Family History via E-mail

I could hear the disbelief in her voice as she repeated the question again, “Are you sure you really want the e-mails?” Even over the telephone I knew that my sister-in-law thought I was nuts. Why would anyone want to take possession of printouts of 10 years worth of family e-mail?



I really wasn’t sure why. But I was absolutely certain that I did. I couldn’t imagine sending the binders that our mother had constructed off to be shredded, like the cancelled checks or invoices for home improvements that we had discovered. We were discussing the e-mails again because it was finally time to wrap up the last of a wide variety of mementos, remove the final pieces of furniture, and put my parent’s home on the market. In just over two years, both mom and dad had passed away. Mom died most recently after a very short illness, leaving her children awash in the tedium and sadness of dismantling the home that she had shared with our father for more than 35 of their 50 years together.

In the late 1990’s our parents discovered that they wouldn’t have to endlessly repeat the same stories time and time again over the telephone if they would just register for an e-mail account (it really is their own fault that they had to tackle the communication issue head on – after all I am the seventh of nine children!). And, thus, our talkative family began to e-mail – about everything!


Now, as I sit in my cool basement, I revisit my past and that of my siblings (and cousins and assorted others that have become a part of the Fitzgerald Family e-mail list) through the binders that our mom insisted were important. They are reminiscent of cherished letters from a loved one away at war or a holiday greeting card sent by a treasured friend from the past. My mom always wrote to those friends, but once she was online she wrote more frequently and shared more of her day-to-day battles and cheers. Now I need to thank my mom for ignoring our laughs and incredulity about her commitment to the e-mails that she dutifully printed and three-hole punched. Ten years worth of joy, sorrow, change, and even the mundane were saved for future generations to engage with the family that went before them.

After all, who wouldn’t want to glimpse backward in time and review all of the family dissertations regarding every important aspect of the past decade? Politics ad nausea; graduation celebrations for grandkids moving from preschool through high school; hometown sports teams from all across the country (seriously, don’t get any of us started on this topic!); the challenges dad faced in recovering from several strokes; the tragic car accident that claimed dad’s life and injured mom; poems; prayers; and crazy urban legends that mom was curious about; and lots of support and words of love – always tempered with humor.

My mom treasured her family. She was a born communicator. She feared that if we stopped writing letters and notes that were tangible, there would be nothing of ourselves to pass on to the next generation. She embraced technology and its assets. In fact, she always gave others in her circle of friends tips on how to send e-mail or to view photos from the grandchildren. But, she couldn’t conceptualize how we could all spend so much time bantering back and forth and not attempt to save our thoughts and phrases for posterity.

My mom’s jump from pen and paper to the digital expression of thought seemed like a natural move to me. But, for her it was a leap of faith. It was a transition that she chose to temper with her own security net – the binders that I am charged with keeping.


Flipping through Binder Number 1, I find a note from my mom dated March 31, 1996. Her humor came shining through when, sandwiched between a paragraph about the local high school Spring Break starting that week and the death of one of her neighbors, she jabbed at a taunt I’d launched at one of my older brothers in a previous e-mail with a paragraph that read, “There are five NAH’s in NAH, NAH, NAH, NAH, NAH, just in case anyone is interested.”

I recognized the phrasing immediately and, yes, I flipped back in the binder to confirm that I’d inadvertently only used four NAH’s in my original message. Reading this again, more than a decade later, brought a flood of feelings that caught even an emotional girl like me by surprise. The phrasing of the jaunt was not important, rather, the gentle humor that my mother always used and hearing her voice once again through the words that she wrote. That was important. I miss her often, but with each week that passes it gets harder and harder to remember her voice. However, her voice was clear to me again simply because she insisted on maintaining this treasury of our electronic nonsense.


I plan to sift through the remaining years of binders and enjoy the trip that my family has taken – and I’m sure to dash off a quick e-mail to my siblings about the treasures I’ve found at each new discovery. But, the big question is, will I print off a copy of those e-mails and start a new binder?