What Ive learned from reading over 10000 diaries

[Music]

i read diaries for a living

other people’s diaries

and in the last 35 years i’ve read over

ten thousand vintage diaries and i’m

often asked how did you ever get started

doing this

well there was actually two reasons the

first is my father john mcnamara

i knew very little about my father but

one thing i did know is life was full of

mystery and deep heartache

he and my mother divorced when i was

just a little girl and i never really

saw much of them after that other than a

few scheduled visits

but on those scheduled visits my dad

always told my sister and i just how

much he loved us

eventually we moved away and then when i

was 13 years old we were just

totally died

his sister sally my name’s sake

was so distraught she took all his

precious

possessions and she placed them in a

trunk and she said no one will ever open

this trunk and that’s when my heart

broke

and then years later painfully i would

learn that my father had taken his own

life

so for 50 years that trunk has stayed

hidden my aunt sally she passed away 10

years ago and that trunk with my

father’s untold stories in it

it’s vanished

and so i was desperate

desperate to know more about this man

who gave me life

yet he took his own life and because of

that trunk i vowed that this will never

happen again

not in my own life perhaps i could stop

it from happening in the lives of those

who have gone before me

so years later i get married

and i have two children

and i am given the first diary

in my collection

and it was my great grandmother’s

1931

diary

her name was mary wood and they called

her

little toot

this is her

on the far left

she’s the little short with a tiny one

peeking out

she writes all about sailing to europe

with the gold star mothers these group

of women

these are mothers who had lost their

sons during world war one

and they were sailing to europe to pay

tribute to them

my great-grandmother lost her son

william

he was stationed on board the uss

cyclops which went down in the bermuda

triangle in 1918

and neither the ship or the crew were

ever found

so

in 1987 i began what became a lifelong

mission

and that was to preserve the untold

stories of others

but little did i know that this journey

i was about to embark on

would change my life in the most

powerful way and all because of the

handwritten word

so the woman that began the gold star

mothers was grace darlene siebold

and she herself had a son during world

war one that she lost and it was then

that she wrote these words

self-contained grief is

self-destructive which brings me to

human emotions and diaries in the 35

years i’ve been reading diaries from

different walks of life and different

generations

i’ve come to realize that human emotions

are timeless and i want to share with

you three passages from three different

diaries in my collection

so in

1792 sir charles middleton

who was then an admiral in the royal

navy loses the love of his life his wife

margaret

they were teenagers when they met in the

1730s on board a ship

and they never got married until 20 plus

years later because her family

disapproved of the relationship

charles and margaret were strong

abolitionists against the slave trade

and they worked very closely with one of

its leaders william wilberforce

so

when his precious wife died

charles picked up a blank diary

and he began to write about her death

and his deep grief

this entry was written about a year

after she died

sunday september 1st 1793

i felt very gloomy of late on account of

the loss of my companion

my friend my wife

oh lord thou knowest best what is good

for me

there are many places and things here

that remind me daily of my loss and i

have many hours to myself to think

i am frequently low when i consider how

much i am left alone by the departure of

my dear companion

and at times i forget

that it is by god’s will

now fast forward

to the year 1927

a young man by the name of john a 32

year old man living in texas loses a

love of his life

his wife lillian

and their baby girl all of which

happened during childbirth

john fought in world war one and this is

where he meets lillian while in france

in 1919

after the war they get married

moved back to the united states and in

1926 is when lillian becomes pregnant

but also in 1926 is when lillian passes

away

as does the baby

and that’s when john

picked up his

blank journal

and he wrote all about his debilitating

grief this entry was written

about three months or more after the two

of them died

march 31st 1927

perhaps i should be in bed i guess

i need some rest

i’ve been lost in the sea of memory

again this evening and the loneliness of

life

the emptiness within my heart has been

urging me on to search and search for

that which might heal it again

happiness oh it is indeed a word of

mystery

i cannot write of things of life that

bring the joy of real happiness because

i am not happy

now fast forward to the year

2008

a 51 year old woman is living in a small

oregon town raising four teenagers

with her husband of 14 years

he is a man she would refer to as an

angel sent by god and it’s a beautiful

fall sunny day

and in the distance she hears this knock

at her front door

and soon that sunny day would turn into

the darkest day she has ever known for

they proceeded to tell her

that her husband has been killed in a

construction accident

well that woman was me

and in that darkness that would consume

me

i picked up my blank diary

and in the span of two years i would

write 12 grief diaries

and those words of graces never rang so

true as they did during those years of

my grief

self-contained grief

is self-destructive

and so i began to write

october 27 2008

two more days and it will be a month

since my incredible husband passed away

into the loving arms of jesus

i’m going to try and keep this journal

so that one day i can look back on it

when my heart isn’t so full of pain

and to see how god was with me

there’s a power in the hand written word

a power in your stories and when you

write your stories down on the pages of

a blank diary little do you know just

how powerful those words can be until

sometimes years and years later

six years ago

i had the privilege of being a very

small part of getting one mother’s

1944 diary

back to her children

her name was mary jane

and you see in 2012 mary jane was

diagnosed with alzheimer’s

so when bridget her daughter received

the diary and started reading her

mother’s

1944 entries back to her

mary jane’s memory came back to those

events in those times written 70 years

earlier

bridget said to me sally

for a brief moment in time

we had our mother back a brief moment

and not only her memories but her

feelings too

it’s truly an amazing study of yourself

when you keep a diary and then you

re-read it years later

but i would say if you do go easy on

yourself because as we all know emotions

are true deep and raw they’re just who

we are the good and the bad

and i tell you

the one of the greatest things that got

me through those years of grief was

reading

diaries grief diaries

from people from the past i thought

oh if they can make it through i can

make it through i am not alone

you

are not alone

we are not alone

1792

1927

1944 2008 and 2021

emotions are timeless aren’t they

now i don’t always read diaries that are

just full of sorrow and grief it’s so

exciting for me when i pick up a diary

and i read it for the first time

i have no idea what i’m about to

discover or what adventure i’m about to

go on

for instance

i have 12 diaries written by a man by

the name of jerome king

they were written in the 1870s and 1880s

jerome was a civil war vet turned

baggage master for a railway

he wrote of train wrecks and train

robberies and preparing dead bodies for

travel

but he also

handled the luggage of some incredible

people like circus performers and

outlaws and prisoners and some very

famous people too like buffalo bill cody

and the famous poet

and playwright oscar wilde

and for me it just doesn’t get any

better than that

well actually it does

because jerome’s best friend

was a one-armed butcher

and this is real life and i thought if

there ever is a movie or a die or i mean

a novel written by

about him i think it needs to be titled

jerome king

baggage master and the one armed butcher

and then i have a diary

i can’t mention his name because i don’t

know if he’s out there right now

it’s written in the 1990s

and it was written by a young man who

decided to take a trip to mexico with a

bunch of his buddies

he actually took several trips while in

mexico and that’s because the group

decided to take psychedelic mushrooms

with him along the way

and he wrote a diary the entire time so

you can imagine what those entries are

like

in fact i want to share one of them with

you

so

skip thought i was god today

and i told him i was

and skip says

what say you god

and i said walter

walter where did that come from

walter

you worry too much

just have fun

now that doesn’t quite make sense does

it

but it might if you’re on psychedelic

mushrooms

is saying

well i want to leave you

with a glimpse into the almost

unbelievable

you know that saying by

mark twain truth is stranger than

fiction

well in the 35 years i’ve been reading

and researching diaries i’ve had several

situations that have happened to me

that fit perfectly with that saying

and i must share one of my favorites

with you now

so 16 years ago i was reading a diary

about a voyage to europe that took place

on

july 13

1938 this is the day it started it was

written by a 12 year old girl by the

name of alice bentley

alice wrote all about pulling out of the

dock in the new york harbor and passing

the statue of liberty and sailing on

this great ship called the normandy

also in the diary were black and white

photos that alice had taken

she took photos of new york photos of

the ship

and then she took this one photo

this is a little gal she met a friend

she met on board her name is barbara

whitting as you can see barbara has her

own camera around her neck and is

standing on the deck of the ship and

then a couple days later

alice writes this july third fifteenth

nineteen thirty eight

today we played tennis i made friends

with a girl my age her name is barbara

whitting

well after i researched this diary and

uh

i ended up selling it to a collector in

florida

my work went on buying and selling

diaries and it wasn’t unusual for me to

get two to three diaries a week in the

mail

ten years pass and it’s the year 2015.

i open up a diary or a box that was just

delivered

and out of this box

is this diary

and i started reading it

and at the top of the first page it says

ss normandy

and then there are several pages of

autographs

that they had collected

and then the diary entries start

and at the top of the diary entries is

the date

july 13th 1938

and the name barbara whitting

and my memory i started going wait a

minute

didn’t i sell a diary and i think it was

about the normandy and i think it was

written

in 1938

by a young girl named alice

i sold it years ago but i think she

mentioned a barbara

and then i kept reading

and as barbara wrote she talked about

pulling away from the dock in the new

york harbor

passing the statue of liberty

and sailing on the great ship called the

normandy

so those two young girls were standing

on this deck of the same ship that left

the new york harbor on july 13 1938 not

knowing each other quite yet

taking photos and writing in two

separate diaries

and those two diaries

ended up with me at two different

moments in my life 10 years apart

and then i kept reading

and as i turned the pages

i came to an entry barber wrote

july 15

1938

betty and i went in swimming and played

deck tennis with another girl

i also know her sister who is 10 in the

very intelligent type the other one’s

name is alice their last name bentley

they are good swimmers

then i kept reading

and as i turned the page

barbara took a picture

everybody meet alice

the author of the first diary i sold 16

years ago

i don’t know if those two girls

ever met each other

and it took me two years

but i got alice’s diary back

and by some great miracle

they’re together now

you know there is nothing nothing like

real life

your life

our memories are

good they’re not great

our memories are partial they’re not

complete our memories are not in exact

they embellish but diary entries written

at the very moment of conception that is

real life as real as the author sees it

at that point in time

and this

is the next generation of diary keepers

two of my four grandchildren peyton and

parker

so what i do i think everybody needs to

keep a diary oh my goodness yes if not

only to put your feelings and your

thoughts from here and here and place

them here but also for the sake of

history and the sake of your family

because your life is important your

untold story is important and don’t ever

let anybody tell you that it’s not

because it is

there’s another saying that we’ve all

heard that i love everybody has a story

but i want to add to that

everybody has a story and one worthy of

sharing and what better place to place

that story than on the pages of a diary

because i know of at least

10 000 people’s untold stories that are

worthy of telling

thank you

[Applause]