If you want your name to survive you,
either write something worth reading about,
or do something worth writing about.
No life is ever truly lost,
but we are the poorer
who have no record of it.
The wooden headstone above marks a grave in the Fairview, Utah Cemetery where Jacob and Charlotte Bushman are buried. The name has gone, the stories are unknown. The same will happen to us if we don’t record and preserve our personal histories and the stories of our families and those who have gone before us. Please write things down. Please share your stories.
From those who wrote in shrouded days of yore
Some books remain, through which the silent pen
Affords to creatures now and evermore
A glimpse into the hearts of men.
Yet countless thoughts and deeds by men conceived
That once were known, are now forgot’ and passed.
This lesson we should learn that thoughts received,
Except some way preserved, will never last.
For hist’ry isn’t made or lived, but kept.
And till the deeds to paper are transferred
That man may yet survive when he hath slept,
On earth, at least, ‘tis though they ne’er occurred.
To live and not have written, save one’s name,
Or never to have lived, is much the same.
Frederick G. Williams IV
Ann's Stories 