This weekend I was on a girls weekend and saw a friend I don’t get to see very often. For the last year or so she has been overwhelmed caring for aging parents; dealing with their housing challenges; mourning the loss of a parent; and moving another parent into assisted living.
The short version of the story goes something like this: Dad had a stroke, and after a stay in rehab, he went home into the care of his wife. As is often the case, she wasn’t quite equipped to provide the right level of care, but the two of them fronted well enough to seem like they were managing - until they weren’t.
One day, a water main breaks and a flood ensues, compromising the structural integrity of the home and the safety of its inhabitants. So now it is an urgent, if not emergent, situation to get them into a safe dwelling and an appropriate level of care. As with so many of us, this had not been planned for and now it’s something of a crisis mode.
Sadly, my friend’s dad passed shortly thereafter. This left the sorting through of the home and all its “cherished items” to the family when it became a rush to get mom into assisted living. They had to switch into “get it done” mode. But then you don’t have time to process all the things! You can’t sort and share and revisit memories because the estate sale is pending and the house needs to get on the market.
One of the first things my friend lamented was the complete overwhelm of trying to sift through family memories - namely, old photos and videos. You want to be able to sort through them and share them and learn who’s ancient looking aunt is related to whom but there’s no time for that when you’re in crisis mode.
“Take time now,” she said, “when you have the time, to go through the photos
and upload them. Make notes on who’s who while you can.”
It can change on a dime and that window shuts.
So today, at 5 pm, I found myself lifting the dusty photo box from the floor to my desk, digging out my DVD attachment, downloading Handbrake and Googling “how to convert DVD files to MP4” to create something I can actually view and save in iCloud.
I start with my husband’s family because they are on the top of the box. This turns up DVDs full of black and white photos and videos from World War II and before.
My father in law was in the Navy for 3 years during WWII. I found this photo of him taken in Aldgate, London on June 30, 1944 following the Allied Invasion of Normandy on D-Day.
He was stationed off the coast of Northern Italy and landed on Utah Beach on a minesweeper on D-Day. He was part of the search and rescue mission for wounded soldiers on Utah Beach.
He later shipped out to the South Pacific via the Panama Canal in May of 1945. Luckily, V-E happened on May 8th and his ship turned around and headed back to US waters. He married his lovely bride, my mother in law in April of 1946.
In grainy, sepia-toned video, I see my mother and father-in-law, (ages 20 and 22), happy and flirtatious with rose petals being strewn everywhere and family cheering them on. It’s hard not to get choked up.
This photo is of my maternal grandmother and I love how glamorous and happy she looks in it.
I know the outline of these stories, but some of the details escape me or were never known to any of us. But I am glad in this moment - even if I can barely harness the incredible technology at-hand - that I can dig into our family history. I can capture it so that my girls, and maybe even their kids, can appreciate their ancestry some day.
I know this is the tip of a very large iceberg, but I am proud of myself for starting this daunting, time-consuming, yet meaningful task. And while my in-laws may not be on this planet to tell me their stories, so many other relatives are here and I want to take advantage of that gift while I can.
I even dug up a video we took of the town where my daughter spent her first 6 months before we moved to a new state. I totally forgot we did that as brand-new, sleep-deprived parents and my daughter had never really seen where she came from until this weekend.
It was really special to see her smile at her miniature self.
I’m off to check on the status of my latest scan!
Please share your successes, challenges, do’s, and don’ts for digitizing your family’s photo archive. I am at the beginning of this journey and I need all the help I can get.
I want to acknowledge that I listened to the “10 Things to Tell You” podcast and she hosted Miss Freddy, a photo archivist extraordinaire based in Colorado who shared some amazing tips on how to start the journey of digitizing your photos and videos. I am so grateful for their indirect encouragement and expertise that helped empower me to start this process.
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