Nostalgia

According to Emory University researchers, “children who know stories about relatives who came before them show higher levels of emotional well-being.” In other words, kids who know more about their family history…
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I am sure you recall hearing kids groaning ‘oh, not that story again.’ It might have been in a private setting or embarrassingly public, but the sagging shoulders and bored faces are the same. You might even have been one of those offspring once. Read More

All through my life I have listened to the radio and there are some iconic songs that immediately take me back in time. Read More

Writing your memoir is a profound gift to yourself and to those with whom you’ve shared a walk down difficult paths. Read More

I watched my in-laws’ tidy bedroom closets fill with suitcases and clothes after each of their parents died. Add to this the odd table, chairs, hutches, and antique Victrola…
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In these new and – as everyone says – ‘unprecedented’ times, we are all stuck indoors, with a lot of time on our hands. I don’t know about you, but I am watching a lot more television than usual…
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I was a clever gatherer of things. Mostly paper. In neat piles. Inside of drawers. Resting innocuously on shelves. Tucked into boxes that lurked in the shadowy recesses of my garage…

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When winter rolls around, it usually triggers a wistful feeling, a sense of completion and a sense of loss. Read More

One year ago, a historian from a museum in Lueneburg, Germany, contacted me. “Are you the great granddaughter of Robert Heinemann?” she asked.

They were looking for descendants of Robert’s father, my great, great grandfather, Marcus Heinemann, who had been a leading Jewish citizen in Lueneburg many years before Hitler. Read More

On February 19, 1968, a tall man with a smile as broad as his shoulders were narrow stepped through a stage door at Pittsburgh’s WQED TV…
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