A friend of mine is currently involved with trying to preserve the façade of a 145-year-old school house. I admire those who work to save pieces from the past, to restore a slice of history. The children who attended school in that building 145 years ago have grown and gone. Many of them have descendants who, we can hope, have kept memories of them. Now one more item from the past will help to keep those students alive.
My brother is part of a group who transports a piece of more recent history to locations to share with the public. A 12-foot-long section of a girder from the World Trade Center, destroyed 19 years ago last month (along with about 3,000 lives), travels on a trailer. When it’s on display, people are able to see—and even touch—the girder mangled in the 9/11 attack. It’s a way to remember and pay tribute.
History Keeps Memory Alive
On a personal level, we often pass things down from generation to generation to preserve family history. My family has a baptismal gown which was made by my grandmother 104 years ago when she was expecting her firstborn—my father. Dad’s 8 siblings were baptized in the same dress, as was I, my siblings, and most of my first cousins. My children and nieces and nephews wore the gown when their turns came. And then their children. That dress Grandma made has now been worn by 122 family members. Whenever I touch it, I think of my Dad and his mother, and my entire family. In a sense, my Grandma lives on with each baptism.
Many of us also visit museums and historical sites to pay tribute to the past, to remember what happened before. Some are amazing. Some are moving. Some are terrifying.
Stories that Make History Come Alive
I have always liked visiting old mansions and museums, even cemeteries. When I write historical fiction, it becomes part of my job. When I did research for Like a River, I spent several hours in the cemetery at Andersonville Prison. The graves made me think about the thousands of men who had died in that horrible place. It made me determined to write a book that would make people realize what happened there and do justice to those lives cut short.
I am now working on a new book, which I hope will remind people of another tragic event, and teach young people about how things from the past helped change and mold the present and the future. By keeping the past alive, we can acknowledge those who came before. We can touch a girder, a dress, a tombstone, or a piece from an old school house to remind us of the past.
The past can live on in all of us!
