Legacy Garden with Bryan Frank: How to Preserve Family Stories Before They Fade

Welcome And The Power Of Legacy

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome to Ready Set Collaborate with Wanda Pearson. This is where ideas spark, connections grow, and collaborations fuse success. Tune in for inspiring stories, expert insights, and game-changing conversations. Let's build, connect, and thrive together. Remember, collaboration is the key to success.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Welcome to another Heartfield episode of Ready Say Collaborate with one of the peers in where collaboration is the key to success. And legacy is the impact we leave behind. Today's guest, Brian Frank, owner of Legacy Garden, a service dedicated to helping families preserve memories, honor loved ones, and create meaningful connections across generations. Brian's work brings together storytelling, healing, and community, especially for seniors and families and navigating life transition. This conversation is about purpose, connection, and what it truly means to leave something meaningful behind. I love that, Brian, that you actually want to share what you do. And first of all, say hello to the audience, Brian.

SPEAKER_03 1:12

Hello, everybody. My name is Brian Frank, founder of Legacy Garden. It's good to be here. Thank you, Wanda.

Brian Frank’s Storytelling Background

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. We're happy to have you here. Let me read Brian's bio and then we're going to get this party started here. Seattle native Brian Frank took his art degree in active training to the Hollywood entertainment industry, quickly learning the nuances of visual narrative storytelling. He worked with top directors like Co YT and Kevin McKidd on shows like 911 Lone Star and Bel Air, including actors like Grace Anatomy, Cobra Kai, and other top-rated series. I love that. I didn't know you did that. Oh wow. Interesting. On one Thanksgiving, he recorded his Asian father's life stories. One month later, Brian's father passed away. So sorry to hear that. But he had his legacy than really what you did. Realizing people's true life experiences proved more compelling than fiction or melodrama. Brian created Legacy Garden, a white club heirloom service that endeavors to preserve family history and the subject's own voice, joy, pain, and love. Thank you, Brian, for sharing that with us. I, you know, that's that's awesome. I love that. Thank you. I love that. Did you want to add something else about your uh your bio here?

Lost Family Stories Spark A Mission

SPEAKER_03 2:28

Not a whole heck of a lot. That covers the brass tacks of it. I'm just a by nature a creative person and a natural-born storyteller. I get that from my grandfather on my daddy's side. Creole folks. They they like to jaw. I do everything creative. And I, as we had spoken a little bit ago, I always felt that good art and good storytelling does two things. One, it entertains the audience, and two, it plants seeds of empathy, whether it's a movie or a TV show or a book or a graphic novel, even or a piece of art. If you can come out of the movie theater and say, gee, I really didn't know it was like that for certain people. Let's talk about it. Then I think that's a good, a good story. I think that's a good piece. And Legacy Garden checks those boxes because the truth is, let's take, for example, my grandfather, who I just mentioned, he was in World War II. He was a passing for white Creole who was on a minesweeper in the Navy. And he told me himself that his uh superiors, when they were assigning barracks, it was still segregated at the time. And they put him with the white folks, the white sailors in the barracks. And he said, Excuse me, all due respect, there's a mistake here. At the time, they called themselves Negro, I'm a Negro, I need to go over with the other Negroes. And and that was that was how proud my grandfather was, even though a lot of people mistook him for white. And those are those are the kinds of there's plenty other stories. I mean, the show's only half hour, but uh he had plenty of those stories around the dinner table, and they're lost forever because we never recorded it. Legacy Garden is hopes to rectify that situation so that Gen X, like myself, my grandchildren, and their grandchildren are going to know where the family came from. The what they called the uh the greatest generation or the GI generation, which is my grandfather's generation, mostly gone now. So the elderly now are shoot, man. I can't even remember the name the name of the generation, but those who spent their childhood through World War II and through the 50s and the civil rights movement and the JFK assassination, all that kind of thing, the moon landing, those are the stories that my grandchildren's grandchildren will want to hear straight from the mouths of the people that experienced it. And also so that your family, your bloodline will know what where they came from and what their family went through. That's lost with my grandparents. So we hope we hope to preserve that for those families who want to capture the voice and the reflections and the lived experiences of their loved ones who have since passed.

The Thanksgiving Recording That Changed Everything

SPEAKER_01 5:30

I love that. And it took a lot of courage for your grandfather to do that, especially during those times to tell it because a lot of them just say, oh, they just stay where they are. But that's awesome. And I love that you actually bring it this out, but to tell the grandkids and kids about their legacies. This this is awesome. You answer actually answer some of my question here. What inspired you the great legacy garden?

SPEAKER_03 5:52

So you have something else that Yes, as mentioned in the bio, it was Thanksgiving, and I had this compact camera that's probably totally obsolete by now. And and after dinner, my my father was starting to his health was starting to wane, and it was his 77th birthday. I put the camera on a little tripod, and he my my father was a police sergeant all his life with the sheriff's department. And I just put it in front of him and asked him about his life, and it wasn't anything super deep, but in the conversation, which was less than an hour, I learned so many things about my father that I otherwise wouldn't have. And there there were some very rich stories in there because my grandparents were passing, my dad was very passing, but his brother and his sister were both more visibly brown, African-American. And so that was a very interesting time growing up in the 50s and 60s with that kind of dynamic. And then also being a policeman, he one time was at held at gunpoint and had his gun taken away from him by a couple of criminals, and and these things I never knew about. So it was it was a very interesting experience. And then sadly, my father passed away a month later on Christmas night. And when we had the memorial service and such, my extended family had started saying, Brian, I heard that you have this video. Can we have it? And I was sure. Everybody got a copy, and then I started thinking, this might be something that would be of value to other people as well. And that was the birth of what we now call Legacy Garden.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

I love it. I love it because that is so true. Because we I told you about my little my husband with the little what are you called, video eight camera, and he was videotaping when my nieces and nephew come over. They say, He said, 'Aunty, you got that video and stuff because you never know.' And like my father, he was 77 when he passed away, too. You know, that was, and I just retired from IBM, so I was able to go spend time with him. But something like that. And then we have videos of them as well. Now you give me ideas. I got to do something with these videos to show.

SPEAKER_03 8:06

Yeah, definitely. Because those things are.

Why The Name Legacy Garden

SPEAKER_01 8:09

Yeah, no, it really makes sense. I love what you're doing here. Now it really does make a sense. You now, what does the name Legacy Garden mean to you? I know you named it Legacy Garden, but what does it mean to you?

SPEAKER_03 8:18

Originally it was just called Our Legacy, and people thought that it wasn't specific enough, and I really hadn't given it much thought. So I did a whole lot of brainstorming, and I wanted something that would create an image in someone's head about growth and about history. And and the garden idea came out with the rich soil and organic things that can grow from it and then eventually die, replenish the soil so that it can grow again. And then legacy, of course, is is a word that that means the the enduring of of information. And so that that's that's how that happened. I'm pretty pleased with how that turned out.

Partners Who Help Families Transition

SPEAKER_01 9:14

Yeah, yeah. I'm sure you have. And now I want to ask you, so who do you collaborate with when you're doing this here?

SPEAKER_03 9:22

I have been collaborating, well, first of all, with people who do creative things that I can't do. I I'm an illustrator by trade and an actor and a writer and a director, and that's why I that's how that feeds over into the lighting and the sound. But graphic design is not really my vibe. I've I've collaborated with some old friends and graphic designers, and one hand kind of washes the other, especially the members of Generation X who have those aging parents. It's like, yeah, you help me out here, and I'll be glad to record your folks. And also marketing. Uh, I've had marketing consultants plural who have just given input that there's no way I would have thought of. It's just not really my language. We've helped each other out with that. And then through getting the word out, I wasn't even aware that this kind of position existed in the world. But uh, senior home care coaches and advisors, and typically realtors who help families transition their senior relatives out of their forever home and into the right kind of independent living or assisted care or senior home and and also helping with all the red tape and paperwork that happens. I I wish I knew about that when we had to transition my mother into her senior living place after my father passed away. So I've gotten a lot of enthusiasm for Legacy Garden through through those coaches, and uh we help each other out that way.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

I love it because that was actually my next question. Oh, I'm like one step ahead of you the whole time. We are no, it's good. How do senior living community support your work? And you were talking about the coaches and that type of thing.

SPEAKER_03 11:25

Well, with the coaches, they help get the word out when it's when it's necessary. I'm not a I'm not a big salesperson, unfortunately, a creative type, but uh outside sales isn't exactly my vibe. So they they really help out with that, and then getting in touch with members of senior living communities, event coordinators, directors, also the individuals. And I'm just starting to try and get into the veterans' affairs, the VFA, the VFW, Veterans of Foreign Wars organizations, because there's some rich stories in there.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

And oh, absolutely. And I was gonna ask you about that, the VA and the VFW. Yeah, tell us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_03 12:08

Yeah, I haven't I haven't really cracked that nut quite yet, but you're gonna get it. Getting the word out. There's I was never in the military. My father and my grandfather was, but being able to get in there and see what these people's experiences are, like I said, with those seeds of empathy. People who have never been there may have very strong opinions about what the military does. But uh getting the there's the thing about that I found is that people can have these bullet point parts in their life. I graduated high school, I went to college, I joined the military, I got married, I had kids, I retired. But it's all those rich nuggets in between that that are really compelling. And I really hope that the Veterans Affairs and W are receptive to this because that's going to be extremely gratifying and very fascinating for me.

Serving The Sandwich Generation

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Absolutely. And there are a lot of VA locations around. I mean, I don't know, we they have one actually in Marietta that they just built. Going there and letting them know what you do, I think would be great to really kind of bring that out here. How do you support the sandwich generation?

SPEAKER_03 13:16

The sandwich generation, well, for those that that's kind of a new term to me, but the sandwich generation are are individuals of Generation X and perhaps older millennials who are caring for their parents and also still caring for their own children.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

Right.

SPEAKER_03 13:39

And these are the people who it probably creates the most value for their children, don't know what they don't know yet. And I've found that the older generation, my mom, for example, she didn't want me to put a camera in front of her because she thought that her life was boring. Sometimes the kind of the battle is telling your parents, no, your life is fascinating, I promise you. So the that sandwich generation is are the people who who find the most value not only for themselves, but for their children and for their unborn grandchildren who don't even know how great this world is. Because I just read that Generation X, we are the last generation to understand what life is before the internet.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:33

And the Gen Alpha, they don't know what life is like without having a computer in your hand.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 14:40

I mean, I remember when when I was in high school in the 80s, I had to go to typing class to learn.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

Me too. Me too.

SPEAKER_03 14:46

This kind of stuff. Now they grow, they grow up with this right here.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And don't know how to add because they got to use a calculator. You got to use a calculator, right? We had to learn how to know. Okay, teacher, how did you get this answer? You had to actually go the long way in math of how you got that answer.

SPEAKER_02 15:04

Yeah, it'd be one whole sheet of paper, just all these different steps and steps and steps, and they say, Oh, you missed step 12.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Oh, yeah. And the thing is, I'm trying to help now with we are babysitting our grandkids and and our daughter helping them with their homework. And I told my husband, okay, you you're good at math, you you can help them with this. I do the English part, but they wanted to know how you got to that answer. And and it's totally different how they do these things now. Yes, that that's another whole story. That's another whole conversation. That's a whole conversation. Why is preserving stories important to you?

SPEAKER_03 15:39

Oh my goodness. Preserving these stories are, I believe, absolutely paramount right now. There's a I've been following this thing. I don't I don't know how long it's gonna last, but you this thing called AI as as a business tool, as a visual tool, as a as a creative tool. And I have an acquaintance who's been at the forefront of AI since he was in college. He did his thesis on it, and now he develops apps for AI solutions and does very, very well at it. And I was telling him about Legacy, and he goes, Brian, in five years, 95% of what you see on the internet is going to be AI. And what Legacy Garden and these stories are going to do, I really believe that people are going to be thirsty for real humanity, real human stories. And these stories that come from our older generation are going to become very valuable to see, to hear, to experience in a world where you may not be able to believe we already can't believe everything that we see that kind of line. And it's it's going to become more so. What direction it's going to go? Is it going to be it's like Prometheus bringing fire to the humans? It can be a beautiful tool or it can kill us all. The these stories of real human interaction, I believe, are going to be incredibly valuable within the next five or ten years.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

That's awesome. And I I wanted to ask you, yeah, and you're absolutely right, because it seemed like it comes back to the what was, and it comes back to what is now. And going back to like some of the like remember the bell bottoms that was, and now it's back to what it is now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:41

I barely miss bell bottoms. My older sister had a pair of bell bottoms, and I never had a pair of kids, and even the music.

Memory Work As Emotional Healing

SPEAKER_01 17:48

Our kids think that's theirs. Oh, this is our music. No, that was our music. You all just stole our music and put it to something else, like a rap with add that in. But now, how does your work help emotional healing?

SPEAKER_03 18:02

I believe that it it helps emotional healing in many different ways. So of course, it kind of depends on what the subject tells you, but I've had a lot of people, older people, and towards the end, I say, what is something that you would like your family, your grandchildren's children to know about you and know about where they came from, and they'll be able to impart that kind of wisdom after after they're long gone.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

Where here's an example, and we might get off base for a second, but no, I was gonna ask you to share a powerful story that you could.

SPEAKER_03 18:46

But I had a best lifelong friend, his name is Brent Cobata, and we grew up together, we were college roommates, we played on the same softball team, we hung out after college, and uh he as soon as he got his career job, he was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_03 19:08

And after battling that for a couple of years, he ultimately passed away. We were 27 at the time, and that changed everything for me. But the reason I bring that up is I never got a chance when he was about to undergo a bone marrow transplant that ultimately did not work out so well. I wanted to get him alone and say what's important. Because we, as human beings, tend to focus on what's right in front of us and don't really see the long game very well. And I've spent my life trying to look towards the longer game and be more far-sighted about what I'm doing and why, and I never really got that answer. I think that the interviews, the these experiences with Legacy Garden is going to create a lot of good healing because we're still even with medical progress, we're here for a very short time. And in that short time, I'd I'd sure like to know what's really important. I don't want to look back on my life and say, I spent my life chasing things that didn't matter. I I believe that this information coming from your loved one is going to be extremely helpful, especially after they're gone. And on a side note, I found that a lot of people, it's not in their bandwidth to think about that. Sometimes it's difficult to get people on board with something like this because the thought of their parents passing away is not something that they will allow to register. And I've had people say, Oh, I wish we had this when my parents were still alive or still cognizant. Well, then they were they're in cognitive or physical decline. That makes a difference also. Yeah, I I think that the healing process after they're gone, I think that they're anybody who does this, it will be absolutely invaluable to them.

The Shocking Stories People Carry

SPEAKER_01 21:18

Absolutely, absolutely. And I wish my father always shared things with me too. It's a lot of things, like you said, your grandparents. I learned stuff from my grandmother. Um like I said, I'm from Chicago, yeah. Of things why things were happening, like with my stepfather. Why did he abuse me? Why was that? And what it was, she said, well, he was jealous of your father. My father always took care of me. But he was jealous of that and jealous of my mother. I didn't understand, but you know what? It would have been great to have that on to really go back and listen to that and really teach our grandkids, their great grandkids, these misinformations. I gotta have you back on here. How do you stay motivated?

SPEAKER_03 21:58

I stay motivated. For this in particular, because of feelings. Every time that I've done this, and I hope to do it a whole lot more, I hope to be so busy that I can't do anything else. But every time I interact with these people who I come into their home and I meet them for the first time, by the time we've been on for an hour, hour and a half, I am so enriched with what they're telling me. I'm definitely getting a lot out of this. I'm very much an empath. I vibe people, I feel people, energies or or whatever, whatever you want to call it. And these people tell me their stories, and I'm just, what? Oh my gosh, you babysat Dr. King's son? What? I had a a recent client friend who realized that she was gay, not only in the late 1950s, but her father was a fundamentalist minister. And she realized that she was gay. She said she had a friend in college who was gay but got pregnant trying not to be gay. And her parents took her out of school, moved to a different town through the duration of the pregnancy, and had all her teeth pulled out. Oh, wow. I said, What? said you pulled out all her teeth. I said, Why? He said, Because they needed a story for when they came back and to be gone that long while they have go through with the pregnancy, give the baby up for adoption, and then bring her back into town. Oh, she had this really rare gum disease, and this happened. And that seemed kind of harsh pulling out all you can come up with something.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

I'm telling you, that's the first time I heard of this, and that's a good story. I mean, right out of her mouth. Oh my gosh, I can't believe this story. Yeah. And during that generation, they didn't want to be embarrassed to say, oh, my child had a child.

SPEAKER_03 24:04

Much about what other people are doing.

Turning Legacy Garden Into A Movement

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Yeah, it really is. And our daughter, I'm just proud of her, how she continued to move forward, you know, instead of letting it go. But it's it's what you how you bring your children up. We are getting at the end of this thing. And I tell you, what are your future plans?

SPEAKER_03 24:20

Oh boy, my plans, I really hope that this is something that I personally can do for the next 30 years until I'm not able to move anymore. But I really my my dream is for this to become a movement. I would love for this to spread out into different towns and ultimately different countries so that people will be able to retain these life experiences while we still can. And I don't like to try and invoke fear into people, but the clock is ticking. Getting these stories like with my father, I I got we got that recorded just under the wire. But I hope that it becomes something that is an enjoyable experience for the subject and something that can be cherished for so many generations down, and that it becomes this big movement. And I would love it if it just made people understand each other a little bit better. I don't like to be a fatalist about anything, but I think that we could use that right now.

How To Start And Final Takeaway

SPEAKER_01 25:24

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. We really do need that. I mean, I my my work also is legal shio. Legal Sheo, I talk to people about the will, getting the will done. They say, and uh remember one lady said, Well, I'm not gonna die soon. Well, COVID, COVID happened. You just never know when things are gonna happen, but it's better to be prepared than not prepared. But no, they don't want to have to think about that. They really don't. No, and that's our parents' generation to think about that. The younger generation are actually all of it. Oh, yeah, let me get let me get my will done and stuff because you have a lot to your legacy. How do you want to forge your legacy? How do what do you want to do with it? Yeah, now it I I hear what you're saying here. Now, how can people start today with you?

SPEAKER_03 26:10

Oh, with me? It'd be great if you visited either our my generation is still on Facebook, and those are the ones who tend to find the value. Yes. So you find us on Facebook on Legacy Garden. We also have Instagram, LegacyGarden111, and then my website, LegacyGarden.life. And it all starts with a conversation. What you think you want. I can help with my experiences on what other people wanted or did not know that they wanted. And we can just take it from there. It's a very interpersonal experience, it's very rewarding for everybody, and it's a it's a fun experience for the subject, also, because a lot of these older people really don't want a camera and a bunch of lights pointed at them, but being the empath and uh and a former bartender.

SPEAKER_02 26:57

Uh oh, you've been hearing a lot of stories, don't you?

SPEAKER_03 27:00

Oh, yeah, yeah. And I gently get those golden little tidbits out of them. But it's a fun time, it really is.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. And I want you to share your information with me. Send me that so I can put it in the show notes as well. Oh, absolutely. What is one takeaway for listeners, listeners? One takeaway that you can share for listeners that just heard your story.

SPEAKER_03 27:23

Oh, just that through my experiences, a lot of times the people who are the subjects we start talking about some things that that they have really forgotten about. A childhood memory, some usually good, sometimes not so good. But you kind of find that all of them tend to shape who you are. You all none of these experiences are wastes of time or totally random. What I've learned is that in the broad strokes of things, we are all students and teachers of each other. And you don't know what the lesson is. Life is backwards from school. In school, you learn the lesson and then you take the test. In life, it turns out, you take the test, and whether you do well or not, then you get the lesson from it. And that seems to be quite universal. And there's a lot of things that I'm experiencing that shows us that we're really not that different. We're all just doing the best we can, and we all have to coexist. And I think that's something that people can take with them through this experience.

Contact Details And Closing

SPEAKER_01 28:40

I love that. I love that. Life is really you're learning from life, even though you learn stuff in school, but life dealing with life, it's a totally different story. I love it. Brian, tell us again how people can get in touch with you.

SPEAKER_03 28:55

You can get in touch with me through my Facebook page called Legacy Garden. You can also get in touch with me most directly through my website, which is legacygarden.life. Not dot com.life. And we also have Instagram and TikTok pages at Legacy Garden111.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Okay, I love it. I love it, though. Thank you so much, Brian, for such a great time. Yeah, see, that wasn't bad, right? No, that was terrific. You're good at this.

SPEAKER_02 29:28

Maybe we should come and do some legacy videos with me.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

Yes, definitely. Yeah, I have a lot of legacy this year. Yeah, that that sounds good. No, thank you for a meaningful conversation. Your work reminds us that legacy is about lives we touch and stories we preserve. Thank you once again. Thank you for having me. I appreciate you. Oh, absolutely. This episode is sponsored by WD Pearson Associates, educating, empowering, and consulting families and businesses. Until next time. Remember, have elaborations at KSSSS. Thank you, Brian. Thank you. Take care. Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

That wraps up another episode of Ready Set Collaborate with Wanda Pearson. I hope you found inspiration and valuable insights to help you build meaningful connections and successful collaborations. If you enjoyed today's conversation, be sure to subscribe, share, and stay tuned for more great discussions. Until next time, keep collaborating and making an impact.