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Cheney: Write personal history while at home

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We’re stuck at home for who knows how long due to the coronavirus. The heart virus? I love the name of this virus but not how it has stopped everything. But I know something can we do with this time.

We can write the story of our own lives or anything we want to write about. We have everything we need — photographs, recipes, important documents, records from earlier life and recollections from our hearts and minds.

Who cares whether we write it out in longhand or type it on a computer? Nobody but us. I’m doing the story of my life with old photos that I’m scanning from my printer to my computer. If you don’t know how, just put in the name/date of the photo in your story and save it for later to get help.

Why am I on this subject? I’ve helped many people write their autobiographies and they usually haven’t had the time to do the necessary work. You might get some ideas from those I’ve helped.

Kenneth Jacuzzi wanted to write the story of how his father invented the jacuzzi to relieve his pain from childhood arthritis. We published it under the title, “Jacuzzi: A Father’s Invention to Ease a Son’s Pain.” His fingers were affected by his illness and he couldn’t type, so I did that. He included photos, ads for the jacuzzi, including one with Charlton Heston, and pictures that he had painted poorly but was proud to have tried. It’s no best seller but he was so proud of it that he applied to be the Arizona Handicap Supervisor under Governor Janet Napolitano. He got the job by showing her his book.

A lady from Sun City West endured child abuse and spousal abuse. She wanted to write the story of her life and how she healed. I told her to do a five-page story of each incident she could recall and send it to me each week. She found a way to fit that in with her job and got the story finally done. She sent it around and one day a representative from an abuse group asked her to give a talk on what happened to her and how she recovered. Out of that and her further interest, Lois Gentry published “Growing Up a Shadow: Abuse Recovery.”

A 96-year-old lady from Sun City called one day and said she heard I help people write books. She said, “I love dogs. I’ve even entered some in dog contests. Somebody told me there are dog mysteries. Can you help me write one?” What a wonderful new challenge for her and for me. I told her to think up ways that dogs could help solve crimes and to write a few paragraphs about each idea she got. She loved the plan but didn’t type. She wrote those out and went on to self-publish through an agency that I recommended. She wrote books until she was 100 when she died. The last book before she died was about her historic relative. Look them up under Edna Collins, “Dog Mysteries — The Scent of a Stranger and Murder in the Garden,” “Who Killed Who — The Little Dog Knew,” “The Woman Was a Devil” and “Peter Lauck: Huguenot American Hero” (1753-1839).

Another author was a Sun City minister who became a Sun City West resident, Dr. Donald Farrior. He also served as chief chaplain at Del Webb Medical Center, 14502 W. Meeker Blvd., until his death. His son had committed suicide so Dr. Farrior and his wife were devastated. Their congregation decided to send them on a cruise around the world lasting a few weeks. Dr. Farrior said he wanted to recover and write about his ministry, which had included humor. At first people disliked him trying to say anything funny at the pulpit but he gradually reached acceptance.

“How can I write this?” he asked one week before his cruise I said, “Write a first chapter about your son and his death or you won’t be able to get to your main message. Send me a chapter of a few pages every time you reach port and get off the ship. Then do a chapter as you go through each part of your life. When you come home, I’ll give you the book and we’ll make any changes you like.” He was so happy with it that he had it published. It’s called, “I Did Not Burn the Church Down, I Only Started the Fire.”

One man asked me to help him write about how he had five battle stars. He had Parkinson’s disease and couldn’t write clearly. So, he wrote it out about his role in battles, including desert training, D-Day and Normandy, The Battle of the Bulge, hospital and heading home. Retired Capt. James McLeod decided to publish it and you will find it at Amazon under “Battery Commander: Five Battle Stars.”

Another fellow from Glendale wanted to write about his life as a beekeeper. He asked, “Can I make it interesting?” I said, “The key word to capture interest would be the word ‘problems.’ Beekeeping was an area I knew nothing about. But William Dullas did and when he died in 2019, his obituary said, ‘As a result of his many years of expert work in the bee business, Bill published a book in 2008 entitled ‘ABCs of Beekeeping Problems and Problem Beekeepers.’”

Some do autobiographies just for family, such as a relative who wrote “Cheney Family and Kitchen: Recipes, History, Pictures and Photos of the Cheneys.” Another was Sun City West resident Samuel King “Bob” Hanna who called his document “My Legacy: The Story of the Hanna Cattlemen.” Sun City resident Sallie Rose Highstreet Spreen had won a beauty contest and called her document “From the Peaks to the Pits to the Pinnacle.” She also wrote of a marriage late in life to a Mr. Spreen, whom I met.

Johannes Spreen wanted to write books. He had been New York City Police Department assistant chief. He wrote about his early life in Germany, his life as a cop and second job as the Detroit police commissioner. He wrote another book about his life as a Michigan county sheriff. Some of his books, which included speeches and newspaper articles about him, were very interesting and helped readers understand the mix between politics, police and crime. Two of his books were “Who Killed Detroit” and “American Police Dilemma: Protectors or Enforcers?”

We are all going to be sitting around for a while until this coronavirus passes. If you want to make your heart content, use this once in a lifetime halt to normal activities and make it yours. If you want somebody to read what you write, send it to me. We won’t meet, of course, unless we wait until all this has passed. But, I’ll answer any questions as best I can.

What else am I doing? Just writing about my life to pass the time. I’ve also written books, such as “The Mind of Oswald: Accused Assassin of President John F. Kennedy” and most recently “Sleep Problems, Food Solutions: The Impact of Sleep Problems on Society.”

Send anything you wish me to read to Dr. Diane Cheney at 20402 N. 150th Drive, Sun City West, AZ 85375. You can also send things over e-mail to drdiane743@gmail.com.

This is all “on the house,” as they say.

Editor’s Note: Diane Cheney, a Sun City West resident, is a licensed clinical psychologist.

Write, history, home