By Julia George
I’ve been thinking about my last blog post – My Family’s Desperate Flight Through the Twentieth Century. https://juliageorgeauthor.com/my-familys-desperate-flight-through-the-twentieth-century/ The family in that post is my husband George’s family (George being the other half of Julia George, our pen name).
When George and I got together, his grandmother, mother, father, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. became mine as well. His dramatic family stories have been a treasure trove of plots and characters for our novels.
The Gudym-Lefkovich Family – 1910
From Imperial Russia to the Revolution to Exile to fighting and fleeing both Nazis and Communists, George’s family is a treasure trove of plots and characters.
The Odegard Family – 1909
My family also, though not quite as filled with high-stakes adventure, has a story to tell.
From failing farms in Norway to a romance on the way to America to building a sod house in North Dakota to running a boarding house in Montana and finally settling in Washington State with a family of 7 strapping boys and 3 clever girls, my family’s saga is an Immigrant success story.
Advice to My Fellow Authors. Talk to Your Relatives!
Your relatives have a wealth of stories that you might not be aware of. When we are growing up, we’re so focused on our own problems, adventures and dreams that we often are, as the Simon and Garfunkel song goes, hearing without listening.
No matter what your age now, it’s never too late to mine the rich family stories lying in wait for you.
If you are lucky enough to have a grandmother or grandfather still living, reach out to them. Believe me, they will be thrilled to know their grandchild is interested in their life history.
There are surprises in store for you. Adventures you never realized that kindly old person ever had. Characters they knew long before you were born will come to life through their telling.
Go time travelling with them, and your next novel might be waiting for you.
Your Parents Have Adventures to Tell Also.
Your parents are next. Believe it or not, they had a life before you came on the scene. They had separate lives even before they met each other. Find out about their dreams and schemes when they were young.
Some of their adventures will be recognizable to you, and some will seem from a different world. Here’s where you’ll find new characters, new struggles, new perspectives of life and love.
And don’t forget your aunts, uncles, cousins.
Minimalists Beware.
It’s amazing to me how the narrative today is often focused on decluttering your life by throwing away things that do not serve your immediate needs or interests. What a waste!
How many articles do I see telling older people to get rid of as much as they can to “spare” their children the supposedly tedious task of throwing those old, “useless” things away when they die.
The artifacts of your family history is never “useless.”
Why Can’t I Just Keep Photos?
Taking photos of everything for a phone archive is not the same as holding the item in your hand, feeling the softness of the fabric of an old dress or blanket, hugging the floppy stuffed bunny you were given as a child, wearing that bit of costume jewelry your mother wore to her high school prom, using your father’s old hammer and remembering the time he taught you how to hammer in a nail.
Old things are treasure chests of memories. Memories are treasure chests for a writer to inspire plots, characters, emotions, and scenes.
Look in the Attic!
Does anyone in your family have an attic? That dark, dusty, mysterious space is waiting for you to go on a treasure hunt. What might you see?
A pile of old photo albums perhaps, their brittle pages witnesses to family stories you’ve forgotten, or never knew. If you’re lucky, some of them will be very old indeed.
Out of the Past Photo Album.
My husband’s grandmother managed to bring this old album out of Russia when she escaped the Bolsheviks in 1920. Its cover is black velvet with a small circular watercolor painting.
In it are photos that go back more than a hundred-fifty years. Some have names, some have not, but all of them evoke a time long past and have been the inspiration for a new novel we’re writing now.
The Cup of Sorrows.
So much tragedy is associated with this enameled cup that it might very well be haunted.
On the day Nicholas II of Imperial Russia was crowned Tsar, cups like this, filled with little treats, were distributed as gifts to the thousands who came to Khodynka Field to celebrate. The field was treacherous, with pits and trenches, as it was often used as a military training ground. A rumor went round that a gold coin would be inside the cup.
Half a million people stampeded toward the tables to get the gifts. Some fell into the pits, others were trampled underfoot. Over 1300 were killed!
Tsar Nicholas II tried desperately to compensate the victims of that terrible coronation day, but it was believed to be an omen for the rest of his reign.
Twenty-one years later, he and all his family were murdered by the Bolsheviks. You can see the Romanov eagle on one side and the initials of the Tsar and Tsarina on the other.
What Does this Old Cup Inspire You to Write?
This cup was brought out of Russia during the Revolution by my husband’s great grandmother who was there on that fateful day.
I envision a time travel novel in which someone finds this cup and is transported back to that terrible day. Will he/she be able to warn the Tsar of what is to come and prevent the tragedy?
Or perhaps this cup will inspire a paranormal mystery about a haunted cup of sorrows.
If you are interested, here is a link to a post about the Khodynka Tragedy.
https://todayinhistory.blog/tag/khodynka-field/
The Binoculars on the Bookshelf.
Here is an old pair of binoculars. They date back to the end of the Nineteenth Century and are still good. They belonged to Jura Tarakanov, and had been handed down to him by his father who was a Russian general in the First World War.
Here is General Tarakanov on his beautiful horse.
General Tarakanov’s son, Jura, was my mother-in-law’s first love when she was eighteen. Alas, he married her best friend who was a couple years older.
Like my mother-in-law and her friend, Jura had also escaped the Bolsheviks and was a fellow exile in Yugoslavia between the wars.
After a career as a gymnast and a troubadour in European cafes, Jura ended up in Brazil where he worked as a cartographer, hiking all over the countryside with these binoculars, studying the land for his maps.
There is a story here. A story of war and exile, of love lost and found. For, after his wife died, he finally married my mother-in-law. They were both well into their sixties. Love triumphs over time.
A Time Travelling Microscope.
Speaking of time, this microscope has travelled through time for over a hundred years. At the beginning of the Twentieth Century, it helped my husband’s grandmother, Julia Gudym/Lefkovich, to study and fulfill her dream of becoming a doctor.
She used it to help diagnose and heal the women in her village in Ukraine.
Somehow, through her courage and determination, Julia carried it through the Russian Revolution into exile in Yugoslavia where she continued to help those she could.
It came with her to the United States when she emigrated here in the nineteen-fifties. When she died, it sat in the attic of her daughter’s house (my mother-in-law) until that house was sold and it came to us.
My husband and I had it cleaned, and our son used it for science classes when we homeschooled him.
Now it sits on a shelf in our library next to a photo of the woman who cherished it. When we write Love and Revolution, the novel about her life, it will again play a part. It is a family treasure.
A Sentimental Maximalist.
I confess. I am a shameless sentimentalist. The rooms in my house are small galleries. Framed photos of family adventures grace the walls.
Treasures from the past nestle between books, arranged to have some connection with the books themselves.
You know. A clay head of The Charioteer next to books on Ancient Greece.
Seashells and rocks, gathered from the beaches of California, lined a shelf with nature study books.
Old swords and daggers, handed down or brought home from foreign travels, hang around on walls and above doorways.
Toys from my son’s childhood lounge in the attic in and around a wooden toy chest my own father built for me.
I do go up and visit them from time to time. Just to remind them they are still loved.
Even my car is 25 years old. I can’t give him up. He’s an old friend who’s journeyed from Carmel to Yosemite, LA to Seattle.
Not to mention the fact that he’s a classic Chrysler 300M. Rare now, since they only made them for a few seasons.
Is my house a cluttered mess? No. Each sentimental item has its own pride of place. They find their ways into plot and character ideas. They are my inspiration.
But most important of all, they remind me of the people I love and who have, and do, love me.
They are my Family Treasure Trove.
P.S.
If you’re curious to know more secrets from the life and writings of Julia George, I’d love to have you visit our website and stroll around. https://juliageorgeauthor.com/
