Category Archives: Stories I’ve Told
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And May Her Memory Be a Blessing: Alzheimer’s Final Goodbye
17March 31, 2019 by Paula Reed Nancarrow
Eulogy for my mother, Dorisanne Kalivoda Reed, who died quietly at home on February 20, 2019. You can read my …
Continue readingCategory: Memoir, Stories I've Told | Tags: Alzheimers, death, family, family life, grief, memory, reading, relationships
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The Making of a Liar
9December 11, 2016 by Paula Reed Nancarrow
I am on the phone with my parents, who live one thousand and sixty-seven miles away in upstate New York. …
Continue readingCategory: Memoir, Stories I've Told | Tags: family life, lies, memoir, parenting, relationships
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When Aging Stops: Fruit Flies, Little Old Ladies and the Late-Life Mortality Plateau
15September 18, 2016 by Paula Reed Nancarrow
Hang around a few evolutionary biologists sometime. I did last week on the Tubes and Wires. You will come across …
Continue readingCategory: Essays, Commentary, Reflection, Stories I've Told | Tags: aging, death, Jeanne Calment, longevity, science
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Buried Women’s History: Lighting the Lantern for Clara Ueland
23September 20, 2015 by Paula Reed Nancarrow
As many of you know, I was scheduled yesterday to tell stories to children at a lantern lighting ceremony at …
Continue readingCategory: History, Stories I've Told | Tags: Brenda Ueland, Clara Ueland, death, family life, Lakewood Cemetery, marriage, women's history, women's narratives, women's suffrage
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The Devil Marries Three Sisters: An Italian Folktale
23April 19, 2015 by Paula Reed Nancarrow
How the Devil Married Three Sisters was published in 1885 in a book of Italian folktales. The stories were collected by …
Continue readingCategory: Myth, folk and faery, Stories I've Told | Tags: devil, folk tale, hell, heroines, humor, marriage, performance, Story Arts of Minnesota, StoryFest, storytelling
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Forgotten is Forgiven: An Alzheimer’s Story
206April 12, 2015 by Paula Reed Nancarrow
As some readers will know, I was on blogcation last week, visiting my parents. There was much to be thankful …
Continue readingCategory: Memoir, Stories I've Told | Tags: aging, Alzheimers, F. Scott Fitzgerald, family, family life, gender roles, health, long form, marriage, memory
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Small Town
22February 15, 2015 by Paula Reed Nancarrow
The theme for WordSprout’s February’s Story Slam – which I did not perform at – was “Spill the Beans.” This …
Continue readingCategory: Stories I've Told | Tags: adoption, dating, family, family life, high school, mixed race children, music, parenting, prejudice, racism, relationships, small towns
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My Precocious Cross
18February 8, 2015 by Paula Reed Nancarrow
I have an early memory as a child of the priest coming to visit our house. A young, handsome priest …
Continue readingCategory: Memoir, Stories I've Told | Tags: Catholicism, childhood, Christianity, cross, crucifix, faith, family life, Holy Family, memory, religion, Work in Process
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The Clean Plate Club
35December 7, 2014 by Paula Reed Nancarrow
I am sitting on a red plastic chair at the gray laminate table in our kitchen. My parents bracket the …
Continue readingCategory: Stories I've Told | Tags: childhood, Dr. Seuss, family life, food, freedom, lies, mashed potatoes, Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, parenting, self trust, siblings, story slams, television shows, The Flintstones, truth
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The Two Presidents from New Hampshire
14November 9, 2014 by Paula Reed Nancarrow
This post, updated from the original on my Ordinary Time blog, as well as a story I’ve told, seemed an appropriate …
Continue readingCategory: History, Republished from Elsewhere, Stories I've Told | Tags: accidents, alcoholism, Civil War, dark horse candidate, death, elections, family life, fiction, Franklin Pierce, George W. Bush, grief, inauguration, Jane Pierce, Jed Bartlet, Kansas-Nebraska Act, marriage, Nathaniel Hawthorne, New Hampshire, reality, slavery, The West Wing, user-generated content, Wikipedia
Paula Reed Nancarrow 