Preamble: I’m taking a a break on regular posts from January through March, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t interesting things to read!

In lieu of regular content, I’m highlighting some of my favorite primary source materials from the last three years. Read a little, read a lot, skip through and look at the photos, it’s up to you! These are all online, so you don’t even have to venture outside into the cold.

Regular posts will resume in April.

Back in 2015, Ted Watkins sat down to write, “the story of my life as I remember it. Not as it necessarily happened nor as I imagined it happened, just as I remember it.” He recorded this online, in something of a blog form.

The “Cover Page” for Ted Watkins’ My Story The Brisco Years

Born in Golden in 1931, Ted recalls his early life in Brisco up until the end of first grade, after which his family moved to Stewart B.C., then Premier, and later to Trail. I recommend starting at the beginning and reading through the Brisco memories, although if you’re like me you’ll get caught up wanting to know what happens next and read the rest of it as well. This is a wonderful glimpse into life growing up in remote BC during the thirties and forties.

My Story is also, if you’ll let me take out my soapbox for a moment, an amazing example of the value of a memoir. Ted didn’t believe that these “stories” would be of much interest to anyone beyond his immediate family and friends. As I’m sure you’ll agree: he was selling himself short. I can’t count the number of times when I’ve been doing research that I wished someone, anyone, had just written something down. Memoirs are amazing, and they don’t have to be polished and published to be of interest.

And so, from said soapbox: it doesn’t matter what your background is or how old you are, please, please write your memoir. And when I say “write”, I don’t necessarily even mean that you have to take out a pen and start scribbling with the goal of publication. Ted used a dictation program to “type” his stories by speaking them out loud, and so the reader gets all sorts of spelling and grammatical errors “free of charge” (his words). You’ll notice that it kind of doesn’t matter!

I understand how scary it is to consider “finishing” a meticulous record of your life, so don’t: start at the beginning, start in the middle, start with one single story. Don’t worry about exact years, or precise sequences of events (that’s what us nerds are around for to sort out). Be messy and disjointed if you have to be. Even if you don’t remember everything, even if you only discusses certain events, and even if those events don’t seem at all “exciting”, I can guarantee, one hundred percent, that there are people out there who are interested in reading (or listening) to them.

Be like Ted. Just tell it as you remember it.

You can find “My Story” here: https://reddragon17.wordpress.com/

Other local memoirs include those of:
Florence Baillie Grohman (wife of William Adolph Baillie Grohman)
Clara Graham (schoolteacher at Windermere in autumn 1910)

Most memoirs are only available in print. Nearly all of these are available at both the Invermere and Radium Public Libraries (Jim McKay, Nolan Rad, and Jean Leslie are only at Invermere). Please, please comment with others I’ve missed!

Violet Richardson Bridger Andrews, The Windermere I Knew: Violet’s Story. Kimberley: A & B Publications, 2002.

Dix Anderson, Trails I have Travelled. Manitoba: Friesen, c1991.

Colin Cartwright. Empty on the Swan: A Trucker and Logger’s View of the Whiteswan Road. Cranbrook: Rocky Mountain Printers, 2007.

Ray Crook, The life and times of Charles John Crook and family: also What I remember about Windermere. Invermere: Palliser Printing, 2011.

Jean Leslie, Fay-Mar-K: Jean Leslie’s story of a fishing camp at Kootenay Crossing in Kootenay National park built and operated 1952-1957. Invermere BC: Palliser.

Jim McKay. Throw Another Log on the Fire. Invermere B.C.: James Albert McKay, 2005.

Nolan Rad, The Life and Times of a Kootenay Boy. Invermere B.C.: Local View Printing & Design, 2021.

Nancy Lee Tegart, Letters from the Ranch. Victoria: Traford, c2004.

There are also a wide variety of unpublished manuscripts at the museum.

I’ll be back in two weeks time with a regular post!

Preamble: I’m taking a a break on regular posts from January through March, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t interesting things to read!

In lieu of regular content, I’m highlighting some of my favorite primary source materials from the last three years. Read a little, read a lot, skip through and look at the photos, it’s up to you! These are all online, so you don’t even have to venture outside into the cold.

Regular posts will resume in April.

Back in the 1960s, the “new thing” in history was to take a tape recorder into the field and ask people about their lives. As the practice of “history” traditionally dealt only with written works, this “oral history” was a bit of a change. Historians increasingly acknowledged stories that weren’t written down: a wealthy business owner produces more written records than an illiterate worker, and oral history became a way to document the experiences of that worker. The “ordinary” became historically important.

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