I'm sorting sixty-some old (1920– ) photos from my father's family. Auntie Vi gave me most of them while she was still alive. We'd looked at them together many times, so I know them, and luckily she'd jotted notes about them too.
There's a scanner here where I'm house-sitting, and I got inspired to scan the photos for myself, so I can eventually give the originals to a cousin, Rodger, who wrote that he "would LOVE to have them".
My sister, brother, and I are getting older, and none of us have children to pass the photos on to. Rodger's two children are young adults, and he has several nieces and nephews too, so I'm hoping he and they will be good stewards.
I'm going to keep a few of my favorite photos (eating spaghetti outside!), and I think my sister wants all the ones with our father (Daniele) in them. And, why not make a photo book?
(Photo-print companies always offer some huge discount; I
went with shutterfly's half-off printing and free shipping if you
spend more than $75.
I got four photo books for $85, total--I'll give them to a couple cousins and my sister. Our brother doesn't care.)
I spent all day yesterday putting these together. I wrote the barest of notes--I didn't want it to be text-heavy. The handwritten notes are from Vi.
I'll make a family tree to tuck into the book too.
I told my cousin I didn't want to do the work to post these on familysearch dot org (the free LDS site), but maybe I will, now I've got them in order.
This is the 1917 marriage portrait of my grandparents (my father's parents):
It was taken in Sicily; in 1913 my grandfather emigrated to America, so a brother holds his photo. (Eventually the whole family joined him in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.)
My grandfather Vincenzo/James was a brutal man, but I
noticed he is always smiling and looking lively in the photos--he plays the tuba!
If you didn't
know better, you'd think he was a loving father and husband.
My grandmother, Rosaria/Sarah, meanwhile, never smiles in photos.
I liked ending with a 1969 photo of her (in blue dress) grinning happily. Her husband, my grandfather, died in 1956, at sixty-two.
(There's the back cover photo of her too, reading--that always intrigued me.
Who would she have been if she hadn't been forced into an unwanted marriage at seventeen?)
At the risk of stating the obvious — you’re so fortunate to have all these photos. In some families, one evil Goneril/Regan-style relation can make off with a whole family’s history. (Don’t ask how I know that.)
ReplyDeleteI DO feel very lucky to have these photos, and all the information that goes with them!
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear about the Shakespearean tragedy that made off with your family photos?
Yes,I agree with Michael about you being the fortunate one to have the photos. And a lovely idea to make a photo book for others.
ReplyDeleteIn my family, I am the one with the photos and several thousand slides from my parents and earlier relatives. Slides of the work my mother did with the local Kickapoo tribes, photos from 1970s Mexico and Taiwan and Iraq. I knew that if my brother took them I would never see any of them ever again.
Some years ago I had photos of greats on my dad's side and asked my dad and my grandfather then living to label them so I would know who they were.
And Michael -- we had a similar relation do the same thing with over 11 quilt tops that my great-grandmother had made. They took them while everyone else was at the funeral reception!! How Shakespearean is that?
Kirsten
The fates have trusted you to do the best thing with these treasures,
ReplyDeleteThe fates know stuff! Your treasure is fabulous. i love all of them!! They would be fun to paint.
KIRSTEN: Thousands of slides? Oh, my. That's a task.
ReplyDeleteThis all appeals greatly to my librarian/archivist self, and I'm enjoying it a lot.
LINDA SUE: I thought the exact same thing in the middle of the night: I should paint some of these.
Such a treasure!
ReplyDeleteI need to get Pirate to be brave and write about the photos he has.
Doing the family tree is a good spur.
It is a job though, finding who will be the best family member to pass these onto.
GZ: It is a job! Both writing the history and finding the person to carry it on... I felt both really happy and really sad, spending so much time with these people who are (mostly) gone.
ReplyDeleteWorth it though--I hope Pirate will want to take it on.
frex = fresca