PERSONAL HISTORY TREND SPREADS NATIONWIDE

Memoir-makers to gather in Tampa in November

"NBC Nightly News" recently reported on a trend the Association of Personal Historians, Inc., has been spearheading for years-the growing interest in capturing people's life stories as legacy for their families, communities, and history. Featured in that news story was Kitty Axelson-Berry, who founded the APH in 1994 with fewer than a dozen members.

Now with more than 200 members in North American and abroad, the APH will hold its seventh annual conference-Navigating the Waters: Charting A Professional Course To Treasured Memories, November 8-11, in Tampa, Florida. Highlighting the conference, which is open to non-members, will be two nationally known keynote speakers-Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best-selling author Rick Bragg; and Richard Stone, possibly the nation's leading proponent of chronicling family history and author of The Healing Power of Story and Stories: The Family Legacy.

Rick Bragg, who's memoir All Over but the Shoutin' spent weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, will talk about his latest book, Ava's Man. Due out in August from Knopf Publishing, it is a lushly written chronicle of the lives of his grandparents, Charlie and Ava Bundrum, drawn from in-depth interviews with his aging aunts, uncles, cousins, and family friends-a benchmark example of a service APH members provide their clients.

Richard Stone, founder of the StoryWork Institute and The Cerus Company, is now applying the ancient art of storytelling to the creation of cutting-edge approaches in the delivery of financial services. Through his successful seminars, financial advisors are discovering how life stores are the key to developing with clients a profound relationship that transcends money and property, and rewards families with priceless legacies. Stone is a national leader in the development and application of training programs for counselors, social workers, nurses, chaplains, hospice professionals and healthcare volunteers, training them in ways to help facilitate the life-review process for patients and their families.

The conference also offers an outstanding slate of informative and educational workshops, from introductory topics for those just beginning to capture life history, to programs for advanced personal historians. Workshops address a variety of life history formats, including writing and publishing, video, photo archiving, CD-ROM and DVD.

Also, a collaboration between the APH and Met Life Insurance will be unveiled. Met Life provided a grant this year to the International Institute of Reminiscence and Life Review to create an educational video on elders recording life stories in a myriad of formats, and members of the APH will be promoting the program nation-wide.

The conference concludes on November 11, the traditional date of Veteran's Day. In recognition of those who served in the nation's military, the APH will host a public program, As Time Goes By. A panel of representatives who have written or recorded their life stories will present readings from their works and discuss what they and their families gained from the process. Included on the panel will be a veteran of World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf War, as well a couple who escaped the holocaust. Proceeds from the program will benefit the World War II Memorial and the Florida Holocaust Museum.

For more information or to receive a complete program for the APH conference, please contact Paula Stahel by writing to APHConf2001@aol.com or call 813/251-8187.

Personal historians from around the world will be attending the gathering in Tampa. To locate APH members in your region for interview, please refer to the Association's on-line membership directory at: www.personalhistorians.org/

The "NBC Nightly News" segment of July 6, 2001, titled "A New Way to Capture Family Memories," can be viewed at:

msnbc.com
(requires Microsoft Media Player)

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