“Let me tell you a story.   Gather round, pull up a chair and listen to this tale.”  Why am I always so captivated by these words.  As a lifelong book reader, and librarian, it is probably not a surprise that I am.  That said, I know I am not the only one.  Are you? Come on- admit it, who does not love the Story for All time on Sundays?   And why are stories so important?

My undergraduate professors told me it was to preserve knowledge and history. My book clubs embraced the connection and community that story telling created. As a parent I watched how stories helped my kids explore their understanding of the world as well as their own identity.  A search of the Googles also brought me these answers:  Stories inspire us to action, provides escape and comfort, they teach us life lessons, stimulate creativity and imagination and they help us make sense of the complex and bewildering.  How wonderful it is to have so many right answers to why stories are important.

 My grandmother, Veronica Koener, my all-time favorite storyteller would say stories are to help you walk a mile in someone else’s shoes- or in other words it creates empathy. I think empathy is what draws me to stories as they often make me think, “How would have I handled that situation?” Or “Would I have had the courage to do that?”

Ray Bradbury said, “The most powerful stories come from personal experiences and genuine emotions.” I think that is why his story (book) Something Wicked this Way Comes is one of my favorite stories. The story takes place in a small town in Illinois where Bradbury is from, and the characters are based on people he knew.  His description of a small-town library still stands vividly in my thoughts because of his personal experience with libraries.  Bradbury was a lifelong champion of libraries and literature and spoke frequently against censorship.  Without question this storyteller influenced my direction in life.

Stories can also reflect the world around us and bring insight into worlds we should notice and have empathy for.  Often the storyteller is bearing their soul wide open for the world to see, understand and hope for change.  Maya Angelou, the great poet and storyteller, commented that “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.”  The telling of the story validates the experience that happened, helps others to understand the storyteller and again creates empathy.

I think the quest for understanding each other through empathy is part of what Margaret Atwood meant when she said, “You’re never going to kill storytelling because it’s built into the human plan. We come with it.”  Personally, I believe that we have a need for understanding and empathy and storytelling might be our best way of getting to that empathy.

So back to my favorite storyteller, Veronica Koener, really the matriarch of our family.  She passed away 30 years ago this year.  I miss her daily. I really miss her telling me stories.  Before she passed, I took the time to listen and record her stories.  I visited her several times a month and would listen to her for hours.  I took the time to transcribe and write her stories down (also unknown to me, my sister Brenda was doing the same).  How would her stories have lived on unless we took the time to do this?  

No one would have known how while as a cook and a maid for a wealthy family in Minneapolis, she served dinner to five different American presidents.  Her cooking made such an impression on one of the Presidents that she came out of retirement to make him a second dinner even though she really did not like the man.  We would never have known about her leaving a small North Dakota town at 18 to move to Minneapolis to experience a greater world.  My grandmother told me stories that I am not allowed to tell until my mother passes of her young life in Minneapolis.  Her stories include pulling pranks on her siblings, husband and grandchildren.  For some of her stories, I was actually present when the event happened, which did not dull her later retelling of the story.

So to end, here is one of her stories retold by me.  Setting: Thanksgiving 1983 at Jeannie’s Place.  Dorothy (my aunt) and Jeannie (my mom) were busy going about their usual Thanksgiving nonsense which included a lot of having the table just right, everyone assigned to a spot, planning the order of when everything was to be served.  They were really getting on each other’s last nerves.  Everyone else was hiding in the living room or elsewhere to avoid Dorthy and Jeannie except me, who was cooking.  Billy (me) would sneak through to get one of my grandmother’s cinnamon rolls every once in a while.  Something had to change the tension.

We all sat down for dinner. I can’t remember who said grace and everyone was silent because of the tension between Dorothy and Jeannie, so my grandmother picked up two dinner rolls and threw one at each girl and bonked each of them on the nose (she was an excellent shot).  Lambert (my grandfather) followed my queue and threw some mashed potatoes at Jimmy (my uncle).  Jimmy chuckled and threw some stuffing that arched and hit everyone across the table from him.  All the kids knew what to do and the great Thanksgiving dinner food fight had begun.  A few minutes later when everything was settled.  Everyone laughing, happy and the earlier tension broken, Jeannie asked, “what did you do that for?”   She responded, “Well, … this is a happy story that no one will forget, and we can always tell.”

My Grandmother told that story every year later until she passed away in 1995 and it is always remembered with happiness.

May you remember, write down and share your own stories.

Being Present with my Past

Recently, I have been exploring my family history: going through the photos and letters left to me by my mother when she passed away in 2023, and spending days building family trees at ancestry.com. I am no expert at genealogy, but I really enjoy this project. It is easy to spend hours chasing a family connection or working to identify the person in a photo. Each discovery is exciting, and often leads to new possibilities to explore.

One relative – my great-great-grandfather, Warren Olney – is easy to research online, because he was a public figure: a mayor of Oakland, CA, and the attorney who helped John Muir form the Sierra Club. But I got to know him better from what was in the boxes Mom left me: family photos, a memoir, and even a letter he wrote describing his experience in the first few days after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire.

But what is missing are the personal stories that could help me imagine him more fully. And I must take some responsibility for that. When I was young, my grandmother told stories about her grandfather. And I never really gave them my attention. I was not present at that moment. Now, that moment has passed, and those stories are lost.

Last year, I was fortunate to spend a lot of time with my mother in her last months. Despite all the challenges of coordinating care, being present with her allows us to share some special moments with her. And when she passed, it left me with many of her family stories.

So, as I sit here now with her stories and a table full of family photos, I can imagine the past more vividly: my Mom riding horses in the 1950’s; our family camping vacations in the 1960’s; and me hiking with my Dad in the 1970’s.

I can also relive the many happy Christmas Eves from my childhood. As the holidays approach, these memories will help me continue to feel the presence of my parents and grandparents, despite their absence. And it will remind me to be fully present now with all the special people in my life.