A Legacy of Words

By Jim Benning
Orange County Register

Marion Linnert has never played forward for the Chicago Bulls or starred in blockbuster movies or any of the other glitzy stuff some people write books about, but she figures she has a story to tell just the same.

So several times each week, the 81-year-old former school administrator sits in her San Clemente den, puts pen to paper and weaves together the stories of her life.

She won’t make a dime off her book. In fact, it’ll cost her money to publish. But no matter. Linnert is among a growing number of ordinary, aging Americans who are painstakingly writing and publishing their life stories for a niche market: friends and family.

It’s hard to say just how many have decided it’s time to write their memoirs, but those involved say the trend is unmistakable. Memoir-writing classes are popping up more often in community colleges and recreation departments, and some entrepreneurs have started their own publishing companies to ride the wave of popularity.

While explanations for the phenomenon vary, many memoirists say they simply hope to pass along a bit of hard-won wisdom and tell their kids and grandkids how it was in the days before television and cars and computers changed the world.

Or, as Linnert put it in her memoir: “(My) goal is to preserve a part of our heritage before memories vanish and we can no longer join the past with the present … so that you might realize how you connect with those who have gone before and the legacy that is ours.”

LINKING PAST AND PRESENT

Many legacies wind up in the hands of Mary and Don Decker.

The Laguna Niguel couple, both retired teachers, have taught nearly two dozen courses on memoir writing in recent years and have edited and published nearly 50 memoirs.

“We used to do one book at a time,” Mary Decker says. “Now we do six or eight at a time.”

The books often are fascinating, she says, because their writers “have lived through almost the entire 20th century. No other generation in history has experienced so many changes.”

Through the Deckers, Beatrice Whittlesey published her memoir about how she overcame an infection in her leg to travel the world, climb mountains and raft down exotic rivers.

Whittlesey desribes a childhood experience in a lightning storm near Yosemite Valley that shaped her outlook on life.

She writes about the beginning of the storm:

“If my mother had said, `Come put your head on my lap and don’t be afraid,’ I probably would have feared the storms, but instead of that, she went to the window, threw it open, and said, `Come children, see how beautiful.’

“I have never been afraid since.”

Dana Point real estate agent Martha Ray published her memoir about life in the coastal town and how she used psychic powers to match a client to a house.

Ray writes about how she studied philosophy and astrology, and about how she subtly tried to learn a client’s birth month.

“Then I’d know if they’d like a house on the top of a hill or down in a valley or if they had to be on the water,” she writes. “If they were earth people, I’d try to find a place with shrubs, trees and gardens.”

On the last page of her memoir, looking back over her life, Ray concludes:

“I’ve decided I’ve had a fun and exciting existence in my life. It’s been one great minute after another. I can’t even say day after day or hour after hour. My whole life can change in five minutes.”

The Deckers, who taught college English and history before starting their second career, say the memoirs are important because they help young readers connect with their families.

“A lot of young people seem to be rootless, floating around,” Don Decker says. “The world is confusing. (A memoir) gives you some personal perspective because it’s written by (a relative).”

SHAPING STORIES

Bob Joyce also specializes in personal perspective.

Joyce, 60, helped his mother write her memoir four years ago. When they finished, he started his own memoir editing and publishing company, Hawthorne House, in his Santa Ana condominium.

Since then, Joyce has helped nearly 40 people shape their memoirs.

Sometimes writers come to him with their manuscripts finished, and Joyce simply publishes the stories. More often, he goes several steps further.

For several thousand dollars, Joyce interviews a client, transcribes and edits their stories on his IBM computer and designs and publishes their books.

Through Joyce, Florence Paul of Tustin published her book, “He Never Pulled the Trigger,” about her husband, New York City police officer Les Paul.

In it, she describes Paul as a ruggedly handsome policeman “who left the station house wondering what was cooking in that spicy mulligan stew _ his beat.”

Paul, who later retired from the force, died nearly four years ago.

Not all the memoirs are great works of art, Joyce says, but for the first-time authors and their families, the books are often priceless.

“These folks are sometimes in tears when they get their books,” he says, holding a copy of one volume. “They rub their fingers over the spine. They look at their name and they think, they did it. They wrote a book.”

Joyce enjoys helping people record their personal stories.

“I feel very honored. If I wasn’t there to help them, maybe they wouldn’t have written their story.”

LIFE LESSONS

Linnert, who frequently works on her memoir in her San Clemente home, plans to pass her stories on to nearly a dozen nieces and nephews.

She often retires to her den and listens to the gentle rumble of waves crashing along the nearby shore as she looks to her past and writes her stories. In her stories, Linnert emphasizes the importance of overcoming adversity.

Linnert suffered from a debilitating bone infection at age 11 that kept her bedridden for two years and forever changed her life. Over the past 70 years, she has undergone surgery nearly 30 times.

Linnert describes some of her pain:

“Whenever the infection appeared _ and this was before sulpha and penicillin _ the pain took command. I had no pain pills other than aspirin, so I learned to endure pain at a very early age. When the pain was too bad at night, I would cry out plaintively, `Mother. Mother.’ My sister, who was in an adjoining bedroom, said for years my calling for mother haunted her.”

She also describes some of her joys. Linnert remembers sitting at the long counter in Watson’s Drug Store in Orange as a child, “debating which flavor I wanted put in my 5-cent fountain `Coke’ … lemon, cherry, chocolate …”

Writing about her life has been therapeutic, she says, and at times surprising.

“It’s amazing how much you remember,” she says. “Things come out of the past.”

CHANGING TIMES

The catalyst for the memoir trend is tough to pinpoint.

Some credit the popularity of personal computers and printers, which make it easy for novice writers and publishers to turn out their work for relatively little cost.

Others, including Claremont McKenna College Professor Jay Martin, emphasize social and economic changes they believe contributed to the trend.

When times are tough and money is scarce, people emphasize communities and the need for cooperation, he says. But when neighbors live comfortably, as many do now, relationships are based on emotions, not economics, and many highlight their own individual experiences.

One way to do that is through memoir writing.

Also, Martin says, the world is changing rapidly these days, and it’s difficult to predict the future. In times of transition, people often look toward the past.

By writing about their personal histories, some memoirists say they hope to help others prepare for an uncertain future.

Through their stories, many will be remembered long after their own lives reach their final chapters.

For that reason, Marybeth Chapman, 49, of Laguna Beach, is glad she encouraged her mother to write her memoir.

Her mother, Marybeth Weber, earned her pilot’s license at 22, Chapman says, and later traveled the world with her first husband, who was a secretary for traveler and collector Robert Ripley, founder of the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! museums.

When Weber died last year at 84, Chapman placed a copy of her memoir, “How I Spent the Twentieth Century,” in her mother’s casket.

Weber was proud of the book, and Chapman is delighted to have the story to pass on.

The family ordered hundreds of copies of the book, she says, enough for generations to come.

Chapman looks forward to passing on her mother’s words. Among them:

“It’s not the things that you do in life that you regret, it’s the things that you don’t do.”

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WANT TO WRITE YOUR MEMOIRS?

Here are tips on starting your life story from Mary and Don Decker, who have edited and published nearly 50 memoirs.

To get started, write about any experience in your life. Describe your first house or your first memory of your mother.

To help jog your memory, look at old photographs, letters, postcards and scrapbooks.

Continue writing regularly, every day if possible.

Keep pads of paper beside your bed or next to your favorite chair to jot down memories.

Don’t worry about spelling or grammar at first. Instead, try to maintain a smooth flow as memories come to mind.

Consider organizing your stories chronologically, or by topic, or both.

After you have completed a first draft, invite a friend to read it for clarity. Does the reader have questions? What more could be added?