Snapshots of My Father

With Family Stories Month (November) coming up, a great example of family stories is Snapshots of My Father, a memoir about a monumental man whose story is centered around his family. John Silber had an illustrious career, first at The University of Texas at Austin, then the Chancellor of Boston University, and finally a controversial Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate.

“Forces that Marked the Man” – did you know?

* “The women on both sides of [Rachel Devlin’s] family tree didn’t wait around to be empowered; they were always forces to be reckoned with” – Rachel would love to talk about how John’s powerful mother and mother-in-law shaped the way he loved and interacted with his family and set important examples for Rachel and her sisters.

* Not being given a bike as a child caused John to create a bike-related family tradition that was experienced by all 7 of his children. – Rachel would love to talk about how her father, who worked full time, successfully made time to be with his seven children, all together and individually, and his wife.

* Time and time again, John Silber and his wife packed their seven children, meals, and air mattresses (they never needed more than a single hotel room) into their car and took their family across the United States, and even through Europe. – Rachel and her siblings have fond memories of many family trips taken in this manner. Let's remind your audience that bigger and more expensive isn't always better, there are opportunities for traveling, learning, and fun everywhere.

What Snapshots of My Father can teach us about family relationships:

• The importance of working together. The seven children didn’t just have chores; they had chores they were expected to complete together. And their father did not just supervise, he himself was directly involved in the work– assisting, teaching, and overseeing. For someone so cerebral, he had an infectious enthusiasm for non-verbal tasks, which was passed to his children thought all the times they worked together in the yard.
• Life is not always fair, but there is solace knowing that those who love us value our worth. After not being gifted a bike by an aunt despite his older brother receiving one, and being let down again by an uncle who had seen the event, John Silber "seemed to feel that it was important for each child to experience a sense of unfairness and to suffer from it, followed by a communing moment with someone who understood and balanced the score.” For Rachel, this came about with the denial and subsequent receival of an actual bike, an explosion of joy she remembers well to this day.

Rachel Silber Devlin presents a remarkably candid and richly illustrated biography of her father who entirely transformed Boston University as its President and Chancellor (1971–2003), and was the controversial, yet intellectually formidable, candidate for governor of Massachusetts. Silber was a husband and father of seven children an authentic man of principle who was on the commission that created Head Start and he championed freedom of speech, especially on college campuses, refusing to allow protesters to stop those with opposing views from being heard. *The book includes 200+ images from Boston University and family archives.*