A place where I can share interesting ideas and maybe get a few things off my chest

Posts tagged ‘photos’

Photos at the Cemetery

Find-A-Grave is a website where people can make virtual memorials for their loved ones, including cemetery locations, photos, and links to other family members’ memorial pages. People who live far away from where their family members have been buried can post photo requests, and, in turn, many volunteer to fulfill photo requests for memorial parks in their communities. Which is how I ended up at Curlew Hills Memory Gardens this afternoon, riding around in a golf cart with Sam.

I’ve gone over there a couple of times before with short lists, just popping in and asking for a quick assist. But when I stopped by this past Monday, it was with a list of eleven names, and Patty, one of the Family Service Counselors, was already booked for the rest of the day. She kindly took my spreadsheet and we set a time for me to return this morning. She looked all the names up in their records, noting the few that were not actually interred there (still valuable information for family members), along with the coordinates for the remaining sites.

But it was Sam, the other Family Service Counselor, who was available this morning to escort me around the grounds. Armed with about five different maps in five different sizes, all mounted on sturdy pieces of cardboard, he expertly shuffled between them, kind of like a cross between a Vegas blackjack dealer and a professional juggler, all while safely maneuvering the three-bench golf cart on the winding trails. Our last stop was near the mausoleum pictured above. I thought the stained-glass pieces resembled stylized horns, such as Gabriel might wield in the hopefully very-distant future. Sam wasn’t sure, so I’ve zoomed in on the detail so get further opinions. Do y’all see horns, too, or is this just another example of my very active pareidolia?

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Scans From A Shoebox

Have A Coke

I have know idea who this is; I just like the composition of the photo.

That’s the name of the folder open on my desktop. The photos aren’t in a shoebox now; they’re in a copy paper box, because the boot box they were in for as far back as I can remember finally deteriorated beyond the point of keeping anything contained. Aunt Helen, Mother’s older sister, had rows of photo albums with pictures of family and her trips to Europe neatly labeled in chronological order. We had a boot box that had originally held workboots that Dad had worn out and discarded before I was born.

I’ve been meaning to digitally scan these photos for years, and finally started a few days ago. Most of them are of family. Many are of people I don’t know and except for a couple, the only clues are notes I made in pencil on the backs of some of them over three decades ago. I would like to go through them with Mother and ask her about the people in them, but I’m afraid the exercise will be frustrating for both of us.

The photos of family members I recognize, I’m dividing into large envelopes to send to representative members of each family group. They may already have copies of these photos, but they might not, and maybe they can pencil in all the details and make interesting albums and give the pictures somewhere to live besides in a box in a closet.

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