June 2017
By Jackie Bussert
Writing your family story – you see it everywhere. Several television programs feature the ancestor stories of celebrities. Google it and there are 173 million results and how-tos.
Churches have been doing it for elderly members for a while, too. Carol Zimmer and her late husband, Al, had for years featured a monthly highlight on one of their congregation’s seniors, at St. Paul, Melrose Park. Aware of what the Zimmers and other churches had done, Patricia Rose says she jumped at an idea for the 125th anniversary of her home congregation, St. John’s Lutheran Church in Lombard, Illinois.
She wanted to tell the faith stories of elderly members, recounting especially the experiences of life that shaped their trust and reliance on God. What she learned is that these stories also snap a picture of Chicago’s history – former ways of working and living that are gone, congregations and Lutheran schools that once thrived and are no more.
Rose is professor of geography and also teaches earth science at Concordia University Chicago. Telling such stories is in a sense natural for her: she and colleague Bill Kammrath hosted trips for 10 years to various geographic and historic sites of Chicagoland to recount the stories of what came before.
For this project, she started with the oldest members who were willing (St. John’s currently has 24 members over 90) and has been working her way down in age. “I’m down to women age 90 and men age 85,” she said, adding “each takes longer than I thought.”
Rose says she spends about a month per short vignette, including making a personal visit, writing the story in first person and then letting the storyteller review it, having someone edit it, and finally formatting a booklet. Two short booklets (8 people at a time) have been printed and made available at church. A third volume is underway. She’s been at it for over a year and hopes to keep it going until St. John’s May 2018 anniversary.
“It’s not always easy,” she adds. “It’s easy to talk about going to church, not as easy to get at faith issues.”
She’s heard memories of Chicago’s 1933 World’s Fair and of many Chicago factories and the famed stockyards that are long gone. She’s heard of narrowly being spared disasters that rocked the news, like the SS Eastland that capsized at dockside in Chicago in 1915, killing 844. She’s talked to a former soldier in WWII’s German army.
“To me, their stories are inspirational,” Rose said. “They have lived long enough to have experienced numerous family tragedies. But none are wallowing in it. Over and over they say they see how God got them through.”
Her own inspiration to do this came partly from her father. He’s 95 and never was a writer,” she said. “When he turned 90 he decided to write a book during the winter. Once he started he couldn’t stop.” Every winter since he’s continued recounting his memories.
Another piece of what motivated her came when delivering flowers and listing to the memories of one of St. John’s shut-ins. “She told me she couldn’t write, but I knew I could and that got me going like my dad” Rose added.
If you’d like to know more about the project, please email Patricia Rose.