| Elder Participant Carol Ashworth |
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| In the years before Nintendo, what games did children enjoy? Where did our family come from, and why did they come here? What was life like in a sod house on a prairie homestead? How did a ten-year-old support the war effort in 1943? Did people really use red flannel to catch frogs for frog-leg dinners? How did pre-World War II small-town life differ from the rushed and multi-tasking lives led in today's cities? How did a Depression-years family celebrate the Fourth of July? What happened to the Civil War soldier, whose payment as substitute paid off the family mortgage— or to the great-great-grandfather who left his pregnant wife and four children to fight against slavery? Sixty years ago, what lessons were taught in school—and what others have been learned only by hard experience? |  |
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| Though we may not hear these particular questions, our children and grandchildren are likely to wonder about the lives led by the people who have preceded them. They have questions to be answered, and we Elders have history to be taught; for we who have lived through those years—and who are their continuity with earlier generations—are the closest, most logical source for answers. Libraries are full of books, which will give them important dates of world-changing events; but only we can pass along the family stories of immigration and homesteads, crises and joys, which make up their personal history. Combined, these stories make up the history of communities. | |
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| We, who have lived through much, if not most, of the twentieth century, can tell them how it felt to see a first television program—perhaps Milton Berle on a six-inch black-and-white screen; what it meant to experience D-Day, either by actually landing on the beaches or by watching theater newsreels; how incredulous it seemed to hear a radio message from lunar orbit and, later, see a man actually land on the moon! | |
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| “Give them roots and wings” is, I think, a desirable child-rearing philosophy, and one which carries the obligation of acquainting children with their roots—letting them know where and how they fit into the family tree, as well as the neighborhood and nation, and within what traditions they have been reared. These stories are their legacy —their birthright and heritage. All we Elders have to do is tell them. | |
