I wanted to save my family’s stories. Instead, I found a connection I didn’t know I was missing

This First Person column is the experience of Andrew Stetson, a writer and storyteller in P.E.I. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ.

It was supposed to be a simple project. A few quick recordings for a family group chat. But what started as an offhand suggestion turned into a multi-year project to create a family podcast — one that changed everything I thought I knew about belonging.

It was days before my grandfather’s funeral in August 2023. My dad and I were packing up my apartment in Ottawa, moving through its now half-empty rooms. The sharp ripping of packing tape and the quiet shuffle of sock feet filled that uncomfortably heavy silence, a tension of grief left unspoken between us.

I was standing on my bed, peeling a large paper map from the nearby concrete wall when his voice broke the hush: “What do you think of recording some of Mum’s stories while we still can?”

I didn’t really know what to think. 

I had just turned 25 and even though storytelling had shaped so much of my life — from working in Island museums to earning my journalism degree — I found myself wondering, “Is there even anything worth recording?”

I had no idea how wrong I was.

A hesitant beginning

I wasn't the only one who was reluctant at first. It took nearly two years before my grandmother Hazel, who turned 93 in 2025, finally agreed.

“Oh, I don’t have anything to share,” she’d say. “There’s not much to be told.”

Eventually, we gathered a few relatives, a list of questions and hit record.

Listening back now, I can hear her nerves — short, careful answers, the quiet hesitation of someone searching for just the right words. In those nervous pauses, that old country kitchen boomed with the hum of tired appliances and the clang of the grandfather clock.

But with each question, the nerves began to fade. 

Slowly, her childhood came into focus — life at the Scales Hydro Electric Plant in South Freetown, P.E.I., where she was born and raised, and where her father, John Heffel, helped transform an 1800s grist mill into a power plant that serviced the nearby communities. That’s where my family’s story — and with it, a little piece of Island history — began.

Familiar stories in a new light

One interview became two, then four, and this little project grew beyond anything we’d planned. We spoke with relative after relative, each voice carrying a lifetime of shared laughter and loss. 

Some stories were fun – childhood pranks and late-night joy rides in the family car. 

Others were far heavier.

I’d grown up hearing bits and pieces about the 1964 car accident that claimed the lives of my great-grandfather, his wife, their son-in-law and six-year-old grandson. To me, it belonged to another time. I knew the names but the people behind them felt like strangers.

Hearing it now — from those who had lived through it, including my grandmother — changed everything. Even after 60 years, their voices still trembled. For the first time, I felt the full weight of that story, and of the people whose names we still honour today.

I understood then that these stories didn’t need saving — they needed space to be heard again.

‘I hope you understand how much this means to the family’

I never meant for it to become a full-scale production, but I knew these voices deserved more than a life on a hard drive.

After months of listening, editing and recording, I released my podcast, The Freetown Files — a 16-episode portrait of my family’s history, told through the voices of those who lived it.

Then the messages started pouring in from family across the country — some I’d grown up with, and others I barely knew.

“Having these memories preserved in time is such a gift.”

“I hope you understand how much this means to the family … to be able to hear Mom’s voice forever.”

“I wish we’d done something like this with my parents.”

But no reaction meant more than my dad’s.

This had been his dream — to keep his family’s stories forever. As we sat on the front porch one quiet August evening while our family's voices drifted through the dusk from a portable speaker in a tree branch, I could see how much it meant to him. 

What began as his idea became a gift I could give back to him.

Finding myself in a family story

I felt enormous pressure telling these stories — especially those about family members who were no longer here to speak for themselves. I knew I only had one chance to get it right.

I wanted every laugh, every tear, every word to feel true. 

But somewhere in those hours spent listening to these stories, something shifted. I began hearing echoes of my own habits and quirks. It was like holding up a mirror and seeing generations before me reflected back.

I’ve always struggled to let go when something isn’t working. My mind spins until I find the answer. I’d always thought it was just one of my quirks.

Until I heard about my great-uncle Linus, who could be found in his shop at all hours of the night, clanging away at a lawnmower until it ran just right. Only then could he drag himself to bed.

Hearing that, I could see myself in him — generations apart, both chasing that same invisible thread of stubbornness and curiosity. Family isn’t just shared names — it’s shared wiring. The ways we think, the things that drive us, the quirks we mistake as our own — they’re the threads that bind us together.

I thought I was just preserving my family’s past. But somewhere along the line, I found my place in it.

‘For me, that’s enough’

That day in my apartment, as we packed away my life, I didn’t know I was about to unpack my family history.

The more time I spent with these recordings, the more I understood how much of us lives in our stories, and how many stories it takes to truly capture those we love — the good, the bad, the unforgettable and the ones we try to forget.

I know I can’t keep my family forever, but I can keep their stories. And for me, that’s enough.

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