PEOPLE: The Storytellers

The Last Great Storyteller? (Garrison Keillor)

The fine art of storytelling is fast becoming a lost art; anyone who has ever tried to teach high schoolers the merits of Hawthorne's short stories or the humor of Huck Finn's adventures knows that delayed gratification often means no gratification at all. Stories are still told, but they are also so easily forgotten. Today's story becomes tomorrow's old news, and the world moves on. It is up to us, then - the storytellers - to keep the stories of our lives and experiences, in all of their pathos and hysterical laughter, alive for the future generations.

I am the product of generations of storytellers.

Our family is considered by many to be a bit eccentric, and perhaps even a bit odd, but the truth is, things "just happen" to most of us.

And it is contagious.

My mother and I both have the gift of getting random strangers (at the grocery store, bank restaurant, etc.) to open up and tell us their entire life stories. We have met many people and heard many stories throughout the years from the people we have met - some friends, some ships that pass in the night - and it is this "gift" that makes us unique as a family, I think.We all appreciate the value of a good story, whether it be our own, or that of a stranger. Moreover, we love the art of telling a good story.

Of Danish and Scottish stock, the family members from both sides of my family relish gatherings as a chance to tell the latest happenings in our lives, discuss the happenings of other people's lives, or occasionally, discuss the doings of long-dead relatives, some of whom were not exactly, shall we say, "mainstream" in their time. My father's side of the family (Scottish) relishes stories of the absurd, especially when it involves the more colorful characters in the family. Weird things just tend to "happen" to them (apparently, I am the representative of that honor from this generation).

• There is the story of a perfectly healthy 18 year old girl (great great aunt?), who suddenly dropped dead on the street...on the day she was picking up her mourning dress from the dressmaker to attend her sister's funeral (who died from childbirth complications).

• There is the story of my great-great grandfather, who married one girl (the sister who died from childbirth), then married her cousin shortly after she died - both cousins had the same name, causing rather vocal arguments at family gatherings about how we are all related. This man also left us a detailed journal of his "Three Years in the Phillipines," documenting and telling yarns about his experiences in the Spanish American War. He died of the family curse (colon cancer) at age 39, but what a life he must have lived! 

• There is the story of a whole generation who never got married during their childbearing years, save one - it is from this woman that I am descended. 

• There is the story, forever untold and unknown, of a breach in the family, which caused one branch of the family tree to leave the expansive family homestead (now Toro Regional Park) and settle further North in Watsonville/Eureka Canyon.

My mother's side of the family (Danish, with a dash of Scotch), on the other hand, likes storytelling for the sake of storytelling; we relish the drama of daily life. I have yet to sit down to a family dinner where even the adventures and scrapes of the family cats do not feature in the dialogue. Sometimes, it is just small talk, but other times, interesting stories surface from the family history, like the time Grandma and Grandpa Chipps found out that they were pregnant - well into their forties ("I didn't know whether to shoot myself or my husband, " my grandmother always commented). My mother likes to tell stories of her childhood growing up on a ranch in Nebraska, then moving as a teenager to semi-rural Santa Clara Valley; I myself can actually remember the apple and cherry orchards that used to clutter the landscape of San Jose well into the 80s.

My grandmother, who lived a long and fruitful life, was a woman of few words, but when she spoke, people listened. When I asked her one day about why she married Grandpa (who could be painfully shy), she paused, thought a moment, then replied, as if she was a bit surprised, "Well...he just kept comin 'round....and I sorta got used to 'em. "

As she receded further and further into senile dementia, bits and pieces of stories from the past surfaced in Grandma's ramblings and conversations with "people who weren't there." She often mistook me for her sister Seena, who she sometimes muttered to under her breath. I discerned over time that she and Seena had maintained a very strong love-hate relationship, and I also got the impression that sometimes Seena could be a bit rebellious against convention and her sisters' approval...in that order. 


Our family storytelling quirk, as it turned out, got the last laugh of Grandma's full and rich life.

In the final week of her life, Grandma had slipped into what appeared to be a coma and was quietly sleeping, the oxygen machine clicking rhythmically to her breathing. My cousin and I stood vigil next to her, and softly chatted to each other. We talked of many things, but soon the subject of my adventures in Europe surfaced. I told the story of a young man who had traveled with our party though Venice, Florence, and Rome, and nearly driven us crazy all the way through Italy. I told my cousin about how all he wanted and talked about was a Versace shirt from Florence. He had combed every upscale store he could find, and at last had found the ideal shirt. It was a white dress shirt. The young man had then proceeded to preen and pose as if he were a Calvin Klein model in his new shirt. To me, it was just a white shirt. Our group had then hoofed it to a small cafe to recharge. Young Calvin Klein lifted his cafe to his lips..."and proceeded to tip the contents of his coffee cup down the front of his new shirt..."


A sudden hissing sound interrupted out own stifled snorts of laughter. We looked over in astonishment towards our grandmother, and saw that she was there, in Florence, with us, silently laughing. She could not speak, but lay there beaming at us with her eyes and softly chuckling. The night nurse heard us and came into the room; she seemed genuinely surprised to see Grandma awake and responsive. The nurse quickly checked the chart. Then, she  brought in a spoon and a bottle of Ensure, which she proceeded to feed to Grandma. Grandma obediently opened her mouth like a child, her blue eyes twinkling. Then, she lay back down, and the nurse tucked her charge in for the night. We left soon afterward, at about 2:00 in the morning.

Grandma died three days later without ever having regained consciousness.


By telling this story of storytellers, I have perhaps bored some readers, but hopefully caused others to think about their own history. As a teacher, I strongly urge young people in my classes to find out all they can about their family history so that they have something to hold onto when times are difficult. 

"We are not makers of history. We are made by history." Martin Luther King, Jr.