Alice S (Carillon's Activities Director) who grew up in Rocky Mount, NC and has lived in the Knightdale/Wendell area for the past 30 years took some of her retired residents on a joy ride around the area today. She is an amazing lady, helping all the residents with their needs, making sure they were okay and keeping them engaged, while also deftly maneuvering the "bus" along some beautiful farm roads.
We drove by a couple of lush green tobacco patches, a corn field, some horse farms, an old store called the Corner Grocery that has been running for four generations now, an old Church not used anymore but built in the 1800s, some cows, and just to add to the fun a few donkeys. One of the residents Mr R. who grew up on a farm in a nearby town, grew tobacco himself along with raising chicken, and everything you can think of. He recounted an experience from 1924 when he went with his Dad to Raleigh and saw buggies on dirt roads; there was very little pavement then, all dirt roads and people traveled on horse carriages and the like.
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| Tobacco patch |
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| Corn field |
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| Corner Grocery - 4 generations and counting! |
Alice told us how she met someone who was at the burial of Thomas Edison, the famous inventor! I happened to meet someone myself today who is 100 years old, and so very independent.
It is such a blessing to be with our seniors who have been through so much change, and have so much history to share if anyone wants to listen. Here's wishing that a few of our generation (and beyond) will document at least some of this wealth of history.
You are so right about preserving our culture and history by passing those wonderful and rich stories to our children and grandchildren, or anyone else, if they want to listen. My wife and I tried to do a video interview with her mother but she didn't want to do it. We had even prepared with a guided list of questions to get to the areas of her life, and her parent's lives, that we wanted to know. A big disappointment for us. We now wonder what will happen to the thousands of pictures and artifacts of our lives? Are technology and the future more important to our children than preserving the past?
ReplyDeleteHi there Nemo :)
DeleteWe may be stuck between those who don't want to have anything to do with technology (like my Mom, except maybe a very old cell phone) and those who don't want understand/appreciate real life (outside a computer). My grandmom wrote a book that someone published for her (I didn't even think of it even though I had her writings, until someone who really cared to preserve the past did that for her).
Maybe you want to have conversations with your mother-in-law, and capture them in say OneNote or a digital diary without getting her involved in the technology. Just a thought; my grandmom was very private and I can see her not wanting to be in a video.
Just a thought, Mel.
Sanjay