Bob, what a creative way to document your personal history, and certainly a blessing to you and yours. My largest fear with our incredible digital age is that information can be so quickly and easily lost; media recorded on a DVD will likely be obsolete in thirty years. You have probably already done this, but if there is any way you can print off or publish into book form your precious photo histories, please do! You want all those memories to be accessible to many future generations!

Bob has a point in his observation that in our day visual culture has taken some ground from print culture. Still, I hope both I and mine can make a literary effort at self-depiction. Perhaps its just nostalgia, but one of the things that I most regret, actually, is the gradual disappearance of autograph writings and epistolary relationships. But whether handwritten or in print, It seems to me that writing is still the best record of the inner life.

Jared–thanks for the dissertation tip! That is great to know. Kevinf–You are so right–those “juicy bits” of raw emotion are usually what readers/scholars love to get! It’s hard to let ourselves go and be totally honest on paper, for some crazy reason…but what have we got to lose? How cool to have your ancestors diaries! And yeah…if any of you have your ancestors diaries, DONATE THEM to an archives so that other descendants can have access to them too! They will also be much better cared for in an archives!

I keep a journal with full knowledge that it’ll be read and I’m resigned to the fact that perhaps someday someone will take it and analyze is like I do to others. All the more reason to remember that we’re dealing with people–people who lived in a time and context that we get relatively short and incomplete glimpses of.

You’ll have to keep your eye out for Jon Moyer’s dissertation which he defended in the last few months at the UofU and which was tentatively called, as of a few years ago, “Dancing With the Devil: The Mormon Church and the Republican Party.” I understand he traces the Republican party mainly from the 1890s and on (I’m a bit unclear about the exact parameters). I don’t know how much he has on women’s organizational efforts, but anyway, it’ll be worth being aware of once it becomes available.

I also feel huge guilt that I haven’t done a better job of documenting my own life for my descendants. I’m a little afraid of putting everything down for my kids to see, but on the other hand, those feelings and personal reflections often are the most interesting to read in others.

I’m right now reading diaries and journals about the 1873 colonization mission to the Little Colorado that my great grandparents were involved in. It’s like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, without knowing all the details. It’s fascinating, and I’m learning all sorts of other things along the way. I could be like J Stapley, and do this full time, and just work occasionally. (Tongue firmly in cheek, Stapley, honest).

Thanks for the post. It definitely got me thinking while also reinforcing my view about personal history. I guess future family historians will just have to rely on other means to know about me.