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Life Stories and Eulogies
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Don't Give In to Feeling Overwhelmed
These dreary winter days provide the perfect time to start writing your life stories. That is how I think of them, a succession of short...
Martha Rasche
Jan 18, 20171 min read
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Making History Real
Life stories bring history home. They make history REAL. A couple of guys who were in one of my classes last year served our country in...
Martha Rasche
Oct 20, 20161 min read
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Sharing to Help Others
At one level, your life story is not about you at all – but about how your experiences can help others. When I was diagnosed with cancer...
Martha Rasche
Oct 13, 20161 min read
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Intergenerational Connections
Writing your life story isn’t about vanity or being egotistical. Rather, it is a way of connecting to future generations and connecting...
Martha Rasche
Oct 6, 20161 min read
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Avoid the Telephone Game
Writing your life story allows you to share it in your own words, from your own perspective. Are you familiar with the telephone game?...
Martha Rasche
Sep 29, 20161 min read
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Um, It's Later Than You Think
It’s officially fall, and school is back in session. My Life Stories classes are back in session also. Hard to believe we’re already...
Martha Rasche
Sep 23, 20162 min read
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My Parents' Courtship
Ernest Rasche and Mary Ann Beckman started dating in 1944, the year before Ernest went into the Army. They never dated anyone but each...
Martha Rasche
Aug 3, 20163 min read
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Remembering My Father
Today, the 20-year anniversary of my father's death, finds me contemplating that my niece and nephew who will graduate from high school...
Martha Rasche
May 16, 20162 min read
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Of nature, telephones and ice cream
On the last day of my nine-week Life Stories classes, I generally ask the participants to share with the group something of what they...
Martha Rasche
Mar 12, 20161 min read
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Generation to Generation
We're halfway through this round of Life Stories classes. On Day 1, a 72-year-old father of two said his children didn't know much about...
Martha Rasche
Feb 3, 20162 min read
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Cancer repercussions contribute to anger
What makes you angry? Financial concerns? Illness? Mass shootings? You are not alone. Are you angrier today than you were a year ago? If...
Martha Rasche
Jan 25, 20164 min read
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At Year's End
Cancer came and went this year, but some repercussions linger. Recent images dictate that I see a neurosurgeon and an orthopedist. At the...
Martha Rasche
Dec 31, 20151 min read
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Another Christmas Memory
This story also was written by a Life Stories participant, Laverne Schuck, and shared by her at the county museum's Festival of Trees...
Martha Rasche
Dec 24, 20151 min read
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Christmas in the '20s
I love an old-fashioned Christmas story. This is part of one written in one of my classes by Anna Kern and shared by her at the opening...
Martha Rasche
Dec 23, 20152 min read
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Stories Multiply
About four years ago, I started taking harmonica lessons from a local woman who is now 91 years old. She enjoys playing the nursing home...
Martha Rasche
Dec 2, 20151 min read
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Another Mary
I've been helping Mary write her life story since last fall. She has done the writing; I have done the typing along with some rearranging...
Martha Rasche
Oct 30, 20151 min read
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Telling Mary's Story
Sometimes I forget how much I love the writing part of telling people's life stories. After the interviews are substantially complete and...
Martha Rasche
Sep 23, 20152 min read
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A Sense of Humor
I don't like to complain. I try not to bear grudges. I know that lots of people have it worse than I do. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I...
Martha Rasche
Sep 13, 20151 min read
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Thank You
Thank You to: Those who cleaned my litterbox. Those who mowed my grass and trimmed my weeds. Those who brought me meals. Those who...
Martha Rasche
Jul 22, 20152 min read
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Dealing with Insurance
As it happened, when I was transferred from Jasper to an Indianapolis hospital in March, I was transferred to a hospital outside of my...
Martha Rasche
Jul 2, 20152 min read
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