Since my sister’s visit last month, I have begun a new project. Ellen has studied our family history and has traced our family back to 1042 on our father’s side, and 1729 on our mother’s side. Before the particulars of our mom’s life are lost to history, like so many of the names and birth-death dates and snippets of their life stories fade, and now that the grieving period for mom has passed into a dull ache, I’m remembering our mom, Bessie Irene Marriott Whitaker Ferris with her story, our memories, letters, recipes, and her own writings.
As her oldest daughter, I am in a unique position to record and perhaps embellish her story. Since my retirement from teaching in 2012, I have written twenty-three books, one of which was a memoir, “Bless You Bouquets, A Memoir,” so that is a good place to start. My two sisters and I have memories we’d like to include in “Loving Bessie,” the title I’m thinking about using. And with Ellen, we’ve just gone through a loaded archives box full of treasures and trivia, and I’ve discovered her manuscripts and keepsakes hidden from view since her death in 1997. I’ve spent recent days reliving moments which have faded around the edges, and have recognized once again what an amazing mom we had. It will be my joy to introduce her to family and readers who do not know her as we, her children knew her, and we will make her story more than her name, dates, and locations on a spreadsheet. We would like to know more of the family’s stories. We have snippets and some historic documents about some of them. Before our mom’s story slips into history, we’d like to tell it through her eyes and ours.
It seems to me that this fits my theme for the year, Sharing the Plenty in 2020. I would like to share the stories and accomplishments of our mom, Bess Whitaker Ferris, and so the story begins.
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