How We Preserved Our Family Stories for Generations with Remento

Mary and Larry found in Remento a meaningful way to preserve the family stories and memories that might otherwise remain untold, creating something their children, grandchildren, and future generations can return to.

“Our four kids know our history, but they know it’s just kind of like a leapfrog. Some of the details on how we felt about things and different things we did in college and stuff that we just never talked about.”

How We Preserved the Family Stories We Had Never Told with Remento

Our four kids know our history, but there were still a lot of things they didn’t know. There were stories from college, details about things we had done, and feelings about different moments that we had just never talked about.

When our son gave us Remento as a holiday gift, it gave us a reason to start talking about some of those things. We had also seen Charlie Greene on Shark Tank, and his story and the reason behind Remento really moved me. It made me think about how meaningful it is to take the experiences we’ve lived through and preserve them for the people who come after us.

“It was really easy to follow the prompts, to understand the recording, to get it set up, to know how to record it, to know how to edit it. It was just, go for it.”

The prompts gave us a place to start. We didn’t have to sit down and figure out what our whole life story was supposed to be. We could answer a question, remember something, and just keep going from there.

Learn how Remento works

What Stories Did Remento Help Us Finally Tell Our Kids?

Some of the questions brought up things we probably wouldn’t have thought to talk about on our own. Once we started answering the weekly Remento prompts we received through email and text, one memory could lead to another.

What we liked was how naturally the stories came back. We weren’t trying to make them sound a certain way or decide beforehand what was worth telling. We could just talk about what we remembered, and Remento took care of turning the memories into pages and pages of stories, we did not have to write.

“We really enjoyed the quality of the product. We enjoyed the simplicity.”

Being able to record in video and audio was important to us. When you hear someone tell a story, you get more than the words. You hear their voice, their laughter, their pauses, and the way they tell something they remember.

We could also bring photos into the stories, which made some of those memories feel even more familiar.

Learn how Remento works if you want to see exactly what that first prompt looks like.

Creating the Remento Book We Can Pass Down

Once the stories were gathered into our Remento Books, it was nice to have them in something we could actually hold. Each of us had a book of our own, and it made the experience feel personal in a way that a collection of files on a computer probably wouldn’t.

Our kids already know a lot about us. But there are things they may not know unless we tell them, and there are probably things they wouldn’t think to ask.

“Whether or not our kids would even listen to it didn’t really matter to us because we knew it would be preserved even beyond them, like the grandkids, so forth.”

That was one of the things we liked most about it. We weren’t thinking only about our four kids. We were thinking about the grandchildren, too, and whoever comes after them.

The written stories are connected to our original recordings, so they can read what we shared and hear us telling the stories ourselves by simply scanning the QR codes in the books.

Take a look inside a Remento Book

Why Did Preserving Our Actual Voices Matter More Than Just Writing the Words Down?

There is something different about hearing someone tell their own story.

A written memory can tell you what happened. Video and audio can give you the voice, the expression, the laughter, and the little pauses that are part of the memory too.

“Just let it flow from our memory and our feelings.”

That was really how we approached it. We didn’t worry about making every story perfect. We just talked about the things we remembered and let the stories come out naturally.

What we have now is a collection of memories that our family can come back to. Maybe someday, someone will hear one of those stories and learn something about us that they never knew before.

A Few Things People Ask Us About Our Experience Using Remento

Did we have to write anything ourselves? 

No. We answered Remento's prompts out loud, and Remento turned the recordings into the written stories in our books. We didn't draft a single page.

Can our grandkids hear us in our own voices, not just read the text? 

Yes. Every story in our books has a QR code that links back to the original video or audio, so anyone can scan it and hear us actually telling the story, not just read it.

Did it matter to us whether our kids listened right away? 

Not really. We made the books knowing they'd still be there for the grandchildren, and whoever comes after them, whenever they're ready for it.

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