histories, so I’ve had to reconstruct from research the facts of their life and have published my collection of my family history in a webpage www.geocities.com/famhistory1867 for others to see. You could say in my retirement I’ve become a family historian, even writing my own life story.
We are all making history everyday, it just needs to be recorded. How many of us wrote down our reactions to such historical events as 9/11 that we remembered this week. What effect did this terrible experience have on your daily life? All this needs to be recorded for your descendents to read and ponder.