If you were going to write a novel based on stories of family history your parents told you, as Amanda Peters has here, where would it be set and what might it be about?
My novel would be set in Lake Stevens / Everett Washington. It would be about my maternal grandparents. They immigrated to America from Czechoslovakia. They ended up in Lake Stevens. They never spoke English. Grandma was proud to be from the old country. They had a farm. My uncle Adam who always lived with them raised dairy cows. My novel would be about the many wonderful holidays and the life that they lived.
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@Paula_Walters our stories would be very similar! All four of my grandparents came over from Hungary, where they were farmers. They ended up in Cleveland, though, working in the steel mills.
I’ve thought my grandfather’s story in particular would make a good novel, but I seem to lack the sustained attention it would take to actually write one.
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I know I will never write a novel or a memoir. I am keeping a journal of different memories from my childhood and maybe my granddaughter could someday organize all my thoughts!
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I have many stories my parent’s told me as a child. My understanding as a child may not be accurate, but may be entertaining or insightful. But I know my younger siblings and other relatives may not appreciate or understand those stories or have different views/beliefs. When my mother died, my younger brothers learned some information about their parents and grandparents, and it was not well received. They were surprised that I knew, and they didn’t. They were dismayed that our parents didn’t share the same information with them.
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@Paula_Walters, my grandmother did the same and it was absolutely invaluable when I was trying to piece together my family tree. She typed up her story & gave it to my mother (the oldest child) who gave it to me. I reproduced it for all my relatives, providing a lot of info they didn’t know. I’m not sure any of the younger generation is truly interested, but at least I feel I’ve done my part to pass along what I know.
But I’m so grateful to my grandmother for putting together what she did, and I encourage you to do the same. You might not know which of your kids/grandkids/greatgrandkids will continue your story, but I bet one of your descendents will!
My novel would begin in Boston, which was a point of entry for many Irish Americans, including my paternal grandmother. With Boston as the center of my novel, I would reach back to Ireland and investigate what drove my grandmother to America and then using a duel timeline move her life forward to work (she was employed as a maid), marriage and children. Of course I would tie in the rise of the Irish in Boston.
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Mine would be set in Spain during the Civil War and under Franco.
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My story will start in France, Normandie, where my maternal grand-father’s family came from. They were home builders. I will describe their life in the 1960s France, what made them move to Canada and establish their new life in Île d’Orléans. I know that they were given a piece of land to cultivate. I will do some research about the difficulties they encountered, how the Canadian government help them and how was life in a new territory. I know that the first family who moved to Québec, Canada, went back to France to recruit more family members.
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I would begin my story in Switzerland where my ancestors were Anabaptists. They were forced to leave Switzerland and sailed to Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
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It would be set in a small town in Indiana, among Italian immigrants where the death of a young wife/mother results in her younger sister marrying the widower/husband and taking her sister’s place as wife/mother. I’m sure it has been written before, but it’s my family’s story.
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I agree with many of the other comments. Most of my great grandparents immigrated from Ireland in the mid 1800s. I’ve heard family stories about why they made decisions to move from NYC to rural Michigan.
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My story would have to start in Germany where all my grandparents emigrated from, and ended up on farms in Oregon where they planted strawberries, raspberries, and corn mostly. It was easy to relate to the BERRY PICKERS in this story – the very long hours we spent in those berry fields each summer, sometimes 12 hour days to get berries picked before they rotted or the rains came. The language of these people is so familiar as they worked. I was surprised that in Maine they used many of the same terms for berry picking that I was familiar with almost 70 years ago in Oregon. Fortunately we did not have any tragic kidnappings or other distressing events to survive.
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It would be set in the late 1800s and why they left Europe to come to a new life in America.
My story would begin in Italy where my dad’s parents (separately) emigrated to Ohio. My grandmother came over at 10 months old with her parents. At 15 she married my grandfather (they lied about her age) and had her first child at 16. I would write about the Italian culture that they brought with them and the hardships that they endured raising 8 children and having more relatives live with them as they came over here.
I would also have to include my mother’s parents who also emigrated from Italy but met here when my grandfather brought the vegetables that he raised to sell to the grocery store where my grandmother worked. They had 5 children and one that they did not know about (I found out when doing my family tree on Ancestry).
I’d add some of the family stories that are funny and heartwarming. We did not have many tragedies in either family, and the families wer all pretty close.