Understanding the Life Stories of Our Elders

Joseph Bolton is a gifted storyteller and an intrepid explorer of the human experience. With a passion for uncovering the untold narratives that shape our world, Joseph brings a unique blend of insight, empathy, and wit to every conversation. As the author behind the widely acclaimed website OldGrandmothersTree.com, Joseph has garnered a loyal following of readers who are drawn to his ability to breathe life into the stories of everyday people, transforming them into captivating tales that resonate on a profound level.

Joseph’s journey into the world of storytelling began with his commitment to sharing the experiences and wisdom of those often overlooked. His work has been celebrated for its depth and authenticity, earning him a reputation as a writer who not only informs but also inspires. Joseph’s keen eye for detail and his unwavering commitment to uncovering the truth have made him a respected voice in the literary community.

What sets Joseph apart as a podcast guest is his unparalleled ability to connect with audiences. His warm and engaging demeanor, coupled with his knack for finding the extraordinary in the ordinary, makes every conversation with him an enlightening experience. Joseph has a talent for weaving together personal anecdotes, historical context, and cultural insights, creating a rich tapestry of dialogue that captivates listeners from all walks of life.

Whether discussing the latest trends in storytelling, sharing behind-the-scenes glimpses into his creative process, or delving into the fascinating stories he has uncovered, Joseph’s presence on a podcast promises to be both thought-provoking and entertaining. His versatility as a speaker allows him to seamlessly navigate a wide range of topics, from the intricacies of human relationships to the broader social issues that impact our world.

Beyond his professional achievements, Joseph is also deeply committed to fostering a sense of community and connection through his work. He believes in the power of stories to bridge divides and bring people together, and this ethos is evident in everything he does. As a podcast guest, Joseph brings a refreshing perspective and a genuine passion for storytelling, making him an invaluable addition to any podcast looking to engage and inspire its audience.

Website

Old Grandmother’s Tree, Vol. 1, 2, 3

Natasha Pelley-Smith, Illustrator

Ancestry.com

Affiliate Link below.

PodMatch for Podcasters

This episode is brought to you by PodMatch, the dating service for podcasters. They introduced me to Joseph Bolton, and I’m so glad they did. I hope you’ve enjoyed our conversation and remember that if you have a podcast or something to share with the world, check out PodMatch at my affiliate link at PodMatch and tell them Lucinda sent you.

Want to be a guest on Story-Power? Send Lucinda Sage-Midgorden a message on PodMatch, click here: 

Prolific Writers Life

My husband, Barry and I are members and experts at Prolific Writers Life, which offers members a variety of free online work sessions and discounts on coaching with industry experts. They offer opportunities to hone your writing skills, develop your author brand, and connect with a supportive community in live events. You can participate in group chats or send private messages to members through Prolific Writers Chat. If you’ve got a writing project, or are an expert who can help members finish their books, come join the community.

They also offer fun events like Films for Writers, which is free for anyone who wants to attend. It’s like a film club. We watch the movies about writers often with tidbits about their writing life, and then come together on the last Friday evening of every month to discuss the movie. You can check out Prolific Writers Life with a free 14 day trial to see if this the community you have been looking for.

Story-Power on Patreon

I’m so passionate about stories that I created the Story-Power Patreon Community so I’d have an excuse to talk story with other story lovers. Patreon is $5 a month for content not found on the Story-Power podcast, or on my Sage Woman Blog. They have recently instituted a free tier so you can try it out before you buy. If you’re passionate about stories, and want to talk about what you’ve learned from your favorites, come join me at patreon.com/StoryPower. Let’s share what we’ve learned from the stories we love.

Classic Cinema With the Sage Sisters

Stories are a huge part of the way humans communicate with each other. Celeste and I think all stories are allegories where we can learn all kinds of important things, not the least of which is how to understand ourselves and others better. The best stories can be told over and over from one generation to the next and still teach great lessons. Emotional Intelligence and critical thinking are two of those lessons. Celeste and I think there are many classic movies that show us the progression of where humanity is today and we want to share them with you.

Shakespeare was right, “All the world is a stage and all the men and women merely players.” The stories we tell and consume are us trying to figure out who we are, why we’re here, and the kind of world we want to live in.

Come join the conversation on YouTube and our Facebook group.

Classic Cinema: Random Harvest

An amnesiac World War I veteran falls in love with a music-hall star after escaping from a mental hospital in the English Midlands, then suffers an accident which restores his original memories but erases his post-war life.

This romantic drama, released in 1942 was the favorite of their films of both Ronald Colman and Greer Garson. Gene Wilder revealed in an interview on Turner Classic Movies that this was his favorite film and that he also thought it was the best romantic film of all time. Sydney Pollack loved it so much that he wanted to do a remake, but decided against it since it was such a perfect film.

While the opening credits are rolling, the song that accompanies them is “O Perfect Love” often sung at weddings of the time period in which the movie takes place. The words express perfectly the theme of the movie. Part of the lyrics are, “… that theirs may be the love which knows no ending …” Paula/Margaret’s character, played by Greer Garson, has that kind of love for Smithy/Charles. In the photo above, Margaret has spent years searching for Smithy, as she knew him, to no avail until one day she sees his picture in the newspaper as “The Industrial King of England.” Hoping to jar him memory of their years together, she applies for and is hired as his private secretary. However, it takes a few years for him to finally put all the small little snippets of memory together to finally regain those years with her. Her enduring love and his struggle to regain those missing years is what makes the ending so satisfying.

If you haven’t seen this movie, it’s one that may restore you faith in humanity. There are no villains, no violence, only internal struggles similar to the ones we sometimes have. Who are we? Why are we here? How can we help others while continuing to improve our relationships and grow into even better people? 1942 was a very good year for great movies. This one is worth watching more than once.

Let me know what you think of the movie in the comments below.

Stories are a huge part of the way humans communicate with each other. Celeste and I think all stories are allegories where we can learn all kinds of important things, not the least of which is how to understand ourselves and others better. The best stories can be told over and over from one generation to the next and still teach great lessons. Emotional Intelligence and critical thinking are two of those lessons. Celeste and I think there are many classic movies that show us the progression of where humanity is today and we want to share them with you.

Shakespeare was right, “All the world is a stage and all the men and women merely players.” The stories we tell and consume are us trying to figure out who we are, why we’re here, and the kind of world we want to live in.

Come join the conversation on YouTube and our Facebook group.

Travel and World, Especially Africa, and Learn Valuable Lessons

For most of Barry’s forty year broadcast career as an international broadcast journalist spanning five continents, his main area of interest and focus has been on the African continent. 

Both his children were born in Ethiopia while he was employed in Addis Ababa between 1969 and 1975 as both a broadcast and print journalist.  He had the distinction of being among a handful of embedded foreign journalists who told the world about the long, sometimes bloody coup that ultimately toppled Emperor Haile Selassie in September, 1974.

Barry and his colleagues were also the first to bring to the world’s attention the catastrophic drought and subsequent famine that killed countless hundreds of thousands of people in the northern Ethiopian province of Wollo.

In between his two tours of duty in Ethiopia, Barry and his then wife, Suzanne completed a solo overland journey in a Volkswagen Kombi Bus from Egypt to South Africa, visiting fifteen countries along the way. From Addis Ababa onwards, they were accompanied on that odyssey by their one year old son.

From 1976 to 2000, Barry broadcast to Africa on a variety of subjects ranging from politics to sports via the Voice of America’s English to Africa Service in Washington, DC. Long before becoming Service Chief the last five years, Barry broadcast a daily sports program to millions of listeners throughout Africa under the name of The Ole Sports Emperor.

You could say Africa is in Barry’s blood. And you’d be right, both literally and figuratively. During his many forays far and wide on the continent, Barry contracted a variety of diseases including malaria, typhoid, para-typhoid and a couple of other ones either too complicated or not worth explaining.

His memoir, Beneath the African Sun, details both his personal and professional life during the six years after first setting foot on the continent.

Facebook, Instagram

Alexandria, Egypt

Morocco

Ethiopia

Radio Voice of the Gospel

Financial Times, Uk

AP, UPI, New Zealand Broadcasting

Classic Cinema With the Sage Sisters, YouTube

Mississippi Masala (1991)

BBC, Jonathan Dimbleby

PodMatch for Podcasters

This episode is brought to you by PodMatch, the dating service for podcasters. They introduced me to Barry Maughan, and I’m so glad they did. I hope you’ve enjoyed our conversation and remember that if you have a podcast or something to share with the world, check out PodMatch at my affiliate link at PodMatch and tell them Lucinda sent you.

Want to be a guest on Story-Power? Send Lucinda Sage-Midgorden a message on PodMatch, click here 

Prolific Writers Life

My husband, Barry and I are members and experts at Prolific Writers Life, which offers members a variety of free online work sessions and discounts on coaching with industry experts. They offer opportunities to hone your writing skills, develop your author brand, and connect with a supportive community in live events. You can participate in group chats or send private messages to members through Prolific Writers Chat. If you’ve got a writing project, or are an expert who can help members finish their books, come join the community.

They also offer fun events like Films for Writers, which is free for anyone who wants to attend. It’s like a film club. We watch the movies about writers often with tidbits about their writing life, and then come together on the last Friday evening of every month to discuss the movie. You can check out Prolific Writers Life with a free 14 day trial to see if this the community you have been looking for.

Story-Power on Patreon

 I’m so passionate about stories that I created the Story-Power Patreon Community so I’d have an excuse to talk story with other story lovers. Patreon is $5 a month for content not found on the Story-Power podcast, or on my Sage Woman Blog. They have recently instituted a free tier so you can try it out before you buy. If you’re passionate about stories, and want to talk about what you’ve learned from your favorites, come join me at patreon.com/StoryPower. Let’s share what we’ve learned from the stories we love.

Classic Cinema With the Sage Sisters

Stories are a huge part of the way humans communicate with each other. Celeste and I think all stories are allegories where we can learn all kinds of important things, not the least of which is how to understand ourselves and others better. The best stories can be told over and over from one generation to the next and still teach great lessons. Emotional Intelligence and critical thinking are two of those lessons. Celeste and I think there are many classic movies that show us the progression of where humanity is today and we want to share them with you.

Shakespeare was right, “All the world is a stage and all the men and women merely players.” The stories we tell and consume are us trying to figure out who we are, why we’re here, and the kind of world we want to live in.

Come join the conversation on YouTube and our Facebook group.

Classic Cinema: To Kill a Mockingbird

Just in case you don’t know this book and movie, it’s 1932 in Maycomb, Alabama. Widower Atticus Finch is asked to defend Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white woman, which he didn’t commit. Jem and Scout, his young children, are witnesses to the tensions this trial brings up in the town.

The story is told from the children’s point of view. They are curious about everything Atticus does, but also about their neighbors, like the Radleys, especially Boo Radley who is rumored to be at the least odd, or at worst mad.

If you haven’t seen this movie, Celeste and I highly recommend it. It won multiple awards, is on the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress. It’s also on several American Film Institute lists, including Atticus Finch being named the number one hero beating out Indiana Jones and a host of other notable movie heroes.

Be aware that Celeste and I get very emotional at times about this movie because, like Harper Lee, Gregory Peck’s portrayal of Atticus Finch reminds us of our father.

If you like our discussion of To Kill a Mockingbird, please share it with a friend and subscribe to our channel. And come join the conversation on YouTube and our Facebook group.

Past Story-Power Guests Promote Social Justice

My Story-Power guest, Jennifer Manocherian, Episode 112, which aired on October 23, 2024, co-wrote and co-produced the film IF I TELL YOU that is partnering with RAINN, the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization, for an 8 day launch event on GATHR.  IF I TELL YOU was adapted from the novel ‘Closed Doors’ by Lisa O’Donnell. The story follows a pre-adolescent boy whose mother shuts down following an incident she won’t talk about, his struggle to understand what had happened to her, and how it impacts him, his family and the community. There is a Q&A after the movie which is available to stream with from January 29 – February 10. The panel discussion, which is hosted by Jennifer Simmona Kaleba, VP of Communications of RAINN, will cover the various issues raised in the movie. Educational materials from RAINN will also be available to viewers. Your tickets support a good cause, one that is extremely important. As I understand it, the Q&A is only during the launch event.

The tickets are $25 the proceeds go to RAINN and a portion goes to the film producers to offset their costs in making the film. Tickets are available through February 8. For more information go to https://www.ifitellyoufilm.com/ . Once you’ve purchased your tickets, you have three months to view the movie.

Please spread the word about IF I TELL YOU, to your social media outlets to benefit a good cause.

Screenshot

The second Story-Power guest I want to highlight today is Robert J Wolf, M.D. His episode 138 aired on October 22, 2025. We talked about his book, Not a Real Enemy: The True Story of a Hungarian Jewish Man’s Fight for Freedom. He has been selected as a presenter for the Winter session for the Stand With Us Holocaust Education Center. Their goal is to educate people in order to prevent anti-semitism around the world. For more information about their education programs click here

I read Dr. Wolf’s book before our conversation last year and was riveted by his father’s courage in escaping the Nazi work camp, then again when he was recaptured, and finally when he and his wife, Robert’s mother, escaped the Soviets who had taken over Hungary after the war. I highly recommend reading this book. It’s both educational and enthralling. You can order his book here.

And if you are interested in exploring the many other talented Story-Power guests, there are five and half years worth of wonderful episodes to listen to. It is available here, on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple podcasts.

I met both of these wonderful people on PodMatch, what I call a dating service for podcasters. If you’ve got a story to tell, check PodMatch at my affiliate link at PodMatch and tell them Lucinda sent you.

Want to be a guest on Story-Power? Send Lucinda Sage-Midgorden a message on PodMatch, click here: 

Happy Groundhog Day, and let’s be there for our neighbors as we live through the next six weeks of winter and these difficult times.

Blessings to you all,

Lucinda

Affiliate link above.