There Are More Ways Than One To Preserve Memories

 

By: Darlene G. Snyder

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One of my goals for this blog is to encourage you to preserve your memories in whatever way is most comfortable to you. In past articles I’ve spoken about audio or video recording older members of your family. I’ve encouraged you to write your memories and preserve them through your written words.

Photography is also another area you could use as a means to preserve memories. At almost every family function for years, I had a camera in hand. I now have photos in which  family members have requested copies. If I attended a church function, I took my camera. Regardless of the setting, I was the one people ran away from -I suppose it could be that I’ve caught a few of them with thier mouths open as they were eating food.  Oops. I’d like to believe my photographing habits have changed drastically. I try to catch the would be photographed person at thier best.

Scrapbooking is another way to preserve your memories through the use of photographs.  I’ll leave this subject to folks more qualified than me as I am not much of a scrapbooker. I have plenty of photo albums, but they aren’t pretty and decorative. For more information on scrapbooking from professionals, check this site, http://www.everything-about-scrapbooking.com/

Some of you may ask, “Why do you believe preserving memories is so important?” This is a good question and I found a great article that answers that question. The folks at thelegacyguide.com  offers a book and downloadable forms to help you preserve your legacy. The link to the article is here,  http://www.thelegacyguide.com/why_tell_your_story.html

Kirksville Kentucky – One Great Place

By: Darlene G. Snyder

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I completed my book on the Kirksville Community and now I wait patiently for the publisher to complete the printing process. For information on how to get your copy of the book, you can go to my website. It is www.darlenesnyder.com

I want to share some details about our community to just wet your appetite for some great reading. I can say that because I’ve invested a whole lot of time into the book as well as had several readers to critique and offer creative solutions for my areas of weakness. The final product will be awesome, if I must say so myself.

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• Mrs. Croucher, as well as others with whom I spoke, told me that revivals were always held for two weeks at a time. There was usually more than one revival per year. When revivals were held, nothing interfered with the services. For instance, there were two services, one in the mornings and one in the evening. If the men were working in the fields, they would leave the fields; go to church just as they were–work clothes and all. They would go home after services, eat, and go back to work. They would always stop working in the evenings in time to go to the services.  Dorothy Spurlock, another veteran member, remembers when there were no screens in the window of the Sanctuary. People would come to services, revival and Sunday services alike, and would stand outside of the windows and listen to the preaching and singing.
• “Kirksville is unique among thousands of similar villas, especially in the succession of individualistic characters who have trod these hills and rills for near two centuries. The essence of history must be the personalities around whom it revolved and evolved.” Eugene Spurlock Jr
• My grandmother shopped and traded in one of the stores located in Kirksville during the 1930’s and 1940’s.  She’d take hens, eggs, and cream to trade for coffee, flour and sugar.My grandfather raised meat hogs, usually twelve or thirteen each year. They cooked lard from the hog fat to use at home, sold the hams, and kept the shoulder and jowl meat for themselves.After raising over two-hundred pounds of corn, they’d take it to Lige Tussey’s mill in Kirksville to be ground as meal. He would keep half the meal for grinding the corn.A man that my father referred to as “Butterhead Tussey” owned a cream station.  Mr. Tussey’s wife, Florence didn’t have any way of testing to see if the cream was sweet or sour except to dip her finger in the barrels of cream and then lick them. If it were the sweet cream, which was sold to make butter, they’d receive more money for it. My grandmother made homemade cottage cheese from some of the cream.  She skimmed the cream off the milk, let it clabber then boiled it.
• Each year on the fourth Saturday of September, the Kirksville community comes together for a day of celebration. Venders set booths up along the main road of the Kirksville community as well as in front of the community center located in the former school. People from all around the County travel here to enjoy a breakfast of homemade biscuits, gravy and ham that  the masons and lodge members cooked.  Early in the morning of Kirksville Day while most are still in their warm beds, the cooks arrive and spend several hours getting the grub together. On those early mornings when I walk out my front door, the smell of country ham as it cooks assaults me. The delicious odor hovers over the area like a cloud.  It isn’t until I follow the smell in my trance like state and order a plate of food that spell is broken.  This breakfast is a fundraiser for the lodge to help them in their community activities. It is a fun time of fellowship and it gives us an opportunity to spend a brief few minutes talking with friends and family that have gathered.
• There is an ancient Indian Burial Mound in our area. Pictures are included in the book.

Don’t forget to check my website www.darlenesnyder.com for information on getting your copy of my book, Casting bread Upon the Water