Eileen Goudge’s Questions to Help You Get Started

1. What is something you’d like me to know about yourself that you haven’t told me?
   
   
2. What did you achieve—or overcome—as a girl growing up, or as a young woman, that I don’t know about?
   
   
3. What were your dreams during that period of your life, and did your dreams change? If so, why and what new dreams grew out of the change?
   
   
4. Who were your boyfriends and special girlfriends? Where did you go on dates, and what did you and your girlfriends do for fun? What happened to your boyfriends and these special girlfriends?
   
   
5. What heartache did you experience, and how did you overcome it?
   
   
6. What mementos of your youth do you have that you would like to pass to me some day, and where do you keep them?
   
   
7. What would you like your grandchildren to know about you that no one has told them?
   
   
8. Tell me about your mother. How is or was she different from you? If she were here today, what would you tell her that she doesn’t know? What stories did she tell you about her mother that I should know so I can pass them along to my children?
   
   
9. Looking back on your life, what were the significant events that you will forever remember (9/11, Pearl Harbor, John F. Kennedy’s assassination, etc.)? Where were you when these events happened, and what do you recall about that day and time? How did they change your life or way of thinking?
   
   
10. What do you consider to be our family’s heirlooms? (These might not be things of monetary value, but things that have personal meaning to you, such as letters, etc.)
    
    
11. Did you journal or keep a diary? Did your mother? Are these things that someday I will be afforded the opportunity to read?
    
    
12. Let’s make a time capsule for my grandchildren to open when they are fifty years old. What should we put in it, where should we keep it, how should we let them know about it?