Imagine the Images

Well, here we are with an “Open Week” at 4F,1H and I have no book out and nothing recently published. There is no holiday, the New Year and Winter have been covered.
Hmmmm.
Not much new except a bunch of doctors and believe me, you don’t want to hear me on that!

I have been sitting here at nights watching, (sort of), Netflix and sorting, (sort-of), photographs.
I am in possession of thousands of pictures of family. A very few are of my father and his family. Some are of my husband and his side, many were my mother’s, of her family,(both generations), and friends,(c.1920-1960’s). The bulk are those taken by me from the late 1960’s through a couple of years ago when I went digital…and I’ve been quite a shutterbug.

I have only gotten up to the ones of the ’60’s. I tried to sort most of them some years ago, and placed them in envelopes, but no one ever saw them , so what is the sense of having them, then?
I have purchase a number of albums, some new or unused from thrift shops so I can afford enough, and I am trying to make some sense of the boxes of pix…

I sat my mother down a couple of years before she died and had her tell me the names of everyone in every picture she had and wrote them on the back .This was precipitated by the gift of a copy of my husband’s great-grandparent’s wedding picture. The great-aunt who gave it to us could identify only the bride and groom in the photo, yet there are about 30 other people in the picture. Such a shame; there are others like that, as well.

I also have some pictures that belonged to my aunt and fortunately, I know the people or they are the same as those in my mother’s, but not always. I have an autographed picture of whom I am told was a ‘famous opera singer’; she is certainly posed like a diva. Who she actually is, though, I have no idea.

As I sort along, I realize that I have many photos that are taken at the same time, of
the same people, at the same place. Fortunately, the albums I chose to use are pocket-
type, so I can slide similar pictures behind each other.( My sister was the darling of her
generation, the first daughter of a sister in an Italian family; we have multiple pictures of
her every outfit and step. Then we have the many pictures from California from an
uncle’s girlfriend who tried to insinuate herself into the family. The pictures of the beach
are nice). If anyone is interested, there they are.

I know that it is going to get harder to keep all the shots. I took far too many pictures
during holidays, outings, Scout and school functions…and far too many of pets, most
long gone, that no one here would know which they were or how we loved them.

I hate to throw any pictures away, but I have to face reality. Many pictures are
redundant, many are simply not good shots and some have no connection with future generations.

One cousin has found and emailed more pictures of my father and his family than I ever knew existed and I am grateful. I sent the cousins on my mother’s side pictures of their parents that my mother and aunt had. I hope that my progeny appreciate some of the pictures I intend to send down the generations, but they won’t want ten pictures of a second-grade field trip any more than I understand why I have so many of the girls who lived in the WWII boarding house with my mother. I know the names but never met the people in photos who were my grandparent’s neighbors, several of one uncle’s girlfriends or an often-married aunt’s first husband; they mean little to me and mean nothing to my sons. I will keep the pictures for now, but not put them in albums. I wonder who will be the one to throw them out?

I have also found programs, articles notes, announcements, invitations, etc. I have placed these in plastic sleeves in a large binder, which I plan on placing with the pictures.. My mother burned most of her papers and my father never kept any. I am of two minds about my own; do I keep them all? Will anyone care? Do I want everyone to know some things? Yet, do I want everyone to make assumptions if I don’t? I am so pleased that my aunt saw fit to save most of her papers. I have a spot in a national magazine utilizing them,(supposedly; you’ll know if and when the editor comes through), and I am considering writing more to create a story with ideas inspired by her, based on what I know and what I found in her papers and pix, mixed with a little artistic license.

[Thanks to Jeff and his inspiration of ‘The Overnighter’s Secrets’ for giving my attempts at archiving a boot and opening the idea that I can ’embroider’ on the snippets of reality found in pictures and programs.]

Wish me luck; I haven’t even started on the many pictures that I took of my nieces, let alone those of my sons and the earliest ones of their children…and I won’t even go into my half-hearted attempt to upload, sort and put on disks the many digital images of the grandkids, gardens , flowers and …yep, food.(For my blog, you know.)

What do you think? Should everything be saved? Surely, the pictures of ancestors and most of us in younger days,(if only to show the grandkids that we weren’t always ‘old’), and even interesting shots of people who were known to others but are strangers to us here and now, if they are in interesting dress or old cars, but where do you suggest I draw the line?