Mother/Daughter Book Club via Google Hangout

We've always had a very close family, but it's a challenge to stay that way when all three daughters live so far away. They are all very busy mamas too. We are SO grateful for email, skype, phones, and old-fashioned snail mail that keeps us connected. Michelle came up with another great idea that we just started last month. We meet once a month on Google Hangout and have a bookclub. We all read the same book and then discuss it together. We had our first meeting on March 27th. It just so happened that Joan was here visiting, so she joined our discussion. We decided to start with reading the histories my Dad wrote. We also read the recently discovered hand-written history of my grandmother, Libby Fox Peterson- my mother's mother, which my sister Joan transcribed and sent to all of us.

My Dad's histories are a compilation of several histories that he wrote. Actually, he was a Dr. and used to voice recording. So he spoke his histories into an old-fashioned cassette tape recorder and then, either Patty or I transcribed them. He did his own history, his parents, and all four of his grandparents over a period of a few years. It bothered my mother that she didn't write her life history. When she was very ill with cancer, she tried to write, but just didn't have the strength. My Dad asked if he could help. So, he interviewed her, writing notes. He promised her he would complete her history for her. My sister Patty wrote: "For the first year after her death, Dad could not bring himself to work on her history. It was simply too painful to recall such tender memories. Into the second year after her death he began the process of making notes and recording his memories mixed with the notes he took when he interviewed her." He finished the first draft of that history early in the summer of 2003. Patty transcribed it that summer and gave it to Dad to review. He made some corrections and changes and in early September, 2003, she finished the final draft of that history. He said, "I feel so relieve to have this history finally finished. I can now read novels and other books I have set aside until I finished Dorothy's history." He died on October 19 of that year. When he finished that history, I think he felt his life's work was done.

A few months after he passed away, my sisters and I got together and compiled this book containing all of his histories. We added pictures and made copies for ourselves and all of our children.

It was so fun to discuss the details of the lives of my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents with my daughters and sister. It was fun to hear their perspective and to see what to me was common knowledge be so new and interesting to them. The book also contains the Life Sketches of my parents, given at their funerals: Mom's by my brother John and Dad's by Tom Morris. They are both so well-written and moving. It was a joy to read them again.

I am grateful for the miracle of technology (and for Brian who understands how to USE that technology and get us set up!) that allows us to hold a book club that spans the United States and brings us together in one more way.