Who They Really Were: A Journey

I never imagined I would make a serious attempt at writing historical fiction. When I was in early high school, I started a manuscript of a story set in the 1840s but that's because I was working at a living history museum and thought I knew everything. I think I still have it in a bright purple envelope, but I refuse to go looking. Reading it, I'm sure, would we incredibly cringe-worthy.

*shudder*

You see, despite the fact that I have a real love for history, and even minored in history in college, I'm really not much a historian. I get bored too easily by non-fiction to read much of it. It often seems like a lot of dry detail packaged with a nice cover. So I figured I would never write historical fiction because I would never know enough about any given period to write about it well. And when I started working on The Sayen Falls Series in 2014, I made a solemn commitment to myself that I would not write any story if I couldn't tell it well, tell it truthfully, tell it with the honor it deserves. That's why I made certain creative choices with my characters and not others.

But there's one story I've always wanted to tell. A true story. The story of two people I love very much and who loved me very much. My grandparents--Milford and Betty Buterbaugh. I mean, I've thought about this since I was probably seventeen years old. That's half my life at this moment in time. I was just never sure how to go about it. Screenplay? Novel? I don't write historical fiction. Guess this won't work.

Then last year it hit me to construct a story that's told largely through the paperwork of a life, the mementos and souvenirs, the scrapbooks and photo albums, the stuff and clutter. So I decided this was my vehicle. This is how I would finally be able to tell their story. And then I was hit with a new unexpected problem. 

I didn't really know them.

We were very close. They absolutely doted on me and I couldn't have adored them more. The thing

is--I knew them as my grandparents. Kind, generous, old people who told interesting stories about days gone by....but they weren't like the young people in the photos, the young woman who scribbled over the faces of his ex-girlfriends in the yearbook, the young couple who eloped and had to hide it. I've always known that they eloped. BOTH sets of my grandparents did, in fact. (And my dad's parents have an incredible story as well that I know even less about and will perhaps be another quest someday). But since I've always known it, it didn't really seem that surprising. Until I stopped and thought about it, and tried to figure out how my "never do a wrong thing" grandmother ran away to marry my grandfather. That made me scratch my head. That made me realize: my grandparents were real people. They were more than my grandparents. They were young once and in love. They took risks. They were newlyweds and first-time parents and struggled to make ends meet. They had a whole story and it must be fascinating. 

Yet, when I sat down to piece together the narrative there were huge cavernous gaps. A major reason for this is that by the time I was born in 1984, Grammy was 63 and PapPap was 71. I didn't really have grown-up question to ask them until she was in her late 80s and he was in his 90s. By then, my grandmother's memory had started to fade. Plus, I still didn't really know the right questions to ask. "What was life like during the depression?" is a stupidly open-ended question that always yielded vague answers. 

Thankfully, some of the gaps can be filled in partly by my mom (who had the smarts to ask them detailed questions AND write down answers), or my aunt and uncle. But some things...no one knows. My grandparents were deeply private people and had no problem telling us "that's none of your business" if we asked something a little too intimate. This is not my default setting--I'm an open book type--so I'm especially perplexed by this. So, even if I had asked some of the questions then that I have now, I might not have gotten answers. Although, maybe I'd be pushy enough now to really ask because I desperately would like to know what kinds of things they fought about when they were first married, was she scared the first time she was pregnant, how did she know mom things without the internet? 

Anyway...I digress a bit. As usual. 

Now, faced with this mystery, I feel challenged to discover them for who they really were. I want to know who the young Milford and Betty were. How did that sweet 18 year old fall in love and run away with the quiet 26 year old who drove his car too fast? So I'm researching. I have a stack of non-fiction books on my side table that's very high. I'm combing through the precious few documents I have that they wrote and saved, and I'm hoping to get more from those who have them so I can piece together the story.

Which brings me back to writing historical fiction. Yes, I do intend to make a book out of this. BUT for several reasons it will be fiction. The most important reason is that because my grandparents were private, I think it would be disrespectful to them to not fictionalize it in some ways, change their names, etc. And the second important reason is, I simply cannot know the whole and complete and true story. It's impossible. So I have to take some creative license, make educated guesses, and fill it in as I go. (Hence the mile high stack of books). Milford and Betty are the inspiration, but truly at this point in time, only God knows what's going to come of this. I'm just setting out to discover not only their story, but the story God wants me to tell. Basically, all I have so far are names and a very sketchy outline. (Van and Ivy, if you're wondering. Aren't those great names??)

I decided the other day--whilst sitting in my closet staring at my great-great-aunt and uncle's wedding registry from 1913--that I should chronicle this in my blog. Most posts will not be this long, I just wanted to lay out the back story before I jump in. The fact is every question leads to another one and another one. I've been rapid fire texting my mom and googling things and making lists out the wazoo to even make the semblance of a narrative right now. And I think this journey is in some ways just as interesting as anything I will write coming out of it.

It's not that I'm so interesting or that I think anyone on this planet (other than my mom) will be interested in me figuring out minutiae like how long my great-great grandparents were married before my great-great aunt and uncle got married (why is that interesting even to me? Because they were two sisters that married two brothers but there seems to be a big gap between the two weddings....). It's that I think there are lots of people out there like me who one day realized that those who went before us were real people and we want to know what they were really like. And by sharing my own journey to know my grandparents, maybe other people will be inspired to dig in and see what they can find too. There are things we can yet learn from those who came before us.

The Bible tells us that human life is fleeting. We're all here today and gone tomorrow. But we leave traces of ourselves behind and it tells a story. And those stories matter.