Leave Your Legacy For Following Generations by Steven Skelley
A few years ago I was received a phone call that my grandmother was in the last few hours of her life. I rushed back to the hospital and spent the evening at her bedside with my brother, sister and aunts until she passed from this life.
Later, as we sat in her living room looking at old photos she had in albums and shoe boxes, we realized that we didn’t know many of the people in the pictures. These were photos of our own relatives but no one in our generation could recognize them. How we wished the photos had been marked with dates and names.
When all four grandparents passed away, then both of our parents, then both of our sisters, my brother and I talked about how so much of our family history was gone forever. Oh how we wished we knew how our parents had met. Oh how we wished we knew what it was like for Grandma and Grandpa to grow up in a place called Barnesville where people took the train before there were cars.
My business partner and best friend Thomas Routzong battled cancer and survived but his wife did not survive her battle with cancer. He began to realize for himself that he was the only one left to share family memories with his children and grandchildren and that he had almost lost that chance when he battled cancer.
He spent weeks creating a written and photographic family history for his children so their family legacy would not be lost forever.
Tom & I had a friend and mentor in 3-time Emmy winning journalist Dr Russell Barber. Russell passed away unexpectedly this summer. We had interviewed Russell for a chapter in a book we are writing. He gave us some excellent quotes no one had ever heard before. We shared them with his family after his passing. They put them in his obituary. Russell will now be remembered for these wonderful thoughts no one else knew he had said.
I think we should all consider writing down our legacy and passing it along to our children and grandchildren before we are gone and the history is lost forever. Pass along your legacy. Tell them what your parents and grandparents were like. Tell them what your childhood was like and how the world has changed. Write it down!
After losing so much of our families, we have decided to help others pass along their legacy.
We’ve interviewed hundreds of people in the last decade or so for newspapers and magazines and we'd be honored to use those skills to record your legacy and family history so it is not forgotten.
How did you meet your spouse? What was Grandma's favorite outfit? What was Grandpa's favorite thing to do? What fun games did you play as a child? How did you feel when you saw your child for the first time? What was it like in the depression era?
Keep the family legacy alive by passing it along to the next generation.
Contact us by email or phone for pricing and scheduling at:
Steven Skelley & Thomas Routzong
Sunny Harbor Publishing
PO Box 560318
Rockledge, FL 32956
(321) 446-7552
SunnyHarborPublishing@yahoo.com
FORGET ME NOT - Your Life Story
Let us interview you and write the story of your family so those who have passed on will not be forgotten. Share this priceless legacy before it is lost forever. Just a few hours of your time can change your family's forever.
Our Packages:
Family Heirloom Forget Me Not package
Our Forget Me Not Family Heirloom package is meant for those of you who are not interested in commercially publishing the stories from your life but wish to pass along to future generations the memories and family traditions that you cherish.
Professional authors Thomas Routzong and Steven Skelley will help you create your precious family heirloom.
Packages start at just $399 and include up to 2 hours of interview time with your authors, 99 EZ answer questions to help spark the precious memories that will now last forever, scanning, photo editing and insertion of 10-20 of your favorite family photographs, cover design, editing, proofreading, layout, and 5 professionally comb-bound copies of your life story up to 150 pages each.
Professional Autobiography Forget Me Not package
Our Forget Me Not Professional Autobiography package is meant for those of you who desire to share your thoughts, desires, dreams and the stories of your life in a commercially published autobiography.
Professional authors Thomas Routzong and Steven Skelley will team with you as your "ghost writers" to guide and encourage you along your literary journey.
Packages range from $10,000 to $30,000 and can include interview time with the authors, ideas and questions to help spark the precious memories you want to share, scanning, photo editing and insertion of 20-30 of your important and meaningful life photographs, assistance with your book title, cover design, editing, proofreading, layout, professionally published soft cover or hard cover copies of your life story in amounts of 100, 250, 500 or 1000, creation of a bar code necessary for book store and internet sales, submission of your autobiography to the US copyright office, submission to the US Library of Congress, availability on Alibris booksellers website (which contracts with Amazon and Barnes and Noble, etc), and a webpage specifically for your autobiography on the SunnyHarborPublishing.org website. You retain all rights and copyrights to your book and all copies of your book are sent to you to distribute as sales occur.