Mary Borg - Writing Your Life: A Guide to Writing Autobiographies

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the many senior adults who have enrolled in my Writing Your Life classes over the years. They have helped me to become, not just a better teacher, but also a better person. They have taught me much about life and loveand about aging with humor, joy, integrity, patience and enthusiasm.

I am grateful to Susan Malmstadt, former director of senior education at Aims Community College, for her enthusiastic endorsement of the idea for this book.

I am grateful to Dawn DiPrince, the production manager for the previous edition of Writing Your Life, for her exceptional organization skills.

I am grateful to Sean Redmond, the very capable editor of this new edition of Writing Your Life, for his encouragement and forthrightness.

I am grateful to the editor and publisher of the first edition of this book, Cheryl Miller Thurston, for her patience, good cheer, invaluable knowledge, hard work, amazing editing skills, and friendship during the writing of the book, for without her, this book would not be.

I would also like to thank the following men and women for use of their autobiographical materials:

Benita Ackerman

Carroll Arnold, Nothins Easy

Iva Bjorneby

Bernie Bliss, Roots, Blossoms, Wings

Mary Casseday, Pathways

Hazel Chick, Memory Is the Haunting of the Heart

Paul W. Clancy, well, I Thought It Was Interesting

Agnes Clausen, The Track of the Wooden Shoes

Marge Curtiss

Donna Davis, Dancing in the Cactus Patch

Norma Erickson, Coming to a New Land

Clare Foster, Roses and Thorns

Marie Giesler, Sentimental Journey

Julia L. Judy Graham, My Life

Barbara Anne Green, Journals

Myrt Grooms, The Unraveling

Peggy Hess, Bits and Pieces of My Life

Marietta Hetherington Neumeister

Ron Hildebrand, Might as Well, Cant Dance

Sally Howard, Work in Progress

Mary Irwin, Whos Got the Toothbrush?

Bob Jackson

Ivan Klein, The Autobiography of Ivan Klein

Mary Koenig, My Story

Bernie Lynch

Bernie Malnati, Is That the Truth, Mom, or Did You Make It Up?

Delia Grubb Martin, Yesterday

Joseph Wilson Mefford, Jr., My Story, My Song

John Mills

Joan Milne, And So It Was

Marietta Hetherington Neumeister

Lois Osborn, Eight Decades

Charles A. Phillips, Dryland Diary

Lorene Putnam

Eldon Risser, The Years of My Life

Orren Gilbert Scholfield, Many Cherries, Some Pits

Sue Schulze, No Fun Like Work

Mary Skuderna

Viola Smith, Here I Am

Dean Sommers

Uba Stanley, Uba Stanleys Sojourn on This Planet Earth

Wally Stewart

Helen Tisdel

Robert Vail, Dew on a Leaf

Cleo Wadleigh

Janet Williamson, My Story

Fred Wurtsmith, Its Been a Long Road

Helene Yurman, Who Am I?

Mark Yurman, My Biography

Mary Borg

Appendix

Decades

The course of life is unpredictable no one can write his autobiography in advance. Abraham Joshua Heschel

What was happening in the world in 1927? Or 1952? Or 1974? To help you remember, here are lists of some of the important events of each decade of the 20th century, from 19202000, as well as those of the first decade of the 21st century (from 20002010). Major events from 2010 through the time of publication are also listed. Key words, names, and phrases accompany the lists, which can be used as memory joggers to help you remember events, fads, and other cultural phenomena of each decade.

THE 1920s

Presidents of this decade:

Warren Harding (19211923)

Calvin Coolidge (19231929)

Herbert Hoover (19291933)

The 18th Amendment, Prohibition, becomes law.

The U.S. Department of Justices red hunt targets radicals and aliens.

The 19th Amendment gives women of the United States the right to vote.

The Teapot Dome scandal is uncovered.

The Ku Klux Klan gains political power in the United States.

Vladimir Lenin dies; Joseph Stalin wins power in U.S.S.R.

John T. Scopes is convicted for teaching evolution in Tennessee public schools.

Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are executed.

Charles Lindbergh flies solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

The stock market crashes.

KEYWORDS

A&P

Aimee Semple McPherson

Amos nAndy

Babbitt

Babe Ruth, and his trade to the Yankees

bathtub gin

Bessie Smith

Bill Bojangles Robinson

bobbed hair

bootleg liquor

Burma-Shave

buying on credit

cats meow

Cecil B. DeMille

the Charleston

Charlie Chaplin

the Cotton Club

crossword puzzles

crystal set (radios)

Dorothy Parker

Douglas Fairbanks

Duke Ellington

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Ernest Hemingway

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Fascinating Rhythm

Fatty Arbuckle

the first Miss America contest

flagpole sitting

flappers

flivvers

George Gershwin

gin mills

Gloria Swanson

The Great Gatsby

H. L. Mencken

the Harlem Renaissance

the Holland Tunnel

hooch

I Found a Million Dollar Baby (in a Five and Ten Cent Store)

Id Walk a Mile for a Camel

isinglass curtains

the It girl

Izzy (Einstein) and Moe (Smith)

Jack Dempsey

jazz

Jim Crow

Kiwanis

Knute Rockne

Ku Klux Klan

Ma, Hes Making Eyes at Me

mah-jongg

Makin Whoopee

marathon dances

Mary Pickford

The New Yorker

Ol Man River

Papa Joe Oliver

Pierce-Arrow

Prohibition

the quest for normalcy

raccoon coats

Red Grange

Rhapsody in Blue

Rudolph Valentino dies

rumble seats

Second Hand Rose

Show Me the Way to Go Home

Shuffle Along

Singin in the Rain

Sinclair Lewis

Sonja Henie

speakeasies

St. Valentines Day massacre

Stardust

talkie movies

tango

The Ten Commandments

Toot, Toot, Tootsie!

vaudeville

Will Rogers

Woolworths

Yes! We Have No Bananas

THE 1930s

Presidents of this decade:

Herbert Hoover (19291933)

Franklin D. Roosevelt (19331945)

The Great Depression grips the world.

The Lindbergh baby is kidnapped.

Veterans march on Washington, DC, demanding cash bonuses.

Roosevelt launches the New Deal (WPA, Social Security, AAA, CCC).

Hitler gains dictatorial power.

The Holocaust begins in Europe.

The 18th Amendment, Prohibition, is repealed.

The Dionne quintuplets are born in Canada.

Huey Long is assassinated.

Joe Louis knocks out Max Baer.

Edward VIII abdicates the throne.

The Spanish Civil War breaks out.