Your life,
Your Legacy
​
I’m guessing you have such stories, moments that helped mold you into the person you’ve become. As you look back over your life, are there stories you’d like to share with your family and preserve for future generations? Maybe it’s the lessons you learned in building your career. Maybe it’s stories that span your life (childhood to present) that are meaningful to you. That’s where I can help.
I have been a professional journalist for 30 years, and I have judged the Pulitzers twice. I am also a published author with 17 books and more on the way. I love telling stories, and I’d love the opportunity to tell yours.
If this is something that interests you, let’s chat.
I believe that everyone has a story (or more) worth preserving. I’m offering you the chance to capture your stories so that your family, generations from now, will know a little bit about you. What were your hopes and dreams? What were you proud of? What life lessons helped mold you? What were the mistakes you made, the chances you took and the races you won?
Preserving our lives through the written word forms a connection between the present and the past. And I think it’s the one thing we can leave behind that will grow more meaningful generation after generation.
This is your life, your legacy. In your words.
I grew up in a small town in south central Pennsylvania. As a young girl, I spent many summer days climbing the smallest cherry tree in our yard. I’d sit on a thick knobby branch eating the juicy fruit and spitting out the seeds.
One day I had an idea. I could sell the cherries and spend my earnings on penny candy. I found some used fruit boxes in the old outhouse my dad had converted to a storage shed. I filled up the boxes, starting with the cherries on the ground and topping each box with cherries I picked. I loaded the boxes in my red wagon and pulled it down the street. It wasn’t long before I had an empty wagon and pennies in my pocket.
I headed for Jake’s, a little store across the alley behind my house. I climbed up on the wooden bench in front of the antique glass candy case and Jake opened a small brown bag waiting for me to tell him what I wanted. Ten red fish, five tootsie rolls and on and on it went until I’d spent everything I'd earned.
I was one happy kid. I had a bag full of candy and got it with little effort. Life couldn’t get any better.
Later that day, neighbors starting calling our party line. Turned out half of the cherries I sold them were rotten and they weren’t happy about it. “You need to return their money,” my dad said. “But I can’t,” I explained, holding up what was left of my bag of candy. “I spent it all.”
And that’s when I found myself back on that knobby branch picking cherries. “You’re going to pick two boxes for every one you sold,” Dad said. “Now get to it.”
​
​
Testimonial
Buffy Andrews was able to do in three months what our family has been unable to do in over 10 yrs. and she did it better than we ever could have. Buffy was able to gather and write about the details, stories, highs and lows of my parents' lives in a very organized, efficient and thoughtful manner capturing not just the facts of their lives but the emotions and feelings along the way. She told their story in their words. While the above is true, what Buffy really did was give our children, their children and generations to come the gift of knowing where they came from and the lives, values and inspiration of their ancestors known to them as Mamaw and Papaw. We can't thank her enough!
​
-John Giambalvo
