Saturday, April 6, 2013

Welcome!

Audrey Smith Barclay was my grandmother. I remember her well from my childhood but had limited contact with her after a long-distance move when I was 14. In recent years I've gotten better acquainted with her through anecdotes related by her children and grandchildren and through the stories she herself wrote and left behind. In fact, her passion for writing is the thing that's made me feel a new, stronger connection to her after so many years. I don't know if there's any such thing as a "writing gene," but if there is, I'm pretty sure I got mine from Audrey.

The main purpose of this blog is to give Audrey a posthumous moment in the spotlight by publishing all of her stories here. Many of them are already in my possession, but I hope other stories or letters she wrote might trickle in from family members who find them stored away in closets or attics. I also hope family members will continue to send in their own remembrances of Audrey or their own stories of what it was like to grow up under her care. It's my understanding that there were good days and hard ones. Isn't that what it's like in most families?

Special thanks to the relatives who have already shared with me Grandma Audrey's writings, along with their own observations, photos, and other pieces of family history. It wouldn't even have occurred to me to undertake this endeavor if they hadn't given me so much to work with.

Thanks to you, too. Audrey always wanted readers, and now you're one of them.

Linda@VS, Editor

2 comments:

  1. I can attest to Audrey's love of writing. I'm one of her many grandchildren and Linda is my cousin. When I was a child, my family lived 400 miles away from Grandma, so she wrote to us, sometimes three times a week and she did this for the last forty hears of her life. And I don't meant short notes; usually, a letter was 3-5 pages long, and in the most beautiful handwriting. My mom saved all these letters and I later put them into sheet protectors and then into three-ring notebooks. I think the notebooks numbered seven. So, yes, Audrey was a writer, an entertaining and tireless one. Linda, thanks for giving her a venue. Your cousin, Karen


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    1. Hi, Karen -- Thanks so much for your comment. If you're ever thumbing through those three-ring notebooks and come across a letter you'd like to share, I'd be delighted to post it here. We could change or delete names to preserve privacy (if necessary). Think about it, okay?

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