How these family stories go 'beyond genealogy'

They may not have grand adventures to recount, but a group of memory keepers in Summerside, P.E.I., last week shared how little stories can still carry a lot of meaning.

The workshop, sponsored by the East Prince Seniors Initiative, urged these family memory keepers to preserve a permanent record of their stories.

"It goes beyond genealogy," said Marie Smith, who led the workshop, in an interview with CBC Radio: Island Morning's Stephanie Kelly.

"We're talking about who they were as people, how they lived, what they did to support a family, how hard their lives were, how funny they were. The stories that people tell that passed down through generations,sometimes are never recorded anywhere."

For Nancy Dupuis, it's about making sure her father's story is not lost.

"Coming over with no money in his pocket when he was a little six-year-old boy with his brother, who is eight, from Scotland on a boat. They had been sent to Canada," said Dupuis.

"I need my little grandson, who's 11 now I want him to know who great-grandpa Bob was."

Barbara Bowness wroteabout her own lifegrowing up on a farm in Cape Traverse.

"Little experiences and stories of me growing up on the farm with my neighbour kids. The skates out on the pond that our dad would get all ready for us," said Bowness.

"A lot of emotions came through from the meeting, and I got several ideas of what I could do to leave just a little bit of an account of my life for my children and grandchildren."

Part of who they are

What Bowness came to realize, she said, isthese stories are not just a part of who she is. They are part of who her children and grandchildren are as well, and it's important they understand them in better detail.

There are no ordinary stories, said Smith they are stories that come together to make a person who they are.

"Someone asked me recently like what is my legacy?" she said.

"I'm not going to leave a building somewhere with my name on it, but I have the story of what my parents and what my grandparents did and what I learned in life."

For her children and grandchildren, she said it is difficult to think of a more important legacy.

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