By Kimberly McMillian
Correspondent
DAYTON, Tenn. -- Marliese Montgomery believes happy and fun photos about her mother are a better way to tell her story than simply to refer to her as a breast-cancer survivor.
So she took those photos to a recent workshop that taught families of cancer patients and survivors how to "storybook" their loved ones' memories.
Storybooking combines storytelling and digital scrapbooking so that families can create wire-bound swatch books or 21-page hardcover storybooks.
At the workshop, held at Art Crafters in Dayton and co-sponsored by Heritage Makers, a storybooking website, Montgomery told other participants that her storybook has been a three-month endeavor, and she shared the variety of graphics she's used to personalize it.
Alana Brodniak demonstrated her storybooking account of her potato-farmer grandmother, who discovered a love for painting landscapes in her late 50s before she died of breast cancer.
She had a "dream to do something" as a tribute to her grandmother, said Brodniak, a representative of the Foundation for Stories of Cancer Heroes, a national organization that allows cancer victims and their families to publish their personal stories.
As part of the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life of Rhea County, husband and wife Kyle and Brenda Rice hosted a bake sale and passed out brochures and cancer resource guides at the workshop. Kyle Rice's mother is a cancer survivor, while Brenda Rice's father died from cancer.
A lot of people don't know where to go when cancer is diagnosed, and the resource guide can help, Rice said.
Kimberly McMillian is based in Rhea County. Contact her at kdj424@ bellsouth.net.
STORYBOOK INFORMATION
* www.icelebratelife.com or Alana Brodniak at 423-637-6713
* www.heritagemakers.com