The
Legacy Magazine
September 1996
 
Letter from the
Editor
 
What's your
Legacy?
 
Welcome to the Premier Edition of "The Legacy
Magazine." We can all learn many valuable and interesting
lessons about life from the people who have experienced it.
Our desire at "The Legacy Magazine" is to help bring
families closer together by publishing excerpts from
diaries, journals, letters and other personal stories that
describe the events, feelings and thoughts we all experience
in life, and in the process help all of our legacies to live
after us.
 
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be
able to read a diary that contained the thoughts, dreams and
emotions of your parents or grandparents? Especially
something that was written as they were growing up, or as
they were about to get married, or even as they were about
to become parents for the first time?
 
What about your ancestors? Wouldn't it be nice to
be able to read a journal that talked about the trip they
made in a wagon train as they crossed this great nation of
ours or even about the boat trip that was made from a
foreign land? What could their lives have been like in the
foreign land that made them want to come to this country in
the first place? All of these experiences would make for
some very interesting reading; interesting not only to you,
a blood relative, but also to the relatives of the people
with whom they traveled and to other readers curious about
the personal histories of our American ancestors.
 
As I read the stories and talk with the people that
traveled in covered wagons or in buggies as a child, then
lived long enough to witness the landing of the first man on
the moon, (while watching a TV set that had not yet been
invented when they were small children, ) I cannot help
but wonder what new inventions and lifestyles our
grandchildren's grandchildren will experience. Could it be
possible that they will travel from our homeland to a new
land...possibly on another planet?
 
At "The Legacy Magazine" we are trying to preserve
a bit of our history by printing not only stories from our
ancestors, but also stories from our own personal lives.
TODAY, we can leave a written journal or legacy about our
lives, thoughts, dreams and feelings that future generations
might want to read.
 
Will your grandchildren's grandchildren's
grandchildren wonder about you? Will they have any desire to
know what life might have been like for their ancestors in
the 20th century on the planet earth, while they are living
on another planet, maybe even in another galaxy?
 
Now is the time for you to leave a written legacy
for future generations. Now is the time for you to write
whatever you know about your parents, grandparents and
great-grandparents. Write not just their names and where
they came from, but stories about what type of work they
did, how much their first horse, wagon, car or house cost
them. Write about what their house looked like and how it
was decorated, what type of music they enjoyed, and what
their religious beliefs were. Write about how they dressed,
spoke, ate and interacted with their families and
friends.
 
Take a few moments our of your busy life and go
through your attic, basement, garage or anywhere else you
might have stored your old keepsakes and memories, or the
keepsakes that once belonged to your parents. Start a
journal with your thoughts about your children, parents and
friends. Then make several copies of it and store the copies
in different places. Leave information with several people
as to the copies' locations, so that if you should not live
long enough to see another sun rise, at least your future
relatives will have some type of record, not only of your
life, but also of the lives of the many people with whom you
have come in contact during your time on this planet. And
please send us a copy that we may share with our readers,
for the more we learn about the past, the easier it will be
for us to appreciate the present and understand the
future.
Thank You
Franklin T. Wike, Jr.
 

© Copyright 1996 The Legacy Magazine

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