Three blue Rubbermaid totes sit in the apartment space above our garage.
Three containers filled to the brim with photo albums, scrapbooks and memories from my side of the family. Years and years of memories are collected in these containers and as I carried them back from Ohio this past trip I wondered what on earth I was going to do with them.
I am still wondering. I whiled away an afternoon this week opening the containers, sifting and sorting through the albums. Located in those albums are the memories of not only my own mom and dad but those of their parents and their families. There are birth certificates, wedding certificates, college year books, high school year books and newspaper clippings galore.
I am thrilled to have such pieces of family history preserved both in written and in photographic form. Not everyone has something like this and I am happy for those who went before me that thought to save these items. I am pretty sure a lot of the credit goes to my daddy who somehow knew how important these items might be to someone in the future.
I found myself giggling at times and weeping at other times depending upon what I was viewing. There were the pictures that I remembered taking and sending to my parents and my Grandma – the best of our boys growing up. There were childhood pictures of my own parents -Daddy and his sister and my mom and her pet chicken. Of course there are a lot of pictures of relatives and people that I have no idea who they are. But what fun to sift and sort and look at years and years of history.
The next step (post wedding) is to get the mess into some sort of order and then proceed from there. My sister had all of my dad’s slides scanned and put in digital form for all of us and I would like to be able to do that with these items as well but it will definitely take some time. I think it will be time well spent.
Do you have items like these in your house? I would really be interested in hearing what other people do with things like this. Did you keep them? Did you come up with some creative way to preserve them? All ideas are definitely welcome – I have a lot of things to consider when I finally get around to working on this project.
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9 Comments
Leave a commentYes, indeed: treasures!!! I have some similar totes on shelves in our garage….not photos. They’re inside in boxes! But there’s just “stuff” from my mom’s that I can’t bear to dispose of. Haven’t looked at it in years, but I know it’s there.
No advice about organizing it, but I have a feeling that you’ll do an excellent job…and in short order!
My brother brought my family memories to me when I lived in Jacksonville and had more space to store the totes. I purchased one trunk to hold the contents and it is now at the foot of my bed.
My daughters had sorted though photos years ago but now have everything in one place.
Wow! I’d love to have that kind of family treasures! With your gift of writing you should start a family blog! I think there are even websites that can print your posts as a book!
We have a treasure trove of pictures, albums, certificates etc. from hubby’s grandma now and every once in a while we skim through things. My kids love it. It’s so good to have these pieces of the past to show them. I don’t have many things from my mom’s side of the family but what I do have, I treasure.
After our father died, my sisters and I cleaned out our parents’ home in order to sell it. Oh my, we had scads of treasures like you have there. The photo albums were old and falling apart, so I dismantled them and we divided up the photos. It took me months to place those I kept in new albums plus I had my husband’s parents’ photos to also sort through and condense. Old photos of friends and other family (not immediate), we dispensed to their descendants. Those folks were so pleased to receive them. We didn’t keep the newspaper clippings since my mom saved every one that had someone she knew in it. Only saved family ones. But we still have a couple of totes like yours in my basement. Some things we enjoyed looking through at the time like my dad’s pay stubs from his very first job, but eventually we had to dispose of a lot. It’s a bittersweet time going through those treasures. .
We have a lot of these treasures from my parents and grandparents, even some from my great grandparents. I really do hope the younger generations keep them and add to them. The pictures and documents are priceless. Keeping them im waterproof totes is a good idea. I believe my son has his share in totes. I love going through these things from time to time. My brother has digitized a lot too.
True treasures and memories for sure. I to have many on my side and my husbands. The pictures I am organizing in decorated boxes. With each box so far I am making a tower in my sun room. Some of the pictures are in albums and won’t come out with out tearing them. I love to just look at them sometimes and remember. It is still a job in process so I will be looking at more. I know you will come up with a good idea.
We recently went through many, many large boxes of photos. Karl and I spent days sorting- multiples or out of focus were thrown away. We also threw away photos of people we didn’t recognize and were not marked with names. I laminated photos that were glued to aging photo album pages. We sent some photos to relatives that would appreciate them. I’m planning on making one or two albums with the remaining photos. After the deaths of several relatives I’m realizing that we don’t need to keep everything left to us. I’m trying to organize with the idea of not saddling my children with an overwhelming task when we are gone.
I love your thoughts on this, Randi. I also do not want to leave stuff for the kids that they do not have space for or even a desire for. The album idea is great and I had thought about scanning the important photos in and saving them off on drives for the kids as well. It sounds as if you have the same idea of what to do with things as I have. Now to execute!!!! Thanks for stopping by!