Every family has one. They are invaluable.

In my family, its Aunt Josephine; we call her “Pheeny.”

Every time someone in the family has a question about the family’s history, Pheeny is the logical consult. She knows where everyone was born and when, how this person is related to that person, who married who and when, and the names of all their children. It’s not that others don’t know some of the information, it’s just that Pheeny knows all of it.

Although a quick conversation with my aunt, one in which you are treated to only the answer to the question you called about, is simply not possible, she is indeed a priceless gem — our 87 year-old “keeper of the family history.”

Years ago, one of my graduate students, Marcia Wessels (wife of the late Savannah City Councilman Fred Wessels, who built Hitch Village), did her master’s thesis on “life review” in hospice patients. Marcia interviewed those terminally-ill patients who were capable of full cognition and communication, asking them a multitude of questions about their life. Marcia’s litany of questions ranged in topics from their earliest memories to their relationship with their parents to their greatest accomplishment and how they would want to be remembered.

Clearly, this process was a balm — almost palliative — to the patients. They loved recounting the times of their life. And that included the bad times as well as the good times. For all those times represented their life; it was their story. The patients were sad when Marcia was done with her interview sessions.

But, it was not the impact of the interview process on the patients that had the most profound long-term effect. It was the result.

After reading the first draft of her thesis, I shifted gears on Marcia. I told her, “Marcia, you have done a wonderful job here. But, I am going to waive the requirement to have you submit draft after draft in pursuit of my idea of perfection just so I can put it on a shelf.”

“What I want you to do,” I explained, “is something different. I want you to write each story for the family, not for me. And I want you to give the patients’ families a copy of their loved one’s story.”

Oh, the letters and calls I received. It was as if we had given members of those families part of themselves, and done so at a time when they felt they were losing part of themselves. We had established for them their own history, and perhaps in doing so, we had established for them a more concrete identity.

Who is your “keeper of the family history”?

Perhaps the greatest gift you can give your family is their own history. Take the time to ask questions of your “keeper” and make a record of who, what, where, when and how. Establish your family story. “Keepers” have the key to a treasure, and they want to pass it on.

I’d like to leave that gift for my family. I owe it to my ancestors to do so. Maybe you feel the same way.

So, I need to take a lesson from my student and do it now, because Aunt Pheeny is getting on in years. And so am I.

Fact is, if someone doesn’t record it for future generations, some day that history will be lost — forever.