These are our stories

These dreary winter days provide the perfect time to start writing your life stories. That is how I think of them, a succession of short...

Life stories bring history home. They make history REAL. A couple of guys who were in one of my classes last year served our country in...

At one level, your life story is not about you at all – but about how your experiences can help others. When I was diagnosed with cancer...

Writing your life story isn’t about vanity or being egotistical. Rather, it is a way of connecting to future generations and connecting...

Writing your life story allows you to share it in your own words, from your own perspective. Are you familiar with the telephone game?...

It’s officially fall, and school is back in session. My Life Stories classes are back in session also. Hard to believe we’re already...

Ernest Rasche and Mary Ann Beckman started dating in 1944, the year before Ernest went into the Army. They never dated anyone but each...

Today, the 20-year anniversary of my father's death, finds me contemplating that my niece and nephew who will graduate from high school...

On the last day of my nine-week Life Stories classes, I generally ask the participants to share with the group something of what they...

We're halfway through this round of Life Stories classes. On Day 1, a 72-year-old father of two said his children didn't know much about...

What makes you angry? Financial concerns? Illness? Mass shootings? You are not alone. Are you angrier today than you were a year ago? If...

Cancer came and went this year, but some repercussions linger. Recent images dictate that I see a neurosurgeon and an orthopedist. At the...

This story also was written by a Life Stories participant, Laverne Schuck, and shared by her at the county museum's Festival of Trees...

I love an old-fashioned Christmas story. This is part of one written in one of my classes by Anna Kern and shared by her at the opening...

About four years ago, I started taking harmonica lessons from a local woman who is now 91 years old. She enjoys playing the nursing home...

I've been helping Mary write her life story since last fall. She has done the writing; I have done the typing along with some rearranging...

Sometimes I forget how much I love the writing part of telling people's life stories. After the interviews are substantially complete and...

I don't like to complain. I try not to bear grudges. I know that lots of people have it worse than I do. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I...

Thank You to: Those who cleaned my litterbox. Those who mowed my grass and trimmed my weeds. Those who brought me meals. Those who...

As it happened, when I was transferred from Jasper to an Indianapolis hospital in March, I was transferred to a hospital outside of my...