Leather, Lace and Life Stories Highlight Association of Personal Historians Annual Conference
Pam Vetter
October 31, 2009
Looking at the long line behind me, I said, "If it has a bed and a shower, I'll take it."
As she finished the paperwork she added, "The elevator only goes to the 14th floor, but the fantasy suites are on the 15th floor. You'll have to carry your luggage one flight to your room."
"Fantasy suites" – plural – apparently, I didn't have the only suite. Check out photos of the other fantasy suites (they really do exist!): www.radisson.com.
As a journalist, I believe that life is an adventure and everything is a story. This would be no different and I embraced it. Arriving at my room, I found a large suite with a king sized bed and jail cell bars to the right and left of the bed decorated with leather bondage handcuffs. There was also a full sized Jacuzzi and honestly, the room was a spectacular suite. No windows, of course, but I pretended the walls of mirrors were windows. In my view, even the fun house mirror over the bed seemed to be a window. So, I settled in and looked forward to the main events at the Association of Personal Historians Conference.
At one of the early sessions, a woman approached me asking whether I was audio, video or print. I explained that I was a Funeral Celebrant who researched life stories and replaced a generic sermon in the funeral service with the story of the life lived. She said, "Oh, another Celebrant joined our group before and tried to fit in, but she didn't really fit."
Day one: This was my new challenge to fit in.
I'm constantly looking for ongoing educational opportunities in my Celebrant work. I want to be the best Celebrant I can be for each and every family. The bottom line: I want to do a good job in telling stories. What unfolded over the next five days was quite an intense journey. As I met personal historians from a variety of states, I told everyone that I was staying in the bondage room. I started giving daily tours of my room and it became a photo op for some and a moment of entertainment for others. My room was filled with laughter. I called my mother and told her about the bondage room and she laughed, "Only you would get the bondage room." Pause. "You're alone, right?" Big laugh. When you can make a 77-year-old woman laugh, you know the story is worth sharing.
The tours of my room broke the ice with people who moments ago were strangers and I started to feel as though I did fit in with this group for their spirited sense of humor. It was a story worth sharing and this group had a great understanding of storytelling.
While I was told repeatedly that personal historians dealt with the living most often in first person, the "D" and "F" words came up far too often to be ignored. Death and Funerals were intermingled with life stories. Some personal historians shared stories about starting this line of work because when it came to planning funerals in their own families, the life story of the deceased hadn't been recorded or documented in any form. It's hard to make a eulogy personal if you have little life information to share. Another woman told a compelling story about finding her mother's writings about her life story, allowing her to re-discover a new side to her mother before her death. Other personal historians shared stories of clients dying after their life history was published or recorded and some of their material was shared at the funeral.
Life, death and funerals are intertwined. You can't separate them.
Personal historians document life stories in a book, on video or audio. Imagine having a recording of your mother's voice? Or a beautifully edited video of your father talking about his colorful life? Or a 200-page color book detailing your life history?
Looking back over the experience far beyond the leather and lace, the lineup for the APH Annual Conference was truly incredible and volunteers clearly spent a lot of time finding the keynote speakers and workshop leaders. Here's the rundown of standout events that I attended.
My first gathering was an add-on seminar focused on "Breathing Life Into Your Life Story" with authors Dawn and Morris Thurston. I loved this class. Dawn was truly a breath of fresh ideas and when Morris was emphasizing a point about exposing skeletons, he asked us to write down the skeletons in our closet. First, we listed a family skeleton and then one of our own personal skeletons. You know how I love skeletons and I found this fascinating. What resulted from this simple exercise made my mouth drop to the floor. Point made, extremely well. Their book is wonderful and they signed it for me. A nice bonus! Visit their website, they offer many classes, seminars, and podcasts http://www.memoirmentor.com.
Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, (I love her title!), detailed her trek in delicious detective work in researching photos. She described how she identified details in photos and researched life stories for her upcoming book to be published in June 2010 "The Last Muster: Images of the Revolutionary War Generation." She's been working on the book for nearly a decade and each story has a fascinating tale behind it. She talked about types of photographs, especially Daguerreotypes, and her research. This is a book I want to own when it's published. While she has several websites and a newsletter, on the link I'm providing you can hear Maureen talk on the Today Show about family research that leads to skeletons in the closet http://www.photodetective.com. (I know - again with the skeletons - but I do work in the funeral business!) I bought every book she had on display and again she signed my books. Very nice!
One of the best speakers of the entire Association of Personal Historians Conference came from England. Mike Oke, Owner of Bound Biographies and touted as the UK's leading authority on the writing of private life stories, offered a wealth of free-flowing information. His workshop was entitled "A Business Concept From England: How to Earn $10,000+ Per Project." He told everyone upfront that it's not all about money, but it's about people and their life stories. This is a guy who does his homework, sits with clients, and knows how to listen. As a result, he's spoken at some of his former clients funerals. (See – funerals again!) And, it makes sense for families to call on him. He's developed an amazing relationship with his clients in publishing their life stories. In some cases, his meetings with people have kept them alive as they reach toward their personal goal of having a published book of their life stories. Mike appeared on the BBC television show Dragons' Den in the UK, which is the original version of Shark Tank in the USA. Unfortunately, I can't view his BBC TV presentation about Bound Biographies online in the US because it's not compatible with our system, but after listening to him in person, I believe he's brilliant in his approach. He now has eight affiliated franchises and I believe that everyone in the UK should have their life story published by him or his affiliates! To read more, visit his website http://www.boundbiographies.com.
I really enjoyed the Print Show and Tell session and the Video Share. A few standouts really caught my attention, especially Stefani Twyford of Legacy Multimedia in Houston, Texas. She shared an incredible tribute video that brought tears to my eyes. While it was cut short in the timing of the video share, she kindly showed me the entire piece later and it was incredible. Legacy's Director of Multimedia, Isabelle MacCrimmon, has 12 years of experience in cinematography with credits, including "The X-Files," and it shows. So, if you're in Houston, this is your go-to team for tributes and video biographies http://legacymultimedia.com. Later, I attended Stefani's workshop on social media and she reinforced its importance in building a solid reputation, which is part of marketing. So, while you may not make sales from social media, you can build on your brand.
Marcia Orland, founder of Afterglow Media in California http://afterglowmedia.com, shared a beautiful video with the group. After a death occurred in her family, mourning doves nested outside of her home. She videotaped the nesting including their arrival, the birth of the babies, removing the egg shells, and finally, the babies growing and flying away. I found this video particularly interesting, because several of my funeral families have shared similar stories of the arrival of mourning doves after someone dies in the family.
Lily Koppel, writer for the New York Times and author of "The Red Leather Diary: Reclaiming a Life Through the Pages of a Lost Journal," recited a stirring tale about finding a young woman's diary from the 1930s in a modern day New York City dumpster. Three years later, with the help of a private detective, she tracked down the author of the diary, 90-year-old Florence Wolfson. I was entranced by her telling of the story and at the end of her speech I went to buy her book, only to discover that people bought two and three copies during the presentation and they were sold out. So, while I didn't buy the book there and was unable to get a signed copy, I do plan to order it on Amazon. Lily was that amazing. For a glimpse of the red leather diary visit http://redleatherdiary.com. It's a beautiful website and really, the video on her website sells the book as much as her story did in person. It's a fascinating story from beginning to end.
As a former radio news anchor, I love the human voice as each one is so individual. I've always had a strange ability to identify people solely by the sound of their voice. I was drawn to a few of the audio folks at the conference and connected with them immediately. There are good people on both coasts recording voices to be heard for generations to come. On the West Coast, Bill Hak of Memories on Tape and Eulogies for the Living really understands the value of recording the human voice. On the East Coast, Bob Leedom offers Sound Memories on CD, and as a former radio man, he knows the importance of recording a voice before its silenced.
The closing night's event was an American Bandstand theme. Credit has to be given to the organizer of this event because the decorations were amazing and the DJ was terrific. The highlight was listening to stories from three of the original American Bandstand dancers from Philadelphia. We heard their stories and watched them dance. What fun! The evening closed with a final tour of my leather and lace room for those who missed some of the other tours. The fantasy rooms were silly, of course, and that was the point. Laughter from that final tour was the last thing I heard before I went to sleep.
What resulted from my attendance at the conference was worth it ten-fold.
After the conference, my mother, who lives nearby, picked me up and we chatted about the conference. I had my little video camera with me and suggested that I interview her on videotape. She hesitated, of course, but agreed because it was for "practice." Now, as a journalist I have done hundreds of interviews, but I convinced her this was different. And, I gave her a choice. She could be interviewed by me or I could send a Personal Historian from Philadelphia with a camera crew to sit down with her. She opted for me. So, even though I didn't have a tripod and stacked my camera on top of a dozen books to line it up so it would capture her face, what unfolded was the most amazing gift. For 51 minutes she shared her life story. We skipped over the most dramatic parts – the death of her daughter and husband – but after 51 minutes she started to cry and I joined in with the tears. It's been quite a life of ups, downs, twists and turns. Finally, I shut off the camera and we laughed at our tears.
Life is a journey and everyone has a story filled with humor, drama, tragedy and gratitude.
With my choice to attend the conference, the APH inspired me to capture my mother's story. Honestly, I wish I would've done the same with my sister and father before they passed away.
So, now some advice to the novices who are sitting at your computer reading this story. Before it's too late, interview a family member or get in touch with a Personal Historian to do it for you. Write down your own life story and see what you discover about yourself. This experience has set me on a journey of writing down my own life story, because we never know if tomorrow will simply be too late.
Next year's Association of Personal Historians Annual Conference will be held in Victoria, B.C., Canada, Nov. 3 – 7, 2010.
For more information about the Association of Personal Historians visit www.personalhistorians.org
This is an edited version for space – the full version of this article is available at http://celebrantpam.blogspot.com
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