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Your
Mother Was A
PERSON
A
Work in Progress
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Discussion
Questions and Ideas for Reading Groups
IDEAS FOR BOOK
CLUBS & READER'S GROUPS
Louise Palmer is an active member of the Celsus Book Club in
Castro Valley, California, and in the book's acknowledgements,
credits the club members for encouraging her to publish her
writings. She offers the following ideas for Book Clubs that
would like to feature her book at their meetings.
1. Ask Book Club members to bring a photograph or favorite
artifact of their mother or grandmother(s) to share.
2. Prior to the discussion meeting, ask members to create their
own "These Things I Believe" list, as Louise did in
her last chapter.
3. Consider using Louise's book for your May Book Club selection
to coincide with Mother's Day.
4. Add music to your meeting by playing some of the favorites
from the era when Louise was growing up, as mentioned in "Remember
the Good Times." Better still if someone in your group
has an old-time Victrola!
5. According to Louise's "But Maybe I Brag!" essay,
"Whenever I acquire two of anything, they become the basis
of a new collection." Ask Book Club members to bring samples
from their own collections to share.
6. If your Book Club serves refreshments, consider asking members
to create one of their mother's favorite recipes (such as her
mother's cake, as described in "My Mother's Cooking.").
Or, serve Marble Cake, a regular feature in Louise's Brown Grandparents'
home, as described in "Mary Elizabeth Bandy Brown."
7. For a summertime meeting, perhaps serve Salt Water Taffy,
as described in "We See the Pacific Ocean." Ask members
to share their own experiences about the first time they saw
the ocean (or other significant geographic site).
8. For your Book Club's Christmas meeting, consider reading
aloud "The Doll with the White Coat and Hat," or "The
Christmas Gift." Serve sliced fruitcake for refreshments!
Book Clubs
are invited to share their ideas, experiences and discussions
- email your comments to LouiseMPalmer@gmail.com.
We will post as many as possible. Include your name and the name
and location of your Book Club so that you can be credited.
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Your Mother Was
a Person - A Work in Progress
by Louise Mitchell Palmer
READER'S GROUP DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Click here for
a printable PDF version of the Questions list
1. Why do you think Louise titled her book "Your Mother
Was a Person"? How is the title symbolic of the book as
a whole?
2. What do you think it means to be seen as "a person"?
If you have children, do they see you as "a person"?
Do you see your mother as "a person"?
3. What do you think are the themes of the book?
4. Louise has very close bonds with her grandfathers. What do
you think she learned from them? How does Louise's book help
you connect with stories of your own parents and grandparents?
5. How does the close-knit community of Parowan where Louise
grew up differ from your own childhood? How is it similar?
6. How would you describe Louise's relationship with her mother?
How does this parallel your relationship with your own mother?
7. Louise didn't try to chronologically include everything that
took place in her life - the stories primarily center on her
early years as a child, with a few about her teen years, a handful
about her grandparents and her mother, and only two about her
marriage. The remaining stories are about her life as an adult
in Castro Valley, California. Did the stories give you a good
picture of who she is? Do you wish she wrote more about any
other periods of her life? If so, which ones?
8. Some people might characterize this book as one in a series
of LDS (Mormon) memoirs. Do you think that the reader needs
to be familiar with Mormon life to really enjoy the book, or
are the stories and poems universal, so that the experiences
and ideas will resonate with any reader, regardless of religion?
9. Writers of autobiographical works have the option to self-edit
the stories they publish, and have control over how much or
how little of their true selves they expose to the reader. In
what ways did Louise take risks and expose parts of herself
that other writers might have otherwise kept obscured? If you
were writing a book with this title, what stories of your own
would you include? Would you be willing to expose yourself as
Louise did? What parts of your life would you hope to keep obscured?
10. Louise wrote this book over the course of 20+ years. She
says that once she started, she had little control over the
volume or subject matter; the stories just demanded to be told.
Is there "a book inside each person?" If so, what
prevents more people from writing their stories?
11. How did you feel when you read the book? Which stories,
poems or essays really "sang" for you? Which made
you feel uncomfortable? Which made you question your interpretation
of your own experiences?
12. From Louise's story "One Sunday Morning": "As
I look back on this day and remember how incongruous I must
have looked and acted in a dress that was much too mature for
a child and most inappropriate for church, I remember the kindness
of the people who have shaped my life: my Aunt Maude who made
me a dress that I still remember with delight after 75 years,
a sister who has always been able to make me laugh at improbable
things, and Mrs. Rice and other teachers who encouraged me with
wonderful purple stickers and gold stars, to be on my best behavior,
to sit quietly and not giggle in church, and parents who have
loved me in spite of it all." How do you think the age
at which Louise wrote her stories and poems changes their tone
and perspective? How would they be different had she written
at the time the stories occurred? How will your memoirs be different
if you wait until you are 88 to write them?
13. Does growing up in a community that believes in ghosts,
like the Cross-eyed Ghost residing in the old Parowan schoolhouse,
makes one more susceptible to ghost sightings as an adult? Do
you believe in ghosts?
14. Which aspects of the stories are timeless, and which aspects
are indelibly married to the specific timeframe in which they
actually took place?
15. How do you think gender and familial roles are now different
from Louise's experiences? Are these changes positive or negative?
Click
here for a printable PDF version of the Questions list
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