Your grandparents, aunts, uncles and parents hold a lifetime of wonderful memories, but it’s common for the stories and experiences to be kept inside and not shared with younger generations. This can prevent you from enjoying the priceless stories and insights only your loved ones can offer. In order to capture the magic of your loved one’s past, we encourage you to conduct an oral history interview using the record function on your cell phone.
Many elderly have a strong desire to share their stories, but lack an outlet or audience willing to listen. We encourage you to set aside a time at the next family event to record a history interview with your loved one and change this trend. They will be happy to share their life story with you.
Choose to connect with your loved one by asking all or some the following interview questions. Keep in mind that questions can be asked over several sessions. And don’t forget to ask follow up questions when particularly interesting information is shared!
We encourage you to use these oral history questions as a springboard for other ways to engage with your loved ones. You’ll never regret the quality time spent with your loved one.
Since there’s usually a time constraint at large family gatherings, plan to ask the most important interview questions in private. Choose a few of the broad questions and give them time to think about how they would like to answer; lengthy periods of talking can be taxing for many seniors.
You can ask these historical interview questions to liven up family gatherings throughout the year. This is the perfect project for bringing together generations of relatives in an engaging way, and your loved ones will be happy to share their life story. You will also want to record the oral interview answers in a book for family members to enjoy in the years to come. Then give the book to your loved one and they can also enjoy reading their history interview.
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Thank you so much for your kindness to me and giving me such good help. God Bless you in this adventure. Thank you so much for all you have done to make the last few years easier on Marc and me.