Family Memorabilia

[awanderingbard]

We're in the process of doing a big clean up of the house, especially the basement, which has turned into a bit of a hoarding zone due to all of us being varying degrees of ill at varying points over the last few years and unable to do much more than the bare minimum of keeping the house clean.

My dad brought up a box of stuff yesterday for Mom and I to go through, and inside was some stuff we got when my Nana moved into the nursing home. Including a book in which she'd carefully handwritten all her favourite song lyrics.

For about a second, I thought that was weird, until I remembered that there was no internet to just look up the lyrics to that song if you forgot them. Also, her family was extremely musical, including a brother who played piano by ear, so sheet music wasn't necessary if you could hum the tune.

Here are a couple of pages:



The book was started in 1948, when she was fifteen, and continues until just after my mom was born. Then, at the back, there were three articles that sounded like they were either written for the newspaper or in responses to articles in the newspaper. We have no idea if she ever sent them or what they are exactly, but they are very well-written. A side of her we did not know.

Anyway, last night, Mom and I went through Apple Music and got as many of the songs we could find, totalling a count of 97 altogether, with about five that are lost to history. I put them on a playlist and we're going to listen to them all. Turns out Nana was a huge Nat King Cole fan. We'd also like to see if we can find a way to get the playlist to her, but she's not very tech savvy, and making a mix tape is much harder than it used to be.

Comments

[donutsweeper]

What a wonderful find! And that handwriting is so lovely!

[aelfgyfu_mead]

Now I feel old! I remember writing down song lyrics as a kid in the 70s and early 80s, taping them off the radio on my little tape recorder and running the songs over and over again until I got the words!

It's fascinating that you could find those things.

What were the articles about?

[awanderingbard.livejournal.com]

I remember they printed the lyrics to popular songs in magazines when I was a teen, and to be honest, I was kind of a hipster kid who preferred showtunes to pop songs, so I didn't listen to the radio that much. I still don't.

There were three articles. The first was about whether to identify oneself as Canadian, or as the origin of your ancestors (Irish, Scottish, etc). The second was about bilingualism and whether it was worth learning French, and the third was whether it was important for women to earn their leaving certificates in high school or get married young. Her opinions were that she identified as Canadian, that she had learned English as a child and considered her ability to speak both French and English an asset, and that even though she married young, she was grateful to have her leaving certificate, in case something happpened to her husband, she'd be able to find work easier than if she hadn't. Very it's interesting and very well written. Must be where I get my writing gene from.

[aelfgyfu_mead]

It's really cool to learn so much about her now!