Thread: Photos, Videos, Life's Memories

Hey John,

I just got a stack of old B&W negatives from my sister. She found them stashed away in an old family trunk and wanted to know if I could scan them. It's quite a stack and I've been working on them for a few days. So far they are of my Great Grandmother, Grandmother and Grandfather, and my mother at around 3 years old, so circa 1923. They were still on the wheat farm in western Oklahoma, which we still have, and happily they are pictures none of us have ever seen before.

We did the same thing you did with old family movies taken mostly by my Grandfather with an old Bell & Howell wind up camera, which we still have. Made copies for all the family.

I miss the old days!!! Glad we have a link to them!

Best Regards,

Howard

2 years ago I found photo negatives that my grandfather took while he was in the Army. They are of Camp Hale, Colorado. He & his buddies were guarding & playing baseball with the prisoners, Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps.

Originally Posted by Hirlau

Carl, thanks for the information. I also have the photos backed up on 2 different portable drives. I try to keep up with the latest in digital storage, I will transfer them as time goes by.

Good plan. I was going to mention portable drives. You can never be too safe with those special memories, can you?

My mother had a picture from 1917 of her paternal grandfather in wheat harvest. He really can’t be seen as he’s standing in a light wagon at the head of a team of about 25 horses and mules pulling a Holt combine. There is a young boy standing beside him and that was her father at age 12.

The picture was 4” tall and 12” long and it was covered in splatters etc. I borrowed it, had a friend digitally clean it up for me ($50) and then I took the DVD that the cleaned up picture was on to a place that specializes in quality printing of art.

They printed me an 8” tall and 24” long beautiful picture!!! A friend made a custom frame from aged cedar so it was a grey with black frame accenting a black and white picture!!!

My mom turned 80 last June 28th I’d made arraignments to have a surprise birthday party for her at my eldest’s daughter’s home on the 30th. There were 26 of us hidden in the backyard when she arrived. Long story made short, the picture brought tears to her eyes!!

I buried my mom on the 28th of July!! I donated her picture to the Farm Museum located at Pomeroy WA as that was where her grandfather had farmed!

I still have two other copies of the cleaned up picture and one is framed just like moms so it’s still in the family!!

Save what you can while you can!!

I have a photo of my grandparents on my dresser in my room. Pretty old photo considering my parents were married 59 years.
On another note, after reading this thread, I now know why my middle name is "Ooops."

Here is my sad tale. My mother, who is 90 and healthy as a horse, began going through all of her closets, drawers, nooks and crannies to get rid of anything that was no longer of any use to her. Her motive - - "So you won't have to do it if anything should happen to me." There's just she and I left in the family. My father and two brothers have all passed on. She has always been the repository for the family photos and I always assumed they would be passed down to me - - "if something should happen to her." About six months ago she decided to sort through the photos and send those that another relative might be interested in to them. She made small piles for cousins, distant nieces and nephews and sent them off. She asked me if I wanted to look through them for any I would be interested in. Thinking that they would all come to me someday, I told he no. Several days later she asked me if I had any use for this pile of loose leaf binders sitting on the table. I looked and recognized them as the albums in which she had kept all of the family photos. When I opened them to find them completely empty, I asked where the photos were. She said that since I didn't want them she had thrown them away. Over 100 years of family history was lost because of a misunderstanding of words and motive . . . . Oh well, many of them are still vivid in my memory and if I get to the point where I can't remember them, having the photo in front of me probably wouldn't help anyway.

Regards - Walt

Sorry to hear that Walt. I bet that a lot of the photographs that I see in antique stores, were intended for good homes but got side tracked along the way.

Hey Walt!!!

I’m so sorry to hear of the loss of the pictures!!

Oh well, many of them are still vivid in my memory and if I get to the point where I can't remember them, having the photo in front of me probably wouldn't help anyway.[/FONT]

My father kept old black and white pictures from his father’s funeral that included his father in the casket in his dresser drawer. I once asked him why and he said that every once in awhile he couldn’t remember what his father looked like. While he had other pictures, those were the ones that brought the memories flooding back!!

Now I have another problem!! I have a s**t load of pictures from his mother and I have no idea who is who!! Well after going though them and removing those who I know that’s what I’m talking about!!

The problem with identifying anyone is that those who knew are all now gone! They are now just pictures from the past!!

With that said, I treasure them and share with my children and grandchildren!!

I have a bunch of 24 year old Video8 tape (my kids) I need to transfer. I think I'm going to get them all onto a 2-3 terabyte Hard disk and when required transfer them to new media. Problem is that if you have 100 hours of tape....it takes a 100 hours to transfer. Not a joy to do....I am wondering at this juncture if "Cloud Storage" would be best. It it getting pretty cheap and the obsolescence problem would be theirs since "bits is bits."