By Chuck Woodbury
ROADSIDE JOURNAL
Please let me know if you are one of the children above. I have no clue who they are. I found the photos in an antique shop. You can buy old family photos at most antique shops. I assume these young children are grown up now. I bet they have no idea that their childhood photos are for sale somewhere, or at least they were.
When my parents died 12 years ago, I inherited many of their photo albums. I was looking through them the other day. My mother wrote the names of the people on the back of some photos, but only some. So who were they all? Most are long dead. I don’t know who they are or were and I don’t know anyone to ask to help me.
My daughter has no interest in the albums. So I think what will happen is that when I pass on, some photos from my albums will end up at antique stores, just like with these kids.
Fifty years from now, someone will be browsing old photos at an antique store and there I will be. Or maybe one of my little brother or sister. It’s entirely possible that a photo of my one-year-old brother sitting at a high chair with chocolate cake all over his face, hands and bib will be a prized “find”. I’ll never know.
When we have families, we take photos all the time. These days, we snap away constantly with our phones, few of which we will look at for long. The photos might live on, but in some digital form. But my black and white baby and childhood photos, they will either end up in an antique shop or be tossed into the trash somewhere along the line.
I don’t think my parents ever thought about the future of their photos, and when I was raising my daughter, I didn’t either.
I have plenty of things to ponder these days, and I guess this really isn’t all that important. Still, I do wonder.
##RVT1124
If I’m lucky a photo of me will end up on a greeting card, a funny one I hope.
My wife and I are in the same predicament. Many old photos with no clue about some of the people. I bought her a Doxi portable scanner and she digitizes many to keep. The rest, oh well….
My mother became the depository for all the old family photos as no one else in the family was interested. I have no children so I have no one to give them to. I had several of them hung on the walls of my home, but now I am a full-timer so have no place for them. Many of these pictures were from the late 1800s and early 1900s and as such have some historical value. I gave all of them to the state historical society with the direction that they keep those they thought were historically significant and destroy the rest.
I also had a nearly complete financial record of my parent’s 58 year marriage which I gave to the society as a record of a small farmer in the mid-1900s.
I also inherited my parent’s old photos. It wasn’t until my adult daughter got the Ancestry bug that she became very interested in them in helping her to piece together information on past relatives. We don’t recognize a few of them, but most we do. My daughter spends hours researching our family heritage and enjoys every minute of interesting discovery. She wants all of the old albums and boxes of photos!
I don’t see photos and photo albums as something to be passed on. I have been making photo albums for 25 years now. My family really enjoys them and may want them someday. However I made them primarily so I could look back at all the good times when we can no longer travel. I learned when the Shutterfly scrapbook company changed policies and their program got so difficult to use …. Better to have it on paper in a book form. Scrapbooking has gotten very expensive but I still enjoy immediately reliving our trips as I scrapbook and keep scrap books out on our coffee table
Ah yes, adopted ancestors. Maybe some day one of your photos will be on the wall in a Cracker Barrel.
Good morning, Brian. That’s better than his photo being on a wall in a P.O. (or a Camping World, for that matter).🤣 Have a great day. 😀 –Diane at RVtravel.com
Hang onto the albums/pics, Chuck. Someday Emily may want them. Usually happens that way. Doesn’t see the value in it until they get older and get curious.
Not sure what I will do with all the old photos, I’ve always said that I do not want to end up on the wall at Cracker barrel!
The frame is what has the value
Today with digital very few prints are made
No sense of history, no record of life. Oh, it’s recorded but not available. My phone has got the last 12 years in there somewhere but will they ever be seen? I think not
Chuck,
You should get some facial recognition software and see if you can find out who these people are/were. I am sure it would lead to some interesting stories
It’s kind of sad really to have all these old photos with only a small portion with any identities on them as related to where they sit on the old family tree. Sadder still is that my own kids don’t really have any interest in them.
The kids don’t want our old records (which are now pretty much a treasure) as they don’t have a turntable (that’s a record player for you younguns’). Also they don’t want the china, crystal, old underwear, socks or shoes. They should keep a photo of me to put on beer cartons should I go missing as that’s where my friends would see it.
👍👍
I have pondered this often, I too have a box of old photos. Some as far back as 1903. Most of these people I do not know. I know my Mother’s Mother and Father (he was a WWI vet) and their other 3 daughters (my Aunt’s of course) but that’s it! These photos were special to all of these people at one time, that’s why I don’t have it in me to throw them out. They are all dead now, and today no one cares. Just faces in old clothing.
Thank you, Chuck! I always enjoy your musings, especially your video on peeling a banana from the bottom. 🙂