Watching Over Angels: On Learning the Eight Surnames of One’s Great-Grandparents

This post is the first in a series-in-progress by company president Megan St. Marie about heirlooms and objects related to her family history that she keeps in her office to inform and inspire her work at Modern Memoirs.

Megan St. Marie’s desk at Modern Memoirs, with the eight fabric angels her aunt Rita Lavallee made from placemats and napkins stitched by her great-grandmother Anastasie “Tazzy” Raymond Lambert

My interest in family history was nurtured by my father, Raymond Lambert, who maintains an impressive genealogy site for our family, and it played a big role in leading me to my work with Modern Memoirs. When we moved the company to new offices in 2020, I decided to decorate my office with objects that connect me to my heritage, and I asked my father’s sister Rita Lavallee for help. My Aunt Rita is a talented seamstress, and I had several old quilts and other pieces of handiwork made by my paternal grandmother and great-grandmothers that I asked her to mend for display, or to somehow craft into new items I could use as décor. Among many other pieces, three quilts now hang in my office, and above the large windows behind my desk is a row of angel figures my aunt created, upcycled from placemats and napkins made by one great-grandmother, Anastasie “Tazzy” Raymond Lambert, known for her “fancy-work.”

This makeshift valance provides a whimsical, homey touch to my workspace, and it also holds a deeper meaning for me. I once read the advice that a good place to start learning about family history is to learn the eight surnames of one’s great-grandparents. When I unpacked the cloth angels from the box my aunt sent me, I smiled as I counted eight of them—one for each person in the generation of the great-grandmother who stitched the placemats and napkins my aunt used to make them.

Lambert, Raymond, Laroche, Gagne, Facteau, Cantin, Dowd, Fox

A close-up photo of one of the fabric angels representing Megan St. Marie’s eight great-grandparents

These are the eight surnames of those who came before me and whose legacies created the context into which I was born. They reveal my Franco American and Irish roots, with two surnames belonging to people who emigrated from Québec in the early 20th century and settled in northern Vermont, and one to an emigrant from Ireland. (The other five surnames belong to people whose parents and/or grandparents emigrated from these same places in the 19th century.) I think of these names and the people and stories behind them every day that I am in my office, where I spend a lot of time helping clients tell their own family stories.

The angels my aunt made also bring to mind a song my father used to sing to my siblings and me at bedtime, “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” and its line, “…angels watching over me.” While the position of the eight angels representing my great-grandparents literally has them watching over me as I work at my desk, I like to think that I’ve inverted the lyric by preserving or “watching over” my ancestors’ memory, starting with the knowledge of their names.

Of course, achieving the goal of learning the eight surnames of one’s great-grandparents is easier said than done for those whose access to information may be curtailed by legal, historical, or emotional barriers. Family secrets can run deep, records may be sealed, and genocide or institutional racism might create roadblocks in the search for documentation of one’s ancestry. Because four of my seven children are adoptees, and four are of African descent (with a strong likelihood that some of their biological ancestors were enslaved and thus unnamed in many records until the 1870 census), my awareness of how privileged I am to know the names listed above is profound.

It is also my great privilege to work with my colleagues at Modern Memoirs to help our clients discover, document, and preserve their family histories. If you’re reading this piece, I hope you’ll be inspired to write down the eight surnames of your great-grandparents (feel free to do so in the comments), or to do some research if you don’t already know them. We are here to help with that good work of watching over your ancestors’ legacies. The first step of documenting names can help one build knowledge about the people who bore them—their talents and challenges, their triumphs and struggles, their needs and their ways, the stuff that made up their lives and gave way to yours.

Megan St. Marie as a child with her Memé, Pamela “Pom” G. Cantin, the one great-grandparent who was alive when she was born (cir. 1979)

Reflections from Prosper Ishimwe

Prosper Ishimwe published his book entitled Neither Tutsi, nor Hutu: A Rwandan Memoir; My Search for Healing, Meaning, and Identity after Witnessing Genocide and Surviving Civil War with Modern Memoirs in 2020. This Assisted Memoir took seven months from the day he first contacted us to the day books arrived on Prosper’s doorstep and eBook conversion was completed. We asked Prosper to reflect on what the publication process was like for him, and what it’s meant to share his books with others.

 —Liz Sonnenberg

 1. There were other ways for you to convey your story—podcast, documentary, public speaking. Why was it important to you to write your story in a book?

 Prosper Ishimwe: I love books, and I love writing, so I naturally gravitate towards books and writing. I never considered other ways I could share my story. I wrote so I could make sense of my past traumas, heal, and also exhume the stories of the people I cared for who died in the genocide and civil war. In hindsight, writing down my thoughts and feelings allowed me to see myself. Reading my thoughts and feelings on paper allowed me to be self-aware, as if I was looking at myself in the mirror. Sometimes, we say things in ways that we do not mean them. Writing allows one a chance to go back and convey what they said in a way they really meant.

2. Some people wait until their senior years to write a memoir, but you wrote yours in your early thirties. How does that make this book different from the one you might have written later?

 Prosper Ishimwe: Survival comes with a responsibility. Ironically, tragedy often gives us purpose. I felt a responsibility to heal myself and hopefully inspire other people who have experienced similar traumas to also heal themselves. I did not want to wait until I was older to live my purpose. I strangely felt like—I imagine—a woman who’s pregnant. One way or the other the baby has to come out. As much as writing my memoir was intentional, when I started writing I just couldn’t stop. And after finishing the manuscript, I knew I had to publish it.

 3. You say that writing your book was the most rewarding experience of those three decades of your life. Why is that so?

 Prosper Ishimwe: Living traumatic experiences often makes us feel trapped in the past. Writing was the only way I knew how to liberate myself and make peace with the past.

Prosper Ishimwe

 4. What was the greatest struggle you encountered while writing your memoir?

 Prosper Ishimwe: Writing was not challenging at all. Navigating the publishing world was the most challenging part because it was my first book.

 5. You explored publishing your book commercially. Why did you choose to self-publish in the end?

 Prosper Ishimwe: I chose self-publishing because I realized it was the only way I could write my memoir the way I wanted it to be written, and not in a way it would sell best.

 6. In several places in the book, you discuss the idea of “interpreting” life events. In one chapter you write, “I reclaimed the power to decide how to react and interpret the traumatic experiences I had gone through.” What is the role of memoir writing in the interpretation process?

 Prosper Ishimwe: Writing a memoir was a very therapeutic experience for me, and I suspect it is for many people. Writing allowed me to look at the thoughts and feelings that came from within me, and gave me the opportunity to find a healthier and more truthful way to interpret them. In hindsight, it was a form of self-cognitive behavioral therapy. It’s easier to organize and make sense of one’s thoughts and feelings once they can see them written down. That’s what made writing my memoir a therapeutic experience.

Interested in reading more? Readers can purchase Prosper’s book at the link below:

Words Light the Way: Tribute Candles for Writers and Editors

As Faulkner said, "A writer must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid."

What is the hardest kind of writing? Besides writing about trauma, the most difficult type of writing could well be about death or loss. How can we describe the indescribable? Why would we want to go there? So much pain.

Of course it can be healing to write about death and loss. But at what expense? As Faulkner said, “A writer must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid.” Sometimes it must be done.

When writing about my own feared topics, I make sure to have a symbolic “container” for the strong feelings that inevitably surface. This might mean calling a friend and setting up a writing date with a specific time frame of, say, one hour. If in person, we go to a neutral place, like a café or a park, and set our timers for writing. If a virtual visit, we stay on the phone together until the hour is up. Either way, we check in with each other halfway through and again at the end of the hour. We may or may not read our writing to each other, as the feeling dictates. And when we end, we enact some type of closure, a physical shift, a final remark, then a goodbye, deliberately leaving the writing and the feelings behind for the time being.

Words are like seeds, or even like babies; they need to be gently held and nourished. Words from the heart are the most powerful, igniting old wounds and fears in an instant.

As an editor of others’ writing, reading about people’s pain, tragedies, or fears has a way of staying with me long after having worked on the piece. It isn’t as easy to find a way to “contain” a challenging piece because I am usually alone at work.

Candles can help. Personally, I didn’t grow up with any tradition of lighting a candle for the deceased, but over the years I have adopted this simple act of honor. Sometimes I do this to mark the birthday of the deceased, or the anniversary of a death, or just when I need some extra spiritual strength. When lighting a tribute candle, I watch the little flame, so tiny, flickering on a fragile mold of wax. Fire is the pain, and wax is my soul melting into boiled liquid. And always the flame warns: Don’t get too close.

I have adapted this practice to my professional life. Before I start editing a piece on bereavement or death, I light a candle, the kind in a glass votive, or perhaps one of those little plastic candles if I don’t have a real one, setting it somewhere nearby. Sometimes I speak aloud although I never quite know what to say. Still I speak, and some words come out:

“I honor the deceased; I honor the bereaved.”

I sit down and get to work. I might work for one or two or three hours. When I finish this sitting, I stand up, blow out the candle, and again say some words aloud.

This simple, intentional act lets words clear the way. As a candle lights the way for writing, or remembering, or honoring, so does stating a wish aloud calm my soul, allowing me to nurture others’ writing while remaining grounded and peaceful.

“May the pain and fear from this writing be released.
May I walk in peace, honoring the bereaved, honoring the deceased.”

* * *

Reflections from Kate Navarra

Kate Navarra published her book A Lump in the Road: My Personal Journey with a Ductal Carcinoma In Situ (DCIS) Diagnosis with Modern Memoirs in 2021. She was referred to us by Bookflow, a cloud-based tool for writers. This Assisted Memoir took 6 months from the day Kate contacted us to the day books arrived on her doorstep, and eBook conversion was completed a month later. We asked Kate to reflect on her publication process and what it’s meant to share her books with others.
—Liz Sonnenberg

1.       In the introduction to your book, you write, “Writing—shared or unshared—has always helped me better understand who I am.” How or why is that so?

Kate Navarra: I have been writing to share my feelings for as long as I can remember. In fact, when I was in middle and high school, I would journal all our family vacations, including all the sarcastic comments my teenaged self could come up with about traveling with my parents. During every trip I made to Alaska, either as a backpacker or later as an archaeologist with the National Park Service, I wrote daily, recording both what happened and my thoughts on what transpired.

 I think I write more for myself than others, and this was true when I wrote my way through my journey with cancer. Sometimes writing made the worry disappear. Sometimes writing gave the things I was trying to say value and meaning.

2.       You wrote a blog throughout your entire DCIS journey. What surprised you most about the difference between blog writing and memoir writing? 

Kate Navarra: When I was first encouraged to blog, I opened a blank Word document and quickly typed everything from what I was feeling, to what I was making for dinner, including many swear words that came to mind. At that point, I was not sure I would make it public. But then I started thinking about how my words could potentially help someone dealing with the same questions and emotions I had. I subscribed to a website and started cutting and pasting what I had written into blog entries so I could share those immediate thoughts with people—and so my friends who were far away could be updated on what was going on with me.

When I started writing my memoir, I read and reread the blog and noticed that these snapshots or moments in time were not the whole story. I hadn’t had a chance to reflect on my journey. My thoughts needed to simmer. Writing a memoir was a chance to make those snapshots flow together and become more of a reflection on those initial thoughts and emotions.

3.       In one of the blog entries that you share in your book, you reflect on the lyrics to the song “Rewrite the Story” from the TV show Smash. You describe it as “a song about renewal,” “about how someone can start over after feeling so lost.” In what way, if any, is your memoir a rewrite as opposed to a recording of your experience?

Kate Navarra: I think when you have a chance to reflect on what has happened to you, you can better understand your experience—and others’ experiences. When I wrote the blog I was recording things, but when I went back to look over what I had recorded, it gave me a chance to think about what others were going through along with me and to examine how others reacted to what was happening to me. I feel like every day we have a chance to start over, and for me “rewriting” my story is a rewrite of how I look back on it and what I gained from it. Cancer still happened to me, but writing about it gave me a new perspective and faith in the idea that I am stronger than I thought and I can do hard things.   

4.       You were encouraged by your support team to write this book as a resource for other women who need something “real,” “raw,” and “practical.” What sort of response have you gotten from readers? 

Kate Navarra: I have had a few family members and close friends share that they had trouble sitting down to read the book because it was so hard to go through the first time and they felt like they were reliving the cancer journey over again. A few other friends have said they finished it in one sitting, and it was cathartic because they were able to see my journey in hindsight. One friend said, “It felt like you were right there beside me sharing your story. I know your book will help so many women!”

5.       For you and others who have been through a cancer diagnosis, you write about “the inability to put into words how it has changed us.” You also say that through writing you found your voice, and through your voice you found strength. Have you encouraged other women who are on a similar journey to write, and has it helped them?

Kate Navarra: A friend of mine was diagnosed with an invasive DCIS six months ago and she has started a blog that discusses remarkably similar things that mine did, including procedures, what nurses discuss with her to distract her, etc. While I won’t say that her blogging is in response to mine, it seems like a very natural outlet to use to let people in while also keeping them at a distance to allow yourself to go through the journey and heal. Survivors have such huge support networks that it can be overwhelming to let everyone know how you are. A blog is a good place to update people in a safe space.

Interested in reading more? Readers can purchase Kate’s book at the link below:

Our First E-Newsletter!

We are delighted to share our first e-newsletter and hope readers will pass it along to others who might be interested in updates on our company. Click here to read.

Marking One Year in our New Offices

We moved into our current offices at 495 West Street in Amherst, Massachusetts on August 1, 2020. We’re very happy here and are pleased that we’ve been able to welcome several former, current, and potential clients to visit us. Here’s an office tour video created by our Smith College Praxis Program summer intern, Lauryn Small, to give everyone a peek inside.

Office Tour Video