Family Reunion - Pictures - Scrapbooks - Back Up Drives - Discs

This post goes with the past few days posts. My mother was a bit of a celebrity in her day. She has THOUSANDS of pictures. The pictures you see in the circle above are my mother for just a year of her life. 

When we were sorting things, I made a file box for pictures of that year, one for any pictures of my immediate family, one box for each side of my parents families and one for my mother other than those situations. 

I also had one smaller box for famous people she has met as well as one for her wedding photos. 

I sorted the hundreds of boxes pulling out anything that dealt with those events and put them in the smaller boxes. I didn't want to have to sort them again except for what was in each box so by sorting things that way, I was able to make them into manageable boxes or bins. I spent hundreds of dollars on clear sided bins so that if there was any flooding, the items would be safe. Also, I typed up large print sheets with what was in each box and stuck it in the front end of the bins so we could tell at a glance, what was in the bins so we could quickly grab the bin we needed. 


This has been very helpful over the past few years as I have been able to find what we need quickly. The pictures in the above photos were found in all the different boxes and different scrap books. I thought we had collected and sorted everything but would you believe, my sister came up with two new scrapbooks that have photos that should be included in that pile above!?! It seems like the photos have offspring when I am not looking! 

The circle pile was done in a 24 hour period. After sorting everything we had, I took the bin of 8 x 10 photos and I literally sat in that center for 24 hours. I matched up outfits and backgrounds of each group of pictures and put them in some timeline or just piles of hair and clothing that looked alike. Some were in islands and some were on boats etc. Those, I grouped together and after the 24 hours. I got my mother involved. 

As you can see in the other picture, I would ask my mother about a group of pictures (where she was wearing the same outfit, hat, gloves, etc) and she would tell me where and when it was taken. Sometimes, I would write on a sticky note a bit of information is she expanded on a story etc. I put each 8 x 10 picture in a clear sheet protector with an acid free card stock in it and if there were several pictures that went together, instead of putting them each in a sheet protector, I would put several in one so I knew they went together. I would stick the sticky note on the front so I could remember later what she told me about the grouping. I then stuck them all in order by date on the floor so I could keep them in order. I then stuck them all in a bin in order. 

Later, last year some time, I took the entire bin to WalMart and scanned the entire bin. I mention in the posts linked here about how I scanned over 1,000 pictures in several days and how I started from the front on one machine and the back on another. Here is a post about that and a second post that goes along that mentions the other. You can see in some of the pictures above how many different types of media we had to pull pictures off. There were so many different things we hadn't heard of before. The same went for the films and the audio which I will post about tomorrow. You can see the scanners and computers we used as well as the negatives, pictures, discs etc.


The bottom photo was three of the four scrap books I finished that summer when I literally lived at my sisters sorting and working on this stuff. I gave my mother the scrap-books so she would have something to show her friends as we kept most of the stuff in the bins at my sisters so we could continually work on it without having to go "find" it at my mothers who has some memory problems and moves things around and we have to search all sorts of places to find things when we go visit.

I plan on starting a blog of my mothers life as a way to get her life history down. I know if I had to take it all on in a summer or something, I would never be able to face it but looking back at this blog and seeing that I have written every day for over three years now, I know I can write my mothers history one picture and story at a time even if it takes me a few years. My worry is that with my mothers failing memory, I will have missed the opportunity to get the entire story. I can't get down on my self as I have given so much of my life to preserving hers these last few years but I pray I can have enough time with her and her old memories to get most of the important stuff down. 


Last week when I was there filling her pill containers, I think I posted about how she asked me how my grandchildren were. I don't have any yet so my concern about her memory isn't unfounded. I suggest you take the time to ask your parents, aunts, granparents etc, any questions you may have now and seize the day as you never know when they won't be around to ask those questions. Here is a link to a "Journal in a jar" questions that may give you an idea of some questions to ask to get them talking. It seems once they get talking, the memories just start coming out on their own. 

Good luck, and wish me the same!