by Debora Morris

Created on: April 20, 2009   Last Updated: June 17, 2009

I was fourteen when I started keeping a diary. It was made of pink vinyl, the shade of a pink flamingo, and came with a tiny silver key that I kept hidden in a blue velvet box in the bottom drawer of my nightstand. The lines on the pages were almost too skinny for my gangly handwriting, but there was a full page for each day, which I remember, was very, very important to me. My diary carried me through three turbulent years of high school, held my deepest dreams, fears, and hopes for the future. It wasn't long after I was married that I decided the diary was a "childish account of an insignificant part of my life" and proceeded rip the pages into confetti and throw what was left of the pink vinyl cover into the garbage. Without realizing it at the time, I was throwing away a vital part of my life that I would never be able recover, let alone share with my daughters and granddaughters.

The importance of keeping a journal (and the stupidity of ripping up my teenage diary) became apparent to me when I researched my matrilineal lineage for a college Women's History class. While I am fortunate enough to have a family genealogy book to provide me with names, places, dates, and a limited family history, the book is for the most part, a factual summary with a few notes on the family's founding "fathers." Moreover, the "family" history book doesn't have the details I wanted most of all: The daily events of the lives of the women in my family.

Many women believe (or have been led to believe) that their lives are too trivial to write about, their thoughts too foolish to put on paper. This is how the women in my family felt, and most still do. Research on my matrilineal ancestors taught me that not one left behind a journal for future generations to explore. I would find it fascinating to read the reflections of my grandmother, who was born in 1900 and grew up during the first crucial Women's Movement of the 20th century. Or how my aunts coped with raising a family and holding down a job at time when women were still expected to stay at home and "just" be housewives. Above all, I would be thrilled to be able to read, in her own handwriting, my mother's girlhood journals. Sadly, since these women never realized the essential roles they played in our family history, and thus did not keep a journal, a major part of my family history is forever lost.

Curious as to how many of my female family and friends keep journals today, I sent questionnaires to 23 women between the ages

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