family album

In June when I went to visit my family, my cousin asked if I’d received one of the photo cds that my aunt had put together for everyone at my grandfather’s funeral.  I hadn’t, so she ran home and burned a copy for me.  I didn’t get a chance to look at it until I fixed the cd burner last week, and the first time I tried to I had to turn it off.  The pictures were all of my grandfather’s funeral, which I wasn’t able to go to, and I was just too sad to look at them. 

A few days later I was on the phone with my brother and found out he didn’t have a copy either.  So, I put the cd in again to make him one and saw that there are 512 photos on it.  I set it to the slide show and discovered that after the funeral pictures at the beginning, there are all these family photos dated from 1912 to 2005.  It’s an amazing thing to have.  I looked at them and cried and cried and cried.  Here are a few.  The gorgeous woman is my mom.  The funny looking baby is me.  The little boy on the lawnmower stroller thing is my dad; his father is next to him.
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My grandparents are on the right in the first photo.  I’m not kidding you when I say that my grandmothers on both sides looked like movie stars.  In that mostly lost good way, not like now.  And the photo on the right; I’m sure that the handwriting is my grandfather’s.  He was named Stanley, so he’s referring to his own birth.  He took so many pictures himself and kept them all organized in albums with indexes.  Sometimes when I went to visit, he’d give me an unlined 3×5 card that he’d used to write down all the albums and page numbers where I could find pictures of my immediate family. 

I really miss him.  He was such an amazing man.   I’m so glad my cousin thought to ask me about the cd.  It’s priceless.

7 thoughts on “family album

  1. Candy

    What a lovely thing to have. Very thoughtful of the person who put it together. When my folks passed, the seven of us siblings sort of flipped through the photos and took what we wanted. I sort of wish they were all in the same book they were always in, even if they weren’t in my possession. Having them displaced makes me sad.

    Reply
  2. jenny r

    It makes sense when you think about how much more trouble it was to take and develop a photo back then. It’s great that now you can share so easily!

    Reply
  3. capello

    That is so awesome. I hardly have any family photos from either side of my family, which is really sad since I’m the photo hound.

    I’m so glad you have that heritage for you and your family.

    Reply
  4. Marsha

    Everytime we move I end up pouring through my Grandma’s old photo album. It is amazing, the memories of all the times I have seen the pictures before combined with the resemblances I see in my children.

    Reply

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