Sixtysomething Podcast Episode 3 - How to Create a Legacy

Sixtysomething Podcast - Episode 3 - Legacy 


Grace: [00:00:00] Welcome back to 60 something. It's grace. And today I thought we'd talk about. Legacy. 


Grace: This is one of my favorite subjects. And I think the reason why is, and I quote. You live as long as you are remembered. That's a Russian proverb. I think it holds true for us at our age and everyone really. I remember my parents and my grandparents, so course. Even my great-grandparents. 


Grace: But I wish I had more full memories of them and knowledge about what they were like when they were young. I so wish I would've asked more questions or done any of the things that I'm going to talk about today while they were still alive. That. Fervent wish has led me. To having this passion for leaving a legacy of my own, as well as. Preserving there's [00:01:00] as best I can. Today, I want to tell you about my legacy path. 


Grace: My legacy projects. Along with my process. But then we will talk about your legacy. And how you may want to approach building one. If you decide to, so please bear with me. It all began 20 years ago when my dad died unexpectedly at age 68. Obviously, it was very difficult for our entire family. My mother in particular, my two brothers and be. And the grandchildren too. We all very much struggled during that time. 


Grace: We were in shock . Within a few years. My grandmother, my dad's mother died. He was an only child. My grandfather had been. Gone for many years. My brother's managed the sale of her home. And the distribution of her belongings, they asked me. What I would like from her [00:02:00] possessions. She had a large portrait of my dad that hung over her piano. 


Grace: She also had boxes of photographs. Those two things are what I requested. The portrait and the boxes. I made a promise to my brothers at that time at some point. I would make sure. That they had copies of all of those photos. 'cause you know how it goes. The people who are closest in proximity when someone dies. Are the ones who get the photographs. Nobody else ever sees them again. For the most part and to be fair, it used to be more difficult to make duplicates of photos. Then as it is now. The portrait and several boxes of photos were sent to me. A little while after receiving them. I had this notion to create a coffee table style book. Honoring my dad. And present it to my mother and my brothers on [00:03:00] my dad's birthday that year. 


Grace: I was probably inspired by my grandmother's photographs because she always had every new gadget that came out. 


Grace: So she had a nice camera. Even when my dad was young and took. Some really incredible shots of him. He was an athlete and they all rode horses. So there was a lot to work with. Anyway, I put together this book. It was a hard cover coffee table style book with a dust jacket. Very nice. It turned out beautifully. And you'll find links to all the services. I talk about in the show notes on my webpage and in the Facebook group. 


Grace: And I'll also post a few pages of the book. If you'd like to look at it . My mom and my brothers were very touched and excited about the book. It was a wonderful moment when I gave it to them. And it's, it's quite. 


Grace: Quite a meaningful keepsake for all of us. But wait. There's more. [00:04:00] My eldest son, I have five kids. So my eldest son, who was arguably closest to my dad. Asked if he could have one of the books I gave him mine intending on ordering more. By the time. This book was created and he had a copy in his house. 


Grace: My son and his wife, my daughter-in-law Leann. Had two little girls. Approximately ages two and four at this time. These children had never known my dad. They were born after he died. One day. They spotted this book about my dad and given to my son and they want to look at it. So according to Leanne, she went through the entire book with them. And she said to me, It was like now. They know grandpa Don. 


Grace: Wow. I was floored by that. You can imagine how much it meant to me. And the more I thought about that, [00:05:00] the more my mind started, uh, clickety clack with ideas. About how. I could build a legacy for my ancestors. Those whose photos and information though, somewhat limited I had. And also for myself, It was a pivotal moment for me. 


Grace: It, it brings to mind one of my favorite quotes of all time. Which happens to be from a movie and it goes like this. There are moments which mark your life. Moments when you realize nothing will ever be the same. And time is divided into two parts. Before this. And after this. Now. That was said by detective Roy Hobbs plays played by Denzel Washington in the movie fallen. About learning the truth about a demon , but it's still a really great quote. And it totally applies here. Because though this may not seem like a life altering incident. 


Grace: It [00:06:00] was. Because this became my purpose. It had been a while. Since I felt. A purpose. Probably since my mom died. After this experience of learning that my little grand girls to who my dad. I just would have been a picture on the wall to think that they know. Felt like they. Knew him. 


Grace: That just meant. The world to me, it still does. It took my mind to places where it had never gone before. That moment. It was exactly like that quote. Everything now is after that. That realization. That daunting. Have a purpose. So I became obsessed thinking about legacy and what I wished I'd done with my parents and my grandparents, what questions I should have asked. Videos I should have made. And most important because it wasn't too late. How I could create a truly meaningful legacy [00:07:00] of my own. So that my children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, all of my descendants. Could experience me and know me. If they want to. For my second legacy project, I decided to create a cookbook. I wanted to memorialize and share all of my mom's recipes. That our family loved and treasured recipes for food that was at the center of so many of our family traditions. Using a template. 


Grace: I created that. I also included some of my grandmother's recipes. To I use photos throughout the book. And also told stories about my mothers and my grandmothers and about the occasions on which this food was served. I shared it in PDF form with my family for Christmas. I'd love to share part of it with you. 


Grace: If you'd like to take a look at it, just. Check the link in the show notes or on my webpage. So [00:08:00] far, this is my favorite. Legacy project. It's the one I'm most proud of. I didn't have a hard copy printed yet for reasons. I'll explain later. Next. And when I say next, I mean, a year or more later. I decided to tackle those boxes of grandma's photos as well. As my mom's photos, because she had died by this time. 


Grace: And she had a good collection of photos too. But it was daunting. They have were probably a total of eight to 10 boxes of photos, at least. And there were photo albums too. It took me a while just to get my mind around it. Finally I decided the first thing I should do was sort them. I sorted them by which side of the family, maternal or paternal first, and then by person. Only about half of the photos had writing on the back. That told me who was in the photo. 


Grace: Fortunately, I did just [00:09:00] know who a lot of them were, so I was able to identify and sort most of them. It was a progression. And one of the things that got me. Totally stuck was the prospect of scanning and cropping. So many photos. It turned out there were about 3000. It's a good thing. I didn't realize that in the beginning. 


Grace: I'm not sure I ever would have done it at all. 


Grace: Then I remembered a software. I discovered in use for a project for a friend when her husband died. She wanted a slide show set to music for the family. And she had a bunch of photos to be included. I'd read about scanning apps. And I found this app called Photomyne. And I found out that scans groups of photos, and then not only crops the photo, but also automatically sharpens each one of them. It even colorized his. 


Grace: This would not work for a [00:10:00] project like a coffee table book because the photos for print publication. Must be high resolution. And must be scanned with a scanner. But with this collection of photos I just wanted to preserve them so It just didn't require that I could always go back and re-scan. Anything I needed for high quality photos for a book project or something like that. If necessary. So I worked at scanning these photos in groups with the app. Over about four months. And every day or two, I'd spend an hour or more scanning with the app, which works a lot, like taking a picture of the group of photos. I did the oldest first. It took a little longer than it should have to do this, the whole scanning project, because I often got caught up and looking at the photos of my parents and grandparents and great grandparents. And then I'd have to go and show Aaron. , my husband, they were really quite incredible. 


Grace: Some of these photos and, you know, I learned [00:11:00] some things just looking at these photos about. These wonderful people. My family. The software also made labeling and sorting the photos inside of the app. Very simple. And the amazing thing about this app is you can use it for free. It has a bit more functionality if you pay for it. 


Grace: I think it's like a monthly $10 fee. But you don't need to. I don't, I just use the free version. And there's also a second free app. This company makes for the purpose. Of sharing with others, they can look at the photo collection you've built. You built in the main app through this secondary. App for example. You go into the viewing app . 


Grace: And you'll see a gallery of all of the people in my family included in the collection. If you click into my collection of photos, let's say of my dad. You can see all of the photos I scanned of my dad. And the handy thing is you can [00:12:00] label. Each photo with more than one person. If there are a couple of people in the photo or, more than a couple. 


Grace: So if it was a photo of my dad and my mom you'd see that my dad's gallery, but you'd also see it in my mother's gallery. Because I'd label it that way. It may sound like that would be very laborious process, but it really wasn't. It was the one of less intense tasks in. This whole process. When I finished scanning and labeling. I want to share it all first with my daughter-in-law, who I mentioned before. She's the family member most interested in family history. And I suggested to her that she download that secondary app. So she could. Look at the full gallery. of family members that I had scanned. But she seemed reluctant to do that. 


Grace: And I realized many people don't just want to put some new app in their phone. So. I exported [00:13:00] all of the photos from the app. It wasn't difficult at all. And I organize them into folders on a Google drive. People are more comfortable with that. And then I shared a link. To those folders. Honestly, there wasn't much of a reaction, but I get it. 


Grace: It's a little overwhelming even to think about looking at thousands of photos, right. But six months later. My brother Scott got in touch with me because he'd been looking through it. And had some questions about some things that felt like when. But it's not important if no one cares about it right now, it's for the future. A few months ago, I did the next batch of photos of my brothers and me in our youth. I'll be organizing them and adding them to the family photo archive on that Google drive. Next I'll add the children and grandchildren, mine and my brother's kids and our grandkids. I also plan to scan letters and [00:14:00] documents that were my parents. 


Grace: And I even have some of my grandparents' letters. That may be of interest to people. At some point. I'll include them too . Another project I've started in the last year. Making audio recordings of my memories of my parents. Just using my iPhone. I record a chapter at a time. Reminiscing about. Different parts of their lives. I'll talk a little bit more about that later on in the podcast. Another project that I just started that I mentioned previously, I think in episode two is I'm writing a play. About life at home. With my parents and brothers. The project. I'm most passionate about. It's the simplest of all. 


Grace: But likely the most impactful. It's just to make five videos. Of yourself talking about. [00:15:00] well for me it's the five things I want to tell my children or my great grandchildren, my great, great, great grandchildren. Five of my most important memories. Such as when I met my husband or became a mother. Achieved a longed for goal. Or had a major realization about something. 


Grace: It doesn't really matter what it is. It's whatever is important to you. That you would want to communicate to someone. So that they could understand who you really were. Best thing about this one, is it just so easy and yet, so incredibly powerful to think that 50 years from now, or even more, some descendant. Could be watching those videos and walk away feeling like he or she knew me or knew us instead. Of just having seen a couple of photos of me or my name. Written in the family tree page of some album. 


Grace: Everybody has a smartphone [00:16:00] or know somebody who has one. Even if you don't have a lot of time on your hands right now, you can make five videos. They don't have to be long. I suggest five or 10 minutes. You just have to decide. What you want to talk about? Record the videos. Save them to a couple of safe places, make a written record of their existence. And. Then an essential piece of your legacy is complete. Uh, there are so many ways to leave a legacy. Through creative means like writing or music through financial gifts, bequeathing assets to your family members. And or charities you care about? You now have my examples of how I'm building my legacy. 


Grace: How about I review what I've covered and provide a little more, how to, for you to get inspiration about how you can get started with yours. Number one. I created. Picture [00:17:00] based book. You'll need good photos. You'll need a decent scanner. Remember you need high quality scans for print publications, or hire somebody to do the scans for you. 


Grace: You'll need to plan the book. I've shared a link to some pages of my book in the show notes, to give you one idea for a theme and a layout. The company I used to produce, the book is called blurb. It's an online service and they have examples of all kinds of books people have made on their website, as well as templates and instructional videos. I used Adobe InDesign to do my design, but you don't need that. 


Grace: You could do it in word or blurb. Even has a free layout software and it's great. Number two. Project was my cookbook. Again, I used a template. That I bought and Adobe and design, but you could use Microsoft word, Google docs or Canva. Google docs and canvas are [00:18:00] free and they have free templates for cookbooks . You can also buy templates on sites like Etsy. There are also cookbook creation services that will do the whole thing for you. Google search any one of these things to find them. I haven't had hard copies. Yet. Made of my cookbook, partially because. I made all the pages with a red background. Keep that in mind when you're making yours. But I will have it printed eventually. Now the photos project. Okay. 


Grace: I use an iPhone app called Photomyne that I mentioned before you can get it from the app store. It's also available on Android. And there's also a desktop version. One great thing that I mentioned before is there's a free viewing app so you can easily share the photo files. You've scanned with others. Just FYI, the type of scanning the Photomyne. App does is not high quality. 


Grace: [00:19:00] Sometimes you're going to need to rescan certain photos that don't turn out well, this happens once in a while, or use a scanner to get a high quality digital version. But most of my scans were fine. And the software scans several photos at once. So the whole thing can go pretty quickly, a lot faster than one photo at a time. 


Grace: It's easy to export your photos from the app. As I did. And then as I mentioned, I sorted them into folders on Google drive, which is also free. And then I shared the links with the family via text message. I'm continuing to add to the folders on that Google drive. Actually for these important legacy files, it's wise to have them in the cloud in a few places. I have mine in Google drive and an iCloud. I haven't done this yet, but backing them up to USB drives is also wise. 


Grace: You can share [00:20:00] those and all of the information about the locations of your family photo archive. With trusted family members. Who can ensure that they are backed up over time. And, you know, there may be different ways of preserving files like these in the future. 


Grace: So your. Your photo archive in videos are never lost. I've kept all the hard copies of my photos and I suggest you do the same. You never know. You may want to go back and get a high quality scan of one of them or you might've missed scanning something and you might want to find it. 


Grace: My fourth legacy project are my memories of my parents. 


Grace: I'm recording on audio. I bought an inexpensive leveler microphone for my iPhone. I use it with the iPhone voice recorder app, which is free. And included in your phone's , basic apps. Android also has this. And you don't need. a Mike. So you could just record. Into your. [00:21:00] Phone without any microphone at all? 


Grace: It works fine. I record an era at a time. Uh, by time of life and then location. For example, I did chapters on their childhood. What I know about it. Their teenage years, their marriage, and then by places. Where we lived. W where I, you know, was alive and have actual memories. Um, like for example, Bellville Rockford. Scottsdale like that for their adult years. But you can do it by decade or whatever makes the most sense to you. And then transfer the audio file from the voice recorder app to the files folder in iCloud. 


Grace: So I can access them for my desktop. And I also, then I use an online transcription service to transcribe the recordings as a backup. And also in case I have use for. You know, a written version of, of these memories down the road. Number five. Is my five videos [00:22:00] project. Although I came up with this idea several years ago. I have only made three of my videos. Uh, I chose the subjects of each video already, but for some reason, It's been hard for me to complete, I guess it's kind of emotional. But it's so important. 


Grace: So I will complete it. For my videos, I just use my iPhone to record a video of myself. I don't even use a mic, although I could. Just don't make a complicated, do it. Oh, wow. This has been long. And I hope informative. Again, I'm going to list everything in the show notes on the webpage and in the Facebook group. Those links are in there too. And I'll post some videos about these projects on social media. So join me there and let me know your thoughts and please any questions that you have just post them up and I'll get back to you. I want to close. By asking you this one thing. [00:23:00] What would you give to have videos? That allowed you to know your great grandmother or even your parents and your grandparents better. We have so many videos of people waving. As the camera. Pants by them. Opening a gift or blowing out birthday candles. But there are so few of anyone sharing their thoughts, advice. Memories. 


Grace: Just do it. Even if it seems like no one will care, they probably don't care right now. But they will, someone will. You know, they will. I would give. Anything to have that. So give that gift to your loved ones. Future generations, too. And to yourself. Please leave a legacy. Okay. Remember, links in , shownotes additional information on the website and social. 


Grace: Thank you for listening. I'll see you [00:24:00] soon.