# 22 questions to ask your grandmother about love and marriage

Ask for the day, not the summary. "How did you meet" is the beginning; "what went wrong at the wedding" is where the book is. Bring one photo each visit. A photograph she has not seen in years will produce more than any question on this list.

1. How did you meet, and when did you know? Tell me the actual day.
   A scene, not a summary.
2. What was the first fight about, and who gave in?
3. What did your parents think of them at first?
4. What did you wear on your wedding day, and what went wrong?
   Something always goes wrong. That is the story.
5. What did you call each other? Was there a name nobody else used?
6. What did they do that showed they loved you, without saying it?
7. What do you remember about the day your first child was born?
8. What did you worry about for us that we never knew?
9. Which house did you bring your first baby home to, and what did it still need doing?
10. Where did you go dancing, and what night of the week was it?
   The dance hall is where most of the love chapters begin.
11. What was the song at your wedding, and who chose it?
   Who chose it is the answer.
12. Where did you spend your honeymoon, and what did it cost?
13. What did you do on the first proper date, and what did it cost?
   The cost and the venue date the scene exactly.
14. Where did you live in the first year you were married, and what was wrong with it?
   What was wrong with the first home is the first shared story.
15. What is a habit of theirs that you have caught without meaning to?
16. What did you argue about in the twentieth year that you never argued about in the first?
   A marriage changes subject. The subjects are the chapters.
17. What did you learn about them from their family the first time you visited?
18. Who proposed, where, and what were the exact words?
   The exact words are a line of dialogue the book can quote.
19. Was there a time you nearly left, or nearly lost them? (tender: ask once, late, in person)
20. Who did you love before that, and what happened? (tender: ask once, late, in person)
21. Did you ever keep something from your husband or wife to protect them? Did it work? (tender: ask once, late, in person)
22. Was there a child, a marriage or a love that the family does not know about? (tender: ask once, late, in person)
   Ask it only when you have earned it, and accept the first answer.

## How to use these questions

Ask by voice, not by form. Record it. One or two questions a visit is enough; the follow-up ("who else was there?", "what did she say?", "what happened the day after?") matters more than the next question on the list. Tender questions are marked; ask them once, late, and with "or would you rather leave that?" in the question itself.

## About Tellforth

Tellforth asks questions like these by voice, remembers every answer, asks the next question a good listener would, and writes a finished book from what was said: a memoir in the person's own words, or a novel built on the true story. You own every recording. https://tellforth.com