Scrapbooks, Photo Albums, and Memories

* In 2008 and 2009 I wrote posts for a collaborative blog called "50-something moms blog." The blog as it was cannot be found online, but I found a link to one of my posts in an early post here and the link still works. I never set up a category on my sidebar, I don't know why, so they are not readily found on this site. I did save copies of what I wrote in a  folder on my desktop - though why I thought of that I don't remember. Anyway, I am going to post them here when there is a topic that fits what I am writing about. This is my first attempt at making this work. I will make note when I get to the post I wrote all those years ago*

Yesterday I sat down on the floor and went through the envelopes, albums, and boxes of photos I brought back from my mom's house. I have been through them a dozen times in the past year, pulling out photos to share with siblings and getting those sent off. I have pulled out photos with no names and/or dates if I cannot identify the subjects, and there were dozens and dozens of those. There is no sense in perpetuating the handing down of photos that have meaning for no one. If I want to save photos to pass down, they have to be organized and readily accessible. What the kids do with them after I am gone is up to them, but I want to give them the option to keep or throw.

I wound up with the bulk of the photos because my siblings do not want them. Years ago my mom shipped me all my dad's slides, thousands of slides with some in slide holders that fit in a slide projector that would no longer move through the slides, which she had also shipped to me. Three years ago Ken and I spent long summer nights going through box after box of slides; I would pass him a slide and he would fit it into the projector so we could see it on a wall in the living room. Hours and hours over the course of several days we went through every box of slides, setting aside ones of my family. There were also hundreds of slides taken on my dad's work trips and of people I did not know. Then we pieced together a chronological order based on the dates on some slides and comparing to photos I have in albums from those years long ago. Then I sent the slides off to a company that scanned them, in the order I sent them which was a huge bonus, on a CD and made multiple copies that I shared with family members. My mom loved having all of those photos in one place and rotated the photos as the background on her computer. That alone made it worth the time and effort it took to accomplish the task.

I come from a long line of photographers on my dad's side so there are lots of photos of family get togethers at my great-grandmother's home in Toledo, Ohio in the summers of the 1960's. I started taking photos with my own camera when I was still in elementary school. I labeled and dated photos and put them in an album, grateful now that I started that habit young.

On my mom's side of the family there are formal portraits in sepia tones of her ancestors, taken either in a studio or when a photographer came to the house. Her generation and the generation before her were generous with their picture-taking, so there are many photos of her, her family, and her friends through the years. Most of those are dated so I can piece together a timeline even for the ones that are not specifically labeled.

When my brother started making trips to my mom's trailer last summer to try to make sense of what was there and all that needed to be handled, he commented to me that, "There are so many photos!" I told him that I had been sending Mom photos for over 40 years. When my kids were young and I had a 35 mm camera, I would send off a roll of film and get double prints so I had photos to share with my mom and Ken's family. The sharing of photos continued through my life with grandkids and right up until my mom's death. My family is well documented.

Maybe some of what I just wrote will be repeated in my post from January 2009, but I don't want to edit what I wrote then because I'd like to save it as I wrote it.

*Posted on the 50-something moms blog January 6, 2009:

I have a scrapbook that my mother started for me when I was a young child.  It holds birthday cards, photos of my friends from kindergarten, letters from relatives and friends, and my first library card.  This scrapbook has survived a life on various closet shelves and numerous moves, one of the few things that remain from a childhood that started in the mid 1950s.  It means a lot to me.

 
I have a photo album that I started when I got my first camera, over 40 years ago.  The square, black and white photos that fill the first pages hold memories of early friends and Christmas celebrations.  I  have photos from when I graduated to color film and a photographic record of when I had my hair done for my first prom.  These photos provide a priceless component in the historical record of my life.  It was fitting that I would want my children to have a comparable record of their childhoods.

   
The tradition started with baby books for each one of my children.  The overflow of cards and photos needed a home, which led to the start of a scrapbook for each child.  As they got older, my children selected the photos they liked and decided what mementos they wanted to save.  Their scrapbooks are filled with birthday and vacation photos, cards, awards, postcards, and graduation programs.  A scrapbook is the perfect reminder when a child is tempted to say, "I never went anywhere."  Oh, we went places and there is physical evidence to prove it.

Our family photo albums serve as an archive of people, places, and events that we have known and enjoyed.  The photos remind us of where we've been and who we've known. They serve as a resource  when we try to remember when we traveled to Memphis or who attended Grandma's wedding.  My children love to show off the family photo albums when a friend visits and expresses interest.  Some photos are good for a laugh.  Others elicit oohs and aahs as the pages are turned.

I sometimes wonder if my grown children appreciate the memories that have accumulated over the years.  Then one of them will ask, "Mom, is there room for these ticket stubs in my scrapbook?"  I smile and respond in the affirmative.  For all their digital photos and computer files, my children still appreciate a scrapbook they can hold open on their lap to remind them of the special events in their life.  For all that my children no longer need me to do, I can still track the passage of time and keep the family archives for the sake of history and the generation to come.