I realized during those endless hours walking up and down Lisa's hallway that she has become the unofficial archivist of our family. We had very few pictures in our house when I was growing up -- my parents were very good at telling family stories and passing down folklore, but not so big on pictures. I think my parents preferred to experience those busy years without the pressure of having to photograph it all. I've wondered over the years where those few pictures we had went and now realize they've somehow all ended up at Lisa's house. Our grandmother's high school graduation picture, our parents' wedding pictures, pictures of the two of us as children dressed exactly alike sitting on the steps of our front porch. They're all there.
It's perfect, actually, because my sister got all the brains in the family. She is one of those rare people who is both extremely analytical and extremely creative, so she not only has the family photos beautifully framed, she has digitally archived them. I think if they were at my house, they'd all be in shoe boxes marked "flower pots" or some such thing and lost forever.
I've been thinking lately about archiving and labeling the Furber family pictures, as it's getting harder and harder in my old age to tell the babies apart in the pictures. For those like me with the will, but not the skill, to build a digital archive of your family history refer to this simple article written by Amy Urquhart "Creating a Digital Photo Archive" and some good information from the National Archives on preserving the originals. Or call my sister Lisa. She's all better now and has been posting all our old pictures on Facebook.
And Lisa, if you have that picture of me ten months pregnant with Andie in a bikini, we don't really need to keep that.
Print this post
0 comments:
Post a Comment