Legacy Cottage offers effective and thoughtful strategies for the sharing and saving of precious memories both past and present. Family treasures, from a well-used baseball to Grandma's linen tablecloth, hold special meaning because they spark stories about special relationships and events, and aid in the recall of everyday life. Stories told at the supper table convey family culture and enhance memories about family members, from baby Hannah to old Uncle Joe. Each member of your family and community is a treasure themselves, of stories about the past. Such shared experiences bind families and neighbors together and can provide the words of wisdom for future generations. Objects that have been saved and stored and passed down from father to son, grandparent to grandchild, deserve proper care, preservation, and display.

Take the time now to gather up those memories before it's too late. Celebrate them, share them, tell them. What you do today will benefit tomorrow's generation. Their past is your present.


How to get started:

1. Share with your loved ones the guiding principles of your life with an Ethical Will. This is specially important for parents of young children, newlyweds, and grandparents.

2. Heirlooms, keepsakes, documents, and photographs require appropriate storage and display techniques.

3. Preserve the voice of your loved one telling favorite stories and recalling memories.

How to Leave a Legacy

1) Write it.
2) Say it.
3) Identify heirloom treasures.

And, then, preserve them.

Writings - Collect and create the documents that you want to leave your future family. Birth and marriage certificates, school documents, work-related reports, journals, and personal letters are all important because of the way they are able to tell your life story. Even more meaningful to your current and future family are your writings about who you are and how you feel about yourself and them. These documents will be treasured by those who read and keep them. To learn more about how to write and preserve an Ethical Will, click here.

Sayings - Most family stories are passed down orally from one generation to another. "Remember the time…?" stories are so important to keep and are so much more meaningful when you can hear them. Reading a story is very different from actually listening to Uncle Bob tell the story of that stormy night so long ago. Recordings of the voices of your loved ones telling stories, explaining family favorite recipes, describing the house, garden, restored vehicle, or hobby collections will be fun and meaningful to family members who listen. To learn more about how to create and preserve a voice recording, click here.

Heirlooms - From Grandma's food-stained cookbook to the baby's christening dress, objects are powerful ways of telling individual and family history. Often it is difficult to find the space to store these things, especially when families move from one home to another or downsize after the kids have move out. But the few things that are held onto are like magical doors to the past. Anytime the sense are engaged - smell, touch, sight, sound - a more immediate connection can be made. By connecting these objects with photographs, sound recordings, and written documents will create a more complete story. To learn more about how to care for and preserve family heirlooms, click here.

Legacy Cottage is owned and operated by professional historian, Mimi Clark. With a master's degree in Public History, Mimi has over 20 years of experience working with historic documents, artifacts, and themes in a variety of settings, including museums, historic sites, photograph collections, and film companies across the country. With each project, Mimi brings a professional approach and joyful curiousity to the discovery, presentation, and care of precious keepsakes and personal histories. Legacy Cottage is a one-stop resource for the materials needed to collect, share, celebrate, and store family stories and mementos.

Mimi Clark is a member of the National Council on Public History. The public need for the best historical information and analysis motivates every undertaking of NCPH. The council believes that the study of the past provides the soundest basis for making intelligent choices on how to resolve the problems of the present.