Memory Monday: My Grandmother and Videotaping

Grandma Koehn

MY GRANDMOTHER AND VIDEOTAPING

Several years ago, my grandmother was at our house for supper. With her getting older, we wanted to capture some of her memories to pass down to our children.

We wanted it to be a casual time, not an interview situation.  Well, we set the camcorder up at the side of the dining table, focused on her. Now you have to understand that my grandmother could barely see; she literally could only see a couple of inches in front of her face.  As we ate supper that night, we got her to talking about the “old days,” about when she grew up and the early years of her marriage, about the different work that she had done, and the children she had raised, about the dust bowl days and the depression years. 

It was all very interesting, and after supper, when we told her what we had done, my grandmother insisted on seeing herself on tape.  So we put it in the VCR player, put her chair right next to the TV, and watched her as she sat about two or three inches from the screen.

She had a lot of fun seeing herself, and we have had a lot of enjoyment, both from watching her watch herself and looking at the tapes ourselves through the years.

Try and preserve the memories of your family. They are priceless and will bring the past alive for future generations.