“I must get home,” an Alzheimer’s patient insisted when I visited Mother at the nursing home.  “The children are coming home from school.”
She did this every afternoon, I learned.  About the time her children, during their school years, would have come home from school, she became restless, walking the hallway and insisting she must get home before the children did.  Some instinct made her aware that it was afternoon.  Her mind took her back to that era when her children were young.  (They now are adults with children of their own and are responsible for her care.)
Mother’s School Memories 
           My mom never insisted, while at …read more

When someone contacted me for information about my ancestors (I’m a genealogy buff), it brought back memories of searching for these people of long ago with my mom as she began her Alzheimer’s journey.  She was in the early stages, but began to tell more and more stories about her childhood and young adult years.
She liked to visit places connected to these days and tell me stories about the times and the people.  Sometimes it wasn’t convenient to make these forays, but I realized, as I provided information today to another researcher, that I had fond memories of taking these jaunts along …read more

Today I was catelogued the Christmas letters I’d written over the years to send to family and friends.  I enjoy receiving them and sending them.  So I’ve kept mine and other family members’ letters and cards.
At a family history writing workshop, a student remarked that she found putting copies of the Christmas letters into scrapbooks was a great way to begin compiling family memories. 
“What a great idea!” I thought. 
So I began putting copies of my letters into a folder, instead of having them saved here and there.  This morning, I began putting them into acid free sleeves in a three …read more