Writing Fiction About Family

For writers, one great side-effect of studying family history or genealogy is the mystery element: those unidentified photos in the old albums, family members for whom you have only the bare facts, and the ones you know an interesting little story about--and nothing else.

Consider my great-great-Grandpa Fred Fox. I'm lucky in that I have a picture of him, I've seen his fascinating tombstone, and I remember a story my grandmother told. Grandpa Fox is a goldmine! When I view his faded photo, all in shades of brown, his visage and stance all shout to me "Indian fighter"! Part of our family's land includes an ancient Indian burial mound. Although fighting Indians wasn't much of a feature in southwestern Ohio, Grandpa Fox could have gone off to the west and had an adventure, then returned home.

His tombstone features a life-size carving of a small-breed dog. At least, that's the way it looks to me. The legend is that when old Fred fell off his horse, the little dog ran all the way back to the farmhouse and alerted the family. Alas, Fred drowned in a rain-filled hoof print (another story), but everyone was so impressed with the dog's loyalty that they honored him on Fox's grave marker.

Finally, there's the story about the origin of another family member. My grandmother said that one day an Indian woman deposited her papoose with one of our aunts, promising to pick up the child later. Perhaps she was an itinerant come to help harvest the potato or tobacco crop. The mother never returned, so aunt Leola raised the black-haired beauty as one of her own. When I look carefully at the woman's face, I see Grandpa Fox's mouth and eyes set in dark skin and hair. All these relatives lived contemporaneously along Pennyroyal Hill Road, on land once inhabited by Miami Indians.

The creative part of my mind could easily string all these incidents together in a story. With the photos and personal knowledge of the setting, "all" I'd need to do is come up with a poignant plot. Yes, my family tree is ripe with such tidbits, "story plums" about to drop into my lap. How about yours? Interview the oldest members of your family before the interesting memories disappear and storylines are lost forever.