40 questions to ask your grandmother about her life
Forty questions from Heirleaf’s question bank, the same ones we ask people who are telling their life for a book. Each one asks for a scene rather than a summary, so she can answer in a minute or two, out loud or on paper.
They are written to be asked straight to her: “Where did your name come from?”
How to ask them
- Ask one or two at a time, over coffee or on a call. Forty in one sitting is an interview, not a conversation.
- Record her voice or write down her exact words, and don't tidy them up. The way she says it is the point.
- Let her skip. The question she skips today she may answer next week.
Where she comes from
- 1Where did your name come from?
- 2Describe the town or city where you were born.
- 3Tell me about your mother. What was she like?
- 4What story did your family tell over and over?
- 5Who else lived in your house when you were a child?
- 6What do you remember of your grandparents?
- 7What did your grandparents' house smell like?
- 8Where did your family come from before they settled there?
- 9What did your family eat on a Sunday?
- 10What phrase did someone in your family always repeat?
Her childhood
- 11Describe the house you remember best from childhood, room by room.
- 12Walk me through an ordinary school day, from the moment you woke up.
- 13What did you play, and who with?
- 14What is the first thing you can remember?
- 15What did your house smell like?
- 16What sound do you remember from those years?
- 17Describe the way you got to school.
- 18How did your family celebrate the holidays?
- 19What present do you still remember getting?
Growing up
- 20What were you like at seventeen?
- 21What music did you listen to?
- 22How did you dress, and how did you wear your hair?
- 23What was happening in the world back then?
- 24When was the first time you left your town?
- 25What did you spend the first money of your own on?
Love
- 26Tell me about the great love of your life.
- 27If you married, tell me about that day.
- 28What have you learned about love over the years?
Work
- 29What have you spent your days doing?
- 30If your work was looking after your home and family, tell me what that day was like.
- 31What did nobody ever know about your work?
Her own family
- 32How did your children come into your life?
- 33How did you choose their names?
- 34If you have grandchildren, tell me about them.
Places
- 35Of all the homes you have lived in, which one do you miss?
- 36List all the homes you have lived in.
- 37What corner of the world feels like yours?
What she has learned
- 38What did life teach you that you didn't expect?
- 39Which years would you live again?
- 40What would you say to your grandchildren, or to whoever comes after?
Why these questions work
- One thing at a time
- Each question asks about one thing. Two questions in one get half an answer.
- A scene, not a summary
- “What did your house smell like?” gets a story. “What was your childhood like?” gets “fine”. We ask for a place, a smell, a day.
- Never yes or no
- And never “do you remember…?”, which puts her memory on trial.
- Nothing taken for granted
- No question assumes a partner, children, money or a happy ending. If something doesn't apply, she skips it.
Or let her tell it herself
In Heirleaf she answers these questions and many more, writing or speaking, at her own pace, and her words become a book of her life. Nobody rewrites them. The first three questions are free, and you can give it to her as a gift.