Grandpa’s Crazy Quilt: Using Newspapers to Piece Together a Life Story
The speaker remembers her paternal grandfather as a funny, bed-ridden invalid who died when she was six. Throughout her childhood there were suggestions that he was not as benign as the man she knew: she eventually learned that he had shot her grandmother, but her father, a young witness, refused to speak of the incident. Recently, through digitized, online copies of her hometown newspaper, she learned the whole story and much more about the tragedies of her grandfather’s life that led to a greater understanding of his behavior. Learn how newspapers may help you solve a family mystery, too!
