Videographer Finds Niche In Personal Histories
His grandmother always had a story for him. Alice Pender would regale her first-born grandson with stories of the family’s past. “She loved her family,” Steve Pender recalled recently. “And, she loved to talk.”
For years and years he listened to her stories. Then, one day, the professional videographer set up his camera and began recording those precious memories. “It finally dawned on me she wasn’t going to be around forever,” Pender remembered. The younger generation “would never know her the way I know her,” he said.
Pender in 2003 started a small company called Family Legacy Video, which aims to get others to take full advantage of the wealth of history around them, to tap the one “storyteller in every family.”
Pender, 50, is what many call a “personal historian,” a relatively new distinction bestowed on a person who spends his or her time recording individuals’ recollections of their own pasts. The field, which is at once an ancient calling and a modern invention, has some 400 practitioners worldwide, according to the Association of Personal Historians.
“I think the (Baby) Boomers are really driving this,” he said of many people’s push to record their own legacies.
After all, it’s personal. “It’s really about learning where they came from,” he said.Photo by Randy Metcalf.
matt on September 19th, 2007 1:13 am
I think this is a great idea. It’s something that I’ve been wanting to do for a while with my family members who are getting older.
I’ve seen something similar to it before (maybe here) but I can’t remember where. About a couple of guys who did this, then included it on tombstones, so grave site visitors could watch the video.
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