A reader on our Facebook page had an excellent idea for helping to jog the memories of older family members. She made a scrapbook of old pictures with room for the person to write down what they remembered about the people in the picture, the location, etc. Generally the pictures were used as memory prompts.
The relative could then write in the book at their leisure as things came to mind.
Sometimes an interview simply isn’t long enough or memories come flooding back after it’s over.
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Thie “memories come flooding back after the interview is over” is certainly accurate. It’s a reminder to us to do follow-ups within a short time after the initial interview, if possible. I know that when I try to blog about an event in my early life, it’s usually after I posted the blog that some of the best memories come back to me. I’ve noticed that when I’m interviewing people, it really helps to touch base again later to see what else they remember, whether the person interviewed is 30 or 90 years old.
I put together a small album when my mother was in a nursing home and dealing with dementia from a short term illness. She told me about a b/w picture taken when she was a senior in high school; she was 85 at the time. She could tell me the color of the dress, how the collar was made and who made the dress – a neighbor. We looked at the album during every visit and doing so brought pleasure to us both. I recommend this to friends who have family in long term care facilities, whether or not dementia is part of the condition.
I did something similar with my mother-in-law about 20 years ago, except that I also turned on a tape recorder. I now have descriptions, little stories and comments, to go with the pictures. She never would have remembered all that without the “memory prompts” of family snapshots.
I am doing something similar with my mom, though her memory is fine. It is getting the details that I hope for. I am slowly scanning her photo albums and as I do, I print out pages of photos. She has most of them labeled by date and person and sometimes even place, so I am grouping them that way. Then I put then in sheet protectors in a 3-ring notebook and include lots of lined notebook paper. Now whenever she gets time, she writes about whatever she wants as she views the photos.