Awhile back I began to write a “kind of” Alaskan version of Little House on the Prairie.

You know, we could call it Little House on the Permafrost or Little House on the Tundra… I don’t know.  Neither one grabs me.  And it doesn’t really matter because the story isn’t finished.

Anyway, my goal is to share family history with my sons.  There’s a lot worth knowing about that time.  And I feel the need to preserve it… to fill in some blanks.

I remember my grandparents and parents telling me things about our family… but no one ever wrote it down.  I’ve captured some of it, but not near enough.

One year for Christmas my husband and I gave his dad a hand-held tape recorder.  We wanted him to recount his early years in 1930s Yukon Territory.  That didn’t happen.  Some of those stories are in our memory banks but they tend to fade, or we remember them a little differently each time.

I think every family needs a historian.  And it should pass from generation to generation…. the adventures, the missteps, the disasters, the lessons learned and the love stores.

Reflecting on family who came before me, as I write this series of posts… it’s smack in my face that my sons’ lives are full of lessons for me…

… lessons on persistence, grace and good humor, slowing down to smell the roses, and about it never being too late to turn things around.  My sons teach me.  And I need to write about it.

Tomorrow…. the one who epitomizes “keep on keepin’ on”.

p.s. – I won’t use names… but you know who you are 🙂

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