When I was little I asked my mom to tell me a story all the damn time and she always would. Last Mother’s Day I asked her to tell me a story again. Or more specifically, I asked her to tell me 52 stories because I bought her a subscription to StoryWorth. Each week she got an email asking a question about her life and each week I got an email back with her answers. And when she’s finished StoryWorth will wrap it all up in a lovely book we can keep forever.
I almost never do full sponsored posts but I make an exception for StoryWorth because I love the stories they’ve given to me about my family. I’ve shared a lot of my dad’s StoryWorth stories but today I want to share a few things I’ve learned from my mom:
How did you decide to get married?
Back in the 70’s we had the Vietnam War and the Draft. Henry had one semester 
of college under his belt when his number was about to be called. Henry joined so he could choose his “career”. You rarely saw an accountant on the front lines.
He was in Boot Camp at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio for about 6 weeks. We decided to marry as soon as he graduated.
While Henry was gone I sewed my wedding gown. I found the easiest pattern there was and jumped in. All went well until I realized the back and the sleeves were held together by tiny little buttons that looped around tiny little elastic loops. I almost put zippers in, but my Aunt Ollene talked me through it.
I wanted Henry to wear his dress blues, but his Mom asked if he would wear a suit. She didn’t want to be reminded that he was in the service during a war so it was easy to agree to her wish.
We were married at the Wall Brethren Church in Wall Texas. It was a sweet little church that Henry’s parents had attended forever. It had one round stained glass window of Jesus holding a lamb. The church has been rebuilt. It is much bigger, has more stained glass windows. They still have the Jesus window.
What have been some of your life’s greatest surprises?
I became pregnant with Jennifer while taking the Pill. The best surprise ever.
I became pregnant with Lisa while using an I.U.D. Again, the best surprise ever.
Then I had my tubes tied so there would be no more best surprises ever.
Did you have a job while you were in high school?
In high school I became a Nurses Aid. I really loved it.
I went to work from 6:45 A.M. until 10:00 A.M, Then I caught a city bus to Central High and had classes until 3:00 P.M. On week-ends I worked full shifts on the Labor and Delivery floor at Shannon Hospital.
When I had free time I was allowed in the delivery room. It was amazing! Of course I was in the corner and could only watch in the reflection of the mirror. Fathers were allowed only if THEY asked, and I was told to NEVER suggest that they would want to be in the delivery room.
I cleaned blood, and puke, and poop. But I loved going to work.
How did you choose your children’s names?
Jennifer’s name should be Montana! Montana Melody Dusek. Practically from the time we knew we were pregnant that name was top of her father’s list. Don’t ask me where the idea came from. It was fully formed and waiting for a new baby.
All I know is that she so didn’t look like a Montana. The baby didn’t fit the name. She just seemed to be Jennifer.
Lisa was a different story. Henry was getting out of the service and had no job lined up. We had a small amount of savings to tide us over. Then,wham, pregnant! No house,no job,no insurance, and the chance that removing the I.U.D. would cause a miscarriage. Lots of drama.
We found a house and my mother-in-law helped Henry paint the interior. We put a room together for Jenny and nameless baby. And once again, there was a baby and her name was Lisa. Don’t ask me how. Maybe the Angel of names was sitting on our shoulders and whispered the perfect name for each of our girls. I just know that their names are them.
I think I would nominate my PaPaw as one of the wisest people I have known.
He’s been on my mind all week. When I visited my Mom on Thursday he was in all her memories. With her dementia memories are her greatest comfort.
She talked about helping him in the fields, Working in the barn with him. Taking walks around the fence line to check for weak spots. She was his shadow.
As a child he told me to mind my manners, be quiet because kids were meant to be seen and not heard, and to only take small portions of dinner so there would be enough for everyone (seconds were encouraged ). Then he would look over at the razor strop he kept on the back wall. All he had to do was LOOK and you knew to behave.
He told me to brush my teeth everyday, and not eat a lot of sweets. Then he would pop his false teeth out half-way, suck them back and smile. Freaked me right out.
He kept pigeons in the back -back -back of their property. When he found my cousin and me chasing them from one end to the other he pulled a big snake skin out of an egg box. Then he told us how snakes shed their skin because they are growing larger, and why don’t we try to find that snake to see just how big he was now. We never went back into the pigeon shed.
He never raised a hand to us, and never raised his voice. He treated us as equals and expected us to behave, and we did.
I miss him.
Wha’s something you learned from your mom?
From my Mom I learned to love baking. She baked great cakes.
I learned to keep a clean house.
I learned that if your husband is a cheating scum-bag you walk out the door with your head held high, move to where your family is and get a job to support you and your kids.
Who are the best cooks in your family?
My Mamaw (my mom’s mom) made the BEST peach cobbler. It was flavorful, and the crust was flakey and sweet and delicious. She made this cobbler for 60 years and never told anyone the recipe. She wouldn’t even let anyone in her kitchen when she was making it. I assume she wanted to be the only one who brought it to family dinners.
I did learn a lesson from this. Always share your recipes, and teach anyone wanting to learn how you made a dish.
If I live long enough I will have to stop cooking. Eventually Mamaw began using salt instead of sugar, and would leave meals on the table for hours and hours. We never figured out how she kept from giving Papaw botulism. My mother quit cooking when she entered the early stages of dementia. Personally, I will enjoy cooking and eating every meal I have left in me.
****
So now you know a little more about my family. And I do too.
StoryWorth is a great gift for your parents or grandparents because in the end it’s a gift for you. And for Mother’s Day StoryWorth is offering a year of weekly stories bound in a keepsake book for $79 if you order by May 12th. (It’s also great for spouses and even for yourself if you want some writing prompts to start your memoirs.) I cannot recommend it enough. Click here to check it out.
I love this Jenny. I agree Jennifer rather than Montana.
If this is something you think you’d like to do, give it to your loved one now. I didn’t discover this until right around Christmas time and gave one to my dad. Unfortunately, with his health issues and advanced age, it may have been too late. Don’t wait! It’s a great concept, but act now.
I wish I had known about this before both of my parents were gone. I will suggest my wife give it to her mom.
Jenny, thank you for sharing your family with us. I see where you get your gift of words and humor! I’m sorry to hear of the struggles of your grandmother, but she sounds like an amazing woman. I hope you have a lovely Mother’s Day.
(She is. She’s still happy even with her dementia and that’s a blessing. When I saw her last month she hugged me and laughed and said, “I wouldn’t know you if I’d run over you”. ~ Jenny)
Yep your a Jennifer not a Montana for sure, love the story of her wedding dress, that’s priceless! Actually now that I think about it, you could have been a Lucretia or Daphne, not like in Scooby Doo though, a darker, more complicated Daphne, just sayin’.
I just found my mom’s Mother’s Day gift.
On your recommendation I gave this to my mom, mom in law, stepdad and dad in law for Christmas this year. It has been so great reading all their stories! I also ordered extra books to give to my brother and sis in law. This has been such a great gift for all of us and will be fantastic to pass down.
This is so lovely. Your mom is so real!
I absolutely recommend getting StoryWorth subscriptions for your loved ones. I got subscriptions for each of my parents for Christmas after Jenny’s last recommendation. My siblings and aunts and uncles that get weekly story emails from my parents all say it’s one of the best ideas I’ve ever had. And I’ve learned so much about my mom and step-dad over the last four months of stories. So thanks, Jenny, from my whole family!!
Good for you for asking now. It is too late for me–my mother is gone and my father has dementia. There are some stories I know, but there are so many more questions I have.
Seconding the wisdom of sharing the recipe, ESPECIALLY that peach cobbler recipe! My mom has spent decades chasing my great grandmother’s cobbler in old southern cookbooks, and she swear’s she’s never quite gotten it right. Now pardon me, I have to go add peaches to my grocery order…
What a fantastic idea! I would love to read the whole book. I’d love to read everyone’s books! There is some amazing historyout there!!!!
I did this for both my mom and dad at Christmas and I’m SO happy I did. The incredible things I’ve learned through this I might never have known. If you are on the fence, just DO it!
I had a sort of similar idea one year — I found the prettiest journals at the bookstore and thought of questions that I wrote in it, like “who was your favorite teacher when you were in school?” and “how did you decide on my first name?” and gave them to my mom and dad for Christmas. Once i explained them, they seemed interested… But that was years ago and I’ve never heard a word about them.
But I love that your mom answered the questions for you. ❤
This is such a cool idea and I love your mom’s entries! Your grandmother sounds like a total badass. I teared up a
bit at the cooking entry, thinking about cooking with my grandmother, then I laughed about botulism. No doubt who’s mother wrote this!
I wish this was a thing when my grandparents were still around!! But hopefully I can keep my nephews from ever having to wonder about all these questions!
What a great post and a great idea!!! I’m glad you were named Jenny…Monty wouldn’t suit you at all! oxox
I gave my mom one of those little gift books a few years ago that had similar question prompts to this, but written. She did the first page and blew it off and I lost her last year. I so wish I knew about this service because I know she would have answered emails. Maybe I’ll get it for myself to save for my daughter when she eventually cares. (Teenagers, amiright?)
Hey, Jenny, thank you for posting your mom’s stories. My daughter, who died in November of 2017, bought me a subscription to StoryWorth a year before she died. I had a lot of trouble coming up with good stories, but tried. When she died, I asked StoryWorth to transfer the “ownership” of the account to my son, which they said they did. Sadly, somewhere along the line the “book” never was delivered. I’m so glad you have these stories. And again, thanks for sharing. Nedra
(I’m so sorry about your sweet daughter. I’m sending you so much love. I hope it’s okay if I ask storyworth to look into this? I believe they were able to fix it but let me know if there’s still a problem? 🙂 ~ Jenny)
I did this for my parents and was so surprised at some of the stories they told. I also did it for myself so there would be a book of my stories. I have 3 sons and I doubt that any of them would think to do it for me . . . so that’s why I did it for myself.
I’ve gotten this for all of my parents and step-parents. It’s an amazing gift, and despite our jokes about weekly homework, keeps some of the best stories from being forgotten. THANK you for sharing this!
Ah! I bought this for my mom for Christmas last year! Can’t wait for the book!
I got this for my mom last Christmas! Can’t wait for the book!
I have to say thank you Jenny for bringing StoryWorth into my life the last time you posted about it. My parents are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary later this year so I signed them both up for it (after getting permission of course) and it’s been funny, eye opening and even a little sad.
I got to hear about my mom catching bridesmaids overcome from the heat as they were passing out at the altar, the friend that went missing after their wedding reception (later found), and the couple that became a couple because they were a part of the search party for said missing person (and are still together to this day). And that was in the answer to one question!
My favorite was “I had my tubes tied so I’d never have any best surprises again” I died laughing. I still use your mom’s “we’re not dirt poor if anything were dirt rich. There’s dirt everywhere we have tons of it” it what makes me smile when I’m having a disagreement with my money and why it keeps leaving me :0)
I kinda suspect that your mother and I went to school together, IRL. That is all.
I’ve been working on writing the high points of my parents’ life for the past couple of years. The problem: my Dad thinks every day of his life is a ‘high point’ so it’s like herding cats to get him to focus on the Highest of the high points. 😃 Storyworth sounds brilliant.
I learned about StoryWorth after both my parents were gone, but I talked my aunt into it and she’s sharing great stories that include my mom and grandparents. It will be a great thing for my family to have, along with her sons and their families. And I can’t wait for her to finish and for them to learn of it, as she’s keeping it a surprise for them.
Wonderful stories! Thank you for sharing. I am in tears.
janbarkhurst@gmail.com
My brother and I did this for our mom last year, and it’s just cnow oming to an end, and we’re loving it so much. I wish this had existed several years ago, when we could have done this with my dad as well.
I’m not sure I agree with the name confirmation – Monty Lawson sounds pretty cool; Royal Canadian Mounted Police Officer, Monty Lawson.
I presume your mother is talking about Central H.S. in San Angelo.
I wonder if I might know her – I went there from 1964 to 1967.
(That’s the one. 🙂 I think she graduated in 1970? ~ Jenny)
This is beautiful. One of the most wonderful things my mother did for me was keep a daily diary of everything my son did, said, or ate the whole time she and my dad looked after him, from the age of 2 until he started school. It was an incredible gift to me, like this is to you:-)
“I presume your mother is talking about Central H.S. in San Angelo.
I wonder if I might know her – I went there from 1964 to 1967.
(That’s the one. 🙂 I think she graduated in 1970? ~ Jenny)”
……….
Ok, then she might have known my middle brother.
Small world.
My husband and I bought subscriptions in December 2017, after you mentioned it in your blog. He ended up with a 2-volume set because he is such a story-teller! I had to extend my subscription for another year … I spent so much time editing my husband’s stories and photos that I couldn’t keep up with my own! THANK YOU so much for suggesting this! It feels like I’m writing letters to future generations (who I will never meet).
How lovely. Your mother is good at telling her story — I got as much out of reading her answers as I would if I were related. I wish STORYWORTH had been around when my grandmother and my husband’s grandmother were still here.
These are wonderful!
I got Storyworth for my parents for Christmas. My mom has not really gotten into it which is a shame, because I know very little about her childhood. My dad has told some great stories! Don’t get me wrong, he’s submitted a couple of one sentence stories too, but some of the others are fantastic.
For reasons way too long to get into there’s no way I could give this to a family member. I’ve long since come to peace with why this is, but I have to tell you I’m grateful for any bit of your family (and anyone’s) that they decide to share. It is warming and lovely.
Montana Melody is a fabulous name…can I borrow it since you’re not using it? 🙂
I love this last bit, “…eating every meal I have left in me.”
What a great reminder to live everyday fully!
A friend gave me a STORYWORTH SUBSCRIPTION a year ago…I have finished 38 chapters of my family life and I renewed it for another year. Just love this…am in the process of editing and adding pictures. JANE ANNE THOMSON
jtjaneathomson@gmail.com
Beautiful stories and memories. Both of my parents are gone now and I wish that I had known about this while there was still time for them. I have no kids, and consequently, no one who cares.
Montana is a cold and desolate place. You, Jenny, certainly are NOT cold nor desolate! Thank you for all the richness you possess and share with us. You are the best surprise ever!!!
I might be crying a little bit. I would have loved for my grandmother’s and great-grandmothers to have been able to do this. So many of their stories live in my mind and heart, but I’m no longer certain I’ve got them all right. And I am sending this to my Mama for mother’s day. She still has things to teach me, too.
Thank you so much for sharing StoryWorth with us! I bought it for my mom for Christmas and have loved seeing all of her stories so much, I’m going to get it for my dad for Father’s Day (he might actually complain about having to write his stories, but he’s getting older and Alzheimer’s runs in his side of the family so I want to get all of the memories out of him I can in case he also falls prey to the horrible disease.)
Thank you for that! My mom died young and i wish I had been able to ask her this stuff!! Thanks Jenny…..yes better than Montana! 😁
OMG You made me cry (again) – in a good way (again). Dang it, Montana! Love & Hugs. Setting this up for my momma right now…
Thanks to your previous recommendation for this, I purchased StoryWorth for my mom this past Christmas and she LOVES it!
What a wonderful gift for all of you. Wish it had been around when my parents were still alive.
Jenny, this is wonderful! I love this way of getting stories from your family. Thanks so much for sharing it with us today because I loved reading the stories. Especially the line “so there would be no more Best Surprises Ever”. Ha-ha! —from one who was also a Surprise!
From one who was also a Surprise (!!) I loved the line “so I would have no more best surprises ever”. Thanks for sharing this with us…I loved reading it.
So your mom graduated CHS in 1970. I graduated in 1969. Big school, but I bet I knew her. Graduated ASU in 1973. I wish my parents hadn’t died so young. I would have loved to have them retell their lives. You’ve got a treasure trove there.
(Her name was Nelda Bale when she was in high school. 🙂 ~ Jenny)
Just sent it to my mom for Mother’s Day… thanks for the suggestion…
P.S. You are Montana to me for the rest of my life…
Your mom looks so young in the family photo! Everyone in your family seems to be a gifted story teller. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for recommending this last year. I had my dad do it and it was a beautiful book with the most amazing stories! It’s a great thing to do.
This is a treasure! Thanks for sharing it, Montana.
I recently found out that my Grams actually wanted my parents to name me Secret Wind. (Note: she was NOT a hippie)
Thankful that mom opted to not name me after a silent fart but Teresa instead. She too looked at me and decided after delivery.
Your Mom talking about her Mom with dementia touched close to home for me too. Been helping my Aunt by giving respite visits caring for my Grams as much as I can. Her Alzheimer’s is at the stage where she’s starting to forget exactly who we are, but still knows we’re family. Not that I can really blame her. We have a HUGE family, and even I have trouble keeping some of us straight in my mind. Thankfully she’s still in a happy place in her memories as well.
I loved the idea of Storyworth when you posted about it with your Father’s stories. I loved it enough to get the subscription for both my Sisters. However, they are not really responding to the questions. One was responding and it was glorious! But as she is in the middle of moving States, she has been too overwhelmed to continue. One of my Sisters got a subscription for me. I am responding, though I am 2 questions behind. I am sad that I won’t have their stories.
You are very lucky, Jenny.
… before my parents knew my brother and my genders, we were Curly and Moe. There never was a Larry. Thankfully they picked reasonable names afterwards!
Wonderful story! I love the bit about sharing recipes. Reminds me of passing on made up games my grandmother played with us when we were little. (She was my last grandparent and died when I was five). I remember asking my mother to tell me the secret of one of the games my grandmother played with us (it was like a story and magic trick in one), and mom said she wouldn’t tell me until I had children of my own. So I waited. And when I had my son in my late thirties, mom couldn’t remember how the trick was done. I was so pissed.
Oh I so want to do this!!! Sigh, now to rob a bank so I can afford it…..
I’ve dealt with many Dakotas, never a Montana. You’re much better off as a Jenny. https://possumscatsthingsgnawingatme.wordpress.com/2019/05/04/a-disturbance-in-the-force/
I am in happy tears over these beautiful answers. Your mom has led such an interesting, varied, full life so far!
I do wish I had known about this before losing both my parents in 18 months. Thank you so much for sharing!
This is absolutely beautiful. I’m so glad you are getting such wonderful stories to cherish. While we can’t afford anything like Storyworth, I’ve been recording my mom’s stories on cassette tapes for years. Just every so often I’ll pull out the cassette recorder and ask something, like how her and dad got together or her wildest childhood memory, and record it. I’ve had an amazing time listening to those stories, so much I never knew.
I was very close to my grandpa when I was young and when he died I was so scared that I would eventually forget his voice… It’s stayed with me, but only barely. That’s why I chose to record my mom telling these stories, I want to remember her voice.
Thank you for sharing another glimpse of your life with us. My mom is so stubborn, I’ll probably be gone before she is, but I’m bookmarking this for when I can afford it.
Oh Jenny, that was superb! Thank you to you and your Mom. Love, me
Thanks Jenny! I wish my mother was still alive so I could do this! It is a wonderful thing to do!
I wish so much I could have done this when my parents (or grandparents) were alive. I’m an only child and I’m the only one left alive now.
My mother was an excellent baker. When she visited one time, I insisted she make bread, and when she said she couldn’t tell me how much she used of what, I put out pre-measured bowls of all the ingredients, then measured what was left when she was done. I wrote down every step of the way as she made it.
Another one of her specialties was a raisin spice cake with boiled brown sugar frosting. I’m allergic to chocolate, and that cake was always my birthday cake, so again, I made her write down that recipe, which I still have and freely share with others.
That chocolate allergy? I didn’t ask her to write down her recipe for her renowned chocolate cake that all of our relatives said was the best ever. That recipe is gone. She never wrote it down.
If the recipes matter to you, you have to get them from people while they are still alive. Even better if they will let you be in the kitchen when they make it.
Happy Mother’s Day to all of us blessed with kids. I’ll be sending my annual gift to the International Rescue Committee to pay for one year’s worth of schooling for a child in a third world country, a gift that would matter to my mom.
We have a storyworth account going, I have one for my husband and his mom (so the book is for him) and he bought one for me…. we bought it at the holidays because your suggestion was to do it… I just wrote MY story for the week… trust me this is the BEST thing ever…. PS your Mom is a jewel….
I have loved all these comments too…
In the family photo, your dad looks like a detective from a 70’s cop show.
Your family is amazing! I love the stories you’ve shared from both your mom and your dad. What sweet and wonderful memories to be able to keep!
You look a lot like your mother – and so does your daughter. 🙂
Montana sounds like a name for a pageant kid, so you TOTALLY lucked out with Jennifer.
My own mom was deciding between 2 names when I was born, a 3 letter name and a 5 letter name. When the nurses weighed me, I was over 11 pounds! Mom gave me the bigger name.
I gifted my dad a StoryWorth subscription for Christmas of 2017. He missed a few weeks here and there but devoted himself to catching up last fall. He passed the week the subscription ended. His stories were such a gift during the week of the funeral and every week since.
Well, I just bought a subscription for my mom for mother’s d. She’ll be 80 next month so this will be a gift for me, my daughter and my grandson. Thanks Jennifer!! 😍
I just want to hang out with your mom now! What an amazing set of parents you have. Like others, I wish my parents were still here to do this for me, for my children. Thank you for sharing your parents with the rest of us!!!
I purchased this for my – then 89 year old – mother after reading about you giving it to your dad, Jenny (LOVED his stories and your mom’s are amazing too!) and I THOUGHT she’d love it because she’s always been a writer. I was wrong! She found it extremely stressful to try to remember specifics from her childhood and as a young adult. I don’t know if the fact she couldn’t remember made her anxious or think she was losing it – but after about six weeks I had them stop spending her questions/emails. All us “kids” loved the few stories she did share – so I’m not suggesting this isn’t an incredible gift but maybe buy it for those in their 70’s or earlier 80’s?
I gave StoryWorth to my grandma and my mother-in-law for Christmas. The whole family is loving the stories and they are having a great time writing them. Thank you so much for sharing StoryWorth– I learned about it from you!!
I was so excited about this when you posted last year, so I gave my Mom a subscription for Mother’s Day. She wrote once all year. Can’t wait for my bound copy! Oh well, can’t win ’em all!
I was afraid my folks were past this but perhaps I’ll give it to Mom and Dad for Mother’s Day/Fathers day. They can speak their stories, I think the typing might be too difficult.
I gave this to my husband for Christmas after you wrote about giving it to you father! He lives it! He is retired and wanted to write more and this gives him the impetus to do it. I have really loved his stories, we married in 07 and we’re retired so although we were good friends in college we were both married to other people for a long time and didn’t always catch up with each other. He lost his wife to breast cancer and I divorced after an abusive marriage. I had emailed his wife to see how they were doing as they had moved to Austin and he answered my email because she had passed away but he kept her email account. He is an amazing person an incredible husband and an all around good guy. We are so happy to be together on this journey.
We moved up to St Louis to help care for my folks,
You totally seem like a Montana Melody!
I don’t know why these make me cry (your dad’s about slayed my eyeballs, and this one had me giggle~crying), but they do and in the best way. I genuinely thank you for sharing your family with us.. . …
This is amazing! These will be perfect gifts for my mom and grandma.
Thank you for sharing these with a family-less person. Xo
Having lost my mom last November, reading these remembrances from your mom is especially poignant and beautiful. Happy mother’s day, Jenny!
My kids bought this for me for Mother’s day this year. Both my Mom and my Nana have passed; and there is a lot I would give to ask them a thousand more questions about their lives, hopes and dreams, and I want to make sure my kids get the chance to ask those questions now. <3
This depresses me so much, both parents are gone. But mostly because my father had quite an extraordinary life and was recording his experiences so I could write a biography, he also recorded a message for me to listen to after his death. I never got to hear any of it. When he suffered his final heart attack someone broke into the house and stole his briefcase where all the recordings were kept. I really wish they’d stolen everything else and left the recordings, or at least his last message to me 🙁
Going on a year and a half since I started one of these with my Dad and I’m loving having a weekly portal into his life. Thank you for this gift.
I love this. I wonder if I could get it for my parents as a unit. My dad started writing his stories a while ago, but after 3 TIAs, he mostly remembers childhood things now. Maybe Mom could write the bits after the kids started growing up. I’d love to preserve both their memories.
I did this with my parents after hearing about from Jenny. They loved it!!! Can’t recommend it enough. 💟😊
Thanks to your prior recommendation, I gave my 92 year old dad Storyworth for Christmas last year. He loves it and I love the stories. I love capturing the ones I’ve heard before, and hearing the ones that are new to me. Like how my dad joined the Navy twice, once for WWII when he tried to go for a “career” but they didn’t recognize his field (bio-chemistry) so they made him a records clerk, and once in the Reserves for the Korean War where they recognized his field but assumed it qualified him to be a medic so he ended up giving physicals and vaccines to guys in boot camp.
I wish I had given it to my mom before she passed away.
I’m going to ask my kids to give it to me…or just get it for myself and MAKE them love it!
Oh, and as for family recipes…
My husband’s mom (now called Baba, grandma in Macedonian), and all the aunts, and his grandma (Stada Baba or senior grandma) all cooked and baked a lot, and each had some special recipe that was their thing. Nobody would tell anybody how to make that special thing. One of the aunts would give people a recipe but leave something out so it was never as good as hers. So a lot got lost that way. And a lot of people in the family learned how to be passive aggressive. Good times!
I just signed my dad up with storyworth. I’ve been thinking about it for awhile (because of you) and I finally did it.
I got this for my dad’s 75th birthday on your recommendation and LOVE IT SO MUCH. Such a great concept Thanks for the idea! He’s a few months in and I don’t know if he knows that I get a copy of what he writes every week. I’m worried if I tell him it might change his openness?
Reading this story about your Mom is heart warming and so sweet. I would give anything to hear my Mom’s stories again. Thanks for sharing Jenny, you have filled a void in my heart today.
Lovely! I did this for my dad and am trying to convince my mom to do it too.
This is so wonderful. I wish it had been around when my Mom was still with me. She loved to write and would have loved to have shared stories. And maybe it would have eventually drawn out the true story of my father and their relationship. It would have been nice to hear that story from her.
<3 This made me tear up a bit, but I’m so happy for you that you get to hear your Mom’s stories. This is really a beautiful idea.
My kids have two remaining great-grandparents: mom’s mom’s mom and dad’s dad’s dad. Each of them got a StoryWorth subscription a year and a half ago, at your recommendation. I loved seeing their stories in my email all year, and they are thrilled with their books. Thanks, Jenny
A MILLION THANK YOU’S for the StoryWorth recommendation – THE PERFECT GIFT for the woman who has everything – much love from Houston.
This is a wonderful exercise. Anyone who does it might get a few surprises, though (I love your grandfather, he reminds me totally of my adopted father).
I’d love to be able to do this with someone, but all of my people are gone, and all of my husband’s people are gone , which leaves us with, er, us. My dad would have loved this exercise, he was a ham and a wonderful story teller, even though you had to water them down a bit when he was done…
console.log(“Tesing123”)
Thank you for this! I got one for my Mom and one for my Mother-in-law for Mother’s Day and just read the first story. I am going to love this so much, I almost feel guilty!
So what I got out of this is that your mom got pregnant once on the pill and once while having an IUD. That is a very fertile woman!
Thanks for reminding me that I wanted to do this for my mom! I wish it had been around while my grandparents were still alive.
I ordered a StoryWorth subscription for my mom for Mother’s Day. Her response to the first prompt was about the best advice my grandmother ever gave her–it was to marry that boy she was dating. They got married 6 months later and have been married for 52 years. My mother still jokes that her mother loves my dad more than she loves her. That story was an amazing gift for me for Mother’s Day! Thanks for reminding me about how awesome StoryWorth can be.
I just loved the idea of presenting this piece of work. Very inspiring!
I gifted storyworth to my parents and my in-law for 2019. My mother and mother-in-law have been great at keeping up with the questions, but my dad and father-in-law….not so much.