My 18 year old son Matthew is visiting my 93 year old grandmother this week in Mississippi.  Last night I called him to see how things were going.  He interrupted me mid-sentence and said “I have to call you back.  Banma is telling me old stories.”  (Yes, we call our grandmother Banma – it’s got to be a Southern thing to call your grandmother by some silly name, which clearly we do.)

Later he called me back and said “That was so awesome.  I just heard all kinds of stories about this house.  Did you know that my great, great, great grandfather died in here?”

The house was built in the mid 1800’s and generation after generation was born there, all the way down to my mother.  (The tradition stopped when I was born due to the invention of epidurals.)   There were weddings and even deaths in that house.

Banma told Matthew stories of how the house was framed on top of huge tree trunks that were brought up from the back woods.  He heard about my great, great grandfather who literally died of a broken heart upon hearing that his wife had just passed away.  He learned that my grandmother gave birth to my mother in the front bedroom on a cold Christmas morning.

These stories, like many other generations of stories could one day be lost.  This is one of the main reasons why StoryMark was created…to capture those memories and stories before they are gone.

Sit down with your grandmother or grandfather and have them StoryMark their old photos.  Use the camera on your iPhone to capture the images, and let the story telling begin.

You may also find out interesting tidbits like we did. For example, following the birth of my mother, my grandmother got up and cooked Christmas dinner.  Boy times have changed.

Twitter @danamcintyre1

For more information, please visit www.storymarklife.com or download for free in the iPhone app store or Android Marketplace.