A Family’s Treasure

Nto quite sure how it happened.
Maybe because I was a History major?
Maybe because so many of my family have already passed on?
Maybe because I like to think that by at least one person remembering and treasuring the images from our family’s history, in a way they will never be forgotten.

I think it really began after a trip to my uncle’s house about 10 years ago. It was my first time in the house and when I walked down the hall I stopped in my tracks at the sight of a large picture wall full of very old images. I questioned him about all of them and then asked if I could take them all to Kinkos to copy them. I simply had to have them for my own wall. He said sure and well – it snowballed.

By the time my mother passed away in November of 2001 I knew that all I wanted were the family pictures. Granted, I, of course, received other items but the photos were gold. They were what I knew would be of the most value to me. I brought them all home and scanned them.  I made sure to pull every image out of the old magnetic glue albums. Many had already started to be eaten by the acid in the glue. I tried to divy out the images into piles of people and then gave a disc of the images to my family members.  Most just opted for me to “safe house” them.  My taking over of the family pictures was not to hoard them but to archive them ,truly archive them, for all the generations to come.

Fast forward to the last week of March 2003. I go to my mailbox and find a huge envelope from my father. I opened it and was shocked to find tons of our antique family images! I called him and of course chewed him up one side and down the other for not giving me a head’s up and for sending them POSTAL SERVICE! He had been very ill since my mother’s death 16 months earlier, so I just figured he was feeling nostalgic. We sat on the phone that night for a few hours while I went over every picture and the history of the person in the shot, where it was taken, etc, and wrote it all down on an envelope, of all things. Just bits and pieces and funny family stories. It was the most he had really talked to me in months. He had been in a lot of pain and on a great deal of medication. That night he was so clear. A few days later I received a call from my stepmom saying he was in the hospital and being treated for pancreatis. No point in making the trip from VA to Ohio -  they said he would only be in there for a week. The day before he was to be released from the hospital he had a massive heart attack and died.

I think he knew.

I think he wanted me to remember him.

To keep his memory alive.

For his life to be passed down in effect to my children and their children to come.

I still have that treasured envelope with our last conversation.   Who knew how important a scrap of paper could become?

Once family members saw what I did with his images, it began to truly happen. I made them into a scrapbook to share at his funeral . It was, for me, the 5th family funeral within a very short time. The true importance of family photography was drilled in. After we are gone, those images of us are what your loved ones will hold onto. They will be priceless. My remaining family members on both sides have since all handed down hundreds of images. All of which I remove from magnetic albums, scan, upload to online printer, create discs and then put in boxes in a temperature controlled room. The originals are touched very little and barely ever see the light of day.

I now have a wall in my own home of old images, some 100+ years old. I have a story for each image, for each family member. I figure if a century from now one of my great-grandchildren has a picture of me on their wall and can tell their children 1 story about my life…I must have had a good life.

Being the family archivist just kind of happens over time. I explained it to Haley last month the conversation went something like this….

Haley: “Mom why did Aunt Linda give you her picture albums?”
Me: “In every family there seems to be a few people who will take care of the family pictures. As each generation gets older, the person who holds those images will pass them down to the generation below them. All in hopes that the next family member will love the images, cherish the memories of the people in the images, protect the image, and share them with the whole family. Being the family portrait archivist is very important to a family’s history.”
Haley: “Can I do it when I am big?”
Me: “I’m counting on it.” (sniff sniff…)

So here is a bit of the behind the scenes of my method-

Each family member receives a box for their images so I have things sort of cataloged.  In the kids box ,of course, there are a few trinkets like Christening caps, pacifiers etc..  In my Father’s boxes I have his family and Navy images as well as letters while overseas home to his mother in their own boxes.

The images are normally in the old fashioned magnetic albums.  These albums TRULY eat the images.  I strongly suggest getting a bottle of  Un-Do to remove old images.  That stuff is pure magic in removing imagesphotos from just about any kind of adhesive.  Just pour it all over the image and gently pull it off the page , lay it to the side to dry and the Un-do will evaporate.  I do suggest a well ventilated area when using Un-do.  That stuff is hard core!

Many times the family has handed me slides.  I guess in the 60′s that was a popular media?  Now a days the good news is that they have some economical scanners that scan not just regular images but slides!

Once the images are scanned in often I have to do a bit of photoshop repair.  Some images are easier than others to repair.  I strongly suggest Mama Shan’s Powder Actions for those who are familiar with how to use photoshop actions.  It is great for smoothing out grain and softening/blending some of the repairs.

And of course you remembering the folks in the pictures is of the utmost importance.  When I save an image onto my hard drive I change the name of the image to the name of the person (if I know it) or whatever is written on the image.  Practicing this with even your current images is a great tool for what we shoot even now.  If we label our digital family images on our computers with names instead of numbers it will help the generations to come.  Something like “State_Fair09_001″  and so on will help your kids 20 years from now figure out the time/place the image was taken.

Story time….just for fun.

My Great Grandma lived well into her 90′s and I loved writing back and forth with her after I moved to Va.  She had this amazing life.  Married to my Great Grandpa for 50 years!  When he passed away she was lost.  She was such a good roll model though.  I can remember going to visit her one day on my way to work when I was about 18.  She was on her way out the door and getting on a bus.  She was like “You are just gonna have to come back some other time I am going out with the girls bowling and maybe dinner and dancing!”  She had to be almost 90..lol :-)  I just smiled and swore to myself I would have her spunk if I am lucky enough to live that long.

What an amazing life.  So my aunt recently handed down Great Grandma Brown’s albums and in them was one of my favorites to date because of the story.

My Great Grandma had showed Linda where she stood in her class picture and immediately behind her was my grandpa.  She told my Aunt that she was scared to death to show her father the class picture because he did not approve of her “Boyfriend”…my grandpa :-)

This picture was taken at Liberty School in 1910. I have highlighted where they are standing.  I had no idea they had been together basically their whole life.  Without this picture I may have never known.

and then a bit of their life…

Yes the images we leave behind are , in my opinion, far more important than the “stuff” we leave behind.

“I saw behind me those who had gone, and before me those who are to come. I looked back and saw my father, and his father, and all our fathers, and in front to see my son, and his son, and the sons upon sons beyond.
And their eyes were my eyes.
~Richard Llewellyn