This is the current state of The Compound dining room table:
Because my mother had so many photo albums and boxes of photos and envelopes with photos in lots of different places, I can drive myself crazy when I’m trying to find one in particular. I finally realized it was time to try to organize them. This would be a lot easier if (1) my family hadn’t moved so often, (2) my parents hadn’t kept moving back to the same places, just different homes, (3) more of the photos had names and dates on them. Remember, Mother was the youngest of twelve children, and I have no idea how many maternal cousins I have or what they all look like, because if I recall correctly, only one of those cousins is younger than I am (by a year).
Here’s Uncle Gerald, my earliest writing mentor. I never knew him when he was this age, but I selected this photo because of a resemblance my sister noted between him and our nephew. I think she’s on to something. It’s interesting to see people from throughout my life looking back at me from a new generation. It isn’t only physical characteristics I notice. Speech patterns, ways of moving or holding the body, facial expressions–these link the family kids to relatives they never met, never saw, so aren’t consciously imitating. I remember when Josh was a toddler and was walking across the yard one day, my mother looked at him and said, “He walks exactly like Papa [my father’s father].” Papa died seven years before Josh was born.
It’s fascinating to hear new discoveries about how much of who we are is in our DNA. But as many similarities as I think I identify in mannerisms, interests, and talents, I also see that every member of my family is unique with his or her own way of navigating through life. The surprises make watching them even more enjoyable.
I’m back!
Mum has hundreds of photos which she is always saying she has to sort and label. Still hasn’t happened…
Welcome back!
Maybe it’s a project you could help her work on in tiny increments when you visit. I didn’t realize until after Mother died how many old, unlabeled photos she still had. She’d divided photos into albums which she gave to the three of us, so I thought that had taken care of the old ones. I was wrong!
when do you want to tackle mine?
Are you here helping me? NO. Besides, I already took two albums off of your hands.
All right, all right, I’ll give them back.
Eventually.
key word – albums. there are many that are not that organized.
It’s very confusing. Everyone should always have been like Amy, who puts the kids names, dates, and sometimes even the events on labels on the backs of her photos. She shows why being anal retentive is a good thing!
I currently have two boxes of photos sitting on the floor next to the computer waiting for me to work up the courage to start sorting through them. Unfortunately my mother was forerunner of the scrapbooking trend before it became trendy. So on many of the photos the background material has been trimmed off leaving strange rectangular cutouts of the people.
Some of my favorite photos are the ones my mother trimmed in a similar way–except not for scrapbook purposes but because an individual in the picture had fallen out of favor with her.
I’m not naming any names.
I told you Aaron looked like a young Uncle Gerald. This picture just proves my memory cells are working. It isn’t funny the older you get the more you remember your youth.
Until we remember nothing…it’s like Benjamin Button but without physical changes. (Not that I ever saw that movie.)