The Newsletter

The quarterly newsletter is ready to go out. I am waiting for one more photograph, and it will be complete. I will tell you, today, about the genesis of the Holmes family newsletter and it's metamorphosis over the years, and perhaps where I would like to take it.

The letter is a means of keeping us up to date with current family events, sharing some of our collective history, and introducing us to each other. Back in the 1920s, the five children of Daniel and Charlotte (Hoyt) Holmes who were still alive started an Association and met together annually from 1924 until 1928. Different people came different years, and they held their gatherings in Lincoln, Maine, for three of those years, China, Maine, one year, and Petitcodiac, New Brunswick, one year. Back then, they knew who was who and where their nieces and nephews lived, and compiled that information into a booklet. I am very thankful for that information. Even though it contains errors, which Fen Holmes researched and corrected, it contains information that we would not have known, otherwise. We, the descendants of Daniel and Charlotte Holmes through eleven of their twelve children (one died at the age of three), have lost touch with each other since 1930. There are many of us, and we are scattered over the United States and Canada and a few in other continents. Pockets of family members still gather from time to time, but as for the big picture, we lost it.

The idea that became a newsletter came to me several years before I actually started writing it. I tend to start things and not complete them, so I wondered, if I took on that committment, if I would soon tire of it. I knew that I enjoyed research, writing, and sending and receiving mail, and more recently, email, so I thought I would keep up with it, but I just wasn't sure. Would anyone be interested in reading it, I wondered. Even my own branch of the tree has scattered, and for many years, communication was either  meagre or not at all. I decided to bite the bullet and "just do it." I sent the first newsletter to my known Holmes relatives, aunts and uncles, and siblings in February, 2008. It was three pages long. I mentioned the nine children of my great-grandparents who grew up at the farm, and told about the reunion plans that I had for 2010. I asked for information. I concluded with a John Steinbeck quote: "How will our children know who they are if they don't know where they come from?"

I have sent letters quarterly since that time. They have grown. In the February, 2009, letter, I added a little blurb about someone in a different family line. I added a family recipe, and family news - an engagement, a new baby, a special birthday. I asked if someone might like to contribute to the letter. Two people sent contributions for the next letter, but unfortunately, that has not become a trend. Liz wrote an article for the February, 2012, newsletter, about her father's service in WWII and his Icelandic bride. Judy sent her memories of her grandfather for the November, 2013, issue. I started adding a biography in August, 2009, and I still do that sometimes. I think my favorite newsletter article was the one in  the February, 2010, issue, called "The Hillgrove Boardwalk." With my mother's help, I drew a little map of all the buildings at the farm in Hillgrove that she remembered. I took us on a little trek, walking from the farmhouse to each building and telling stories about each one. Perhaps someday I'll update and reprint that one. I wrote a similar article about the Charles Holstead Holmes homestead in August, 2013, with the help of some of his descendants. It was a lot of work but also a lot of fun.

In the fall of 2010, I started a kids newsletter that I called "PUMPED." I sent out a few letters, received very little feedback and only from adults, so let that one go. I'd be willing to start it up any time if there were children interested in reading it, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I added a feature to our regular newsletter in November, 2012, which I gave a title, "Jeans," a play on genes. This contains news about our children and teens, and I usually have something good to say about some of our teenagers.

In November, 2010, I began featuring the twelve children of Daniel and Charlotte, one in each letter. Those articles became the basis of my research for "The Homestead on the Old Post Road." I didn't do them in any particular order, and I started with Louisa and her husband, Robert Ballantyne. That one was the easiest, for cousin Liz found an anonymous biography which was very detailed and well-written. I wasn't overly disturbed that I did not know the writer/compiler, for I verified most of the facts and they confirmed the vital information.

Somewhere along the line, I began to get concerned about privacy, as the letter was going out to more and more people, so I began asking permission to write their stories. This, I think, was a good idea. Not only did I have their stories approved, they also became involved in the process and were able to supply details and corrections and photos. I also started sending out an email before I finished the letter, asking people if they had news to share. I do get some responses to those emails. This grew into "A Little Bird Told Me:" I incorporate some of our love of birds and my photography, and share your news that I otherwise wouldn't know about.

Each letter is based on a template of sorts. I try to start it off with some kind of hook to draw you in, and I put important news first, for those who might not go past the first couple of pages. I've considered various ways of improving the look of it. So far, I haven't come up with any major changes. I read ideas from other newsletter writers, but they just seem too complicated for someone who sticks to what she knows and doesn't branch out on the net as much as I should. If I find something that seems user friendly, I might try to incorporate it, but so far, I haven't. I do have to send out a few letters via snail mail to people who do not have computers or don't use them much. I am always trying to think up ways to format the letter that will make it interesting to my readers, and find content that is interesting as well. One thing I do not have trouble with, is finding stories to tell. I have a hard time keeping the letter to a fourteen page limit. That is a guideline, not a rule. I really enjoy compiling "This Old House" on occasion. That's my new title for articles about beloved ancestral homesteads which housed at least two or three generations, and the people who lived there. I will include an article in the November, 2014, issue, about a homestead in Prince Edward Island, and an old piper and his bagpipes. Stay tuned. I can't tell you much about it yet; for one thing, I only want to whet your appetite, and for another, it's not researched and written yet, I just have a fuzzy memory about it in my head.

Several years ago, maybe four, I lost my computer. It died. With it went the letters. I still have paper copies. However, since then, I have kept the letters and if anyone wants copies, I can send them. One thing I try to do is add more people to my list each quarter, so some of you have just come on board recently.

I have not yet lost my interest in writing the quarterly newsletters. I'm willing to help anyone who would like to start writing a newsletter for their family, and I welcome your ideas about making the letter better. If someone would like to start sending a regular contribution to be included in the letters, or even an occasional one, I'd be delighted. Most of all, I'm not looking for praise, but I definitely appreciate your feedback, whether its positive or constructively critical. I can work with a red pen, I really can. What I would like to know, most of all, is if enough of you read it to make it worth my while. I would do it for just a few, yes I would.