The Finish Line

Except for trying to figure out what to do with the old family post cards, dozens of cabinet cards and studio portraits that are mounted on hard board, I'm just about finished with the rejuvenation of the old photo albums and the creation of two more. I did not enjoy doing this at all, I will admit. 

Got a kick out of this 1917 photo, though. My mother is near the bottom of the stairs and the bottom is completely covered with onions from the garden drying in the sun! It was written on the back!

And this one of my dad. Handsome devil wasn't he? GOOD MAN!

I even found these but they weren't marked as to when or who. I could make a guess on the face similarity of the woman and then could surmise the man is her husband and the child is her daughter and the photos were taken before her son, my grandfather was born. A guess is just a guess, though. I'll never know for sure. They are called Carte de visite photos. See link to explain below.

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Click on links below to learn more about old photograph cards 

Carte de visite Information

Cabinet Card Information

Plowing Through...

...stacks and stacks of loose snapshots and portraits to organize and fill and label in old-style blank albums. I needed to divert for a bit today. The difficulty lies in the fact that I get materials out and start to work when it becomes time to clear it all out for lunch. Then I get back to my work and have to clear out for supper. It is difficult and annoying but there is no other place besides the dining room table to continue without interruptions. 

Maternal Grandparents on Honeymoon 1896

Mother and Father on honeymoon 1934

The lake has totally thawed and now is sporting a skim of ice. Many Canada geese and various species of other waterfowl have returned - already! The winter that never really was! I want to finish this project and be free again!

From the April 1975 issue of Countryside and Small Stock Journal:

"Spring is the season of hope, because a young man’s fancy turns to love…and because an old man stoops to plant tiny seeds in the moist and fertile soil without even bothering to wonder whether he’ll be the one to reap the harvest. In spring, it really doesn’t matter."

~Jerome D. Belanger, Beyond the Sidewalk~

Crochet Mania

I'm in the middle of the photo project and came across some pictures my mother took of her crocheted afghans. So far I have 4 albums repaired and restored to the best of my ability. It is extremely difficult because she GLUED or PASTED almost all of them on the vintage type black construction paper both sides, and cannot remove them. Even when they are pasted, she has attached the black corners! Where the corners have come loose I replaced them as the photos were becoming dog eared.  Well I'm rambling but think you get the idea.

If you have never scanned photos in 12" x 18" albums on a 8 1/2" x 11 1/2" scanning bed you would run into the same difficulty.

Yes, I know the old albums are not acid free, but I do what I can. I had to take them all apart to repair the holes in the back of the pages that were torn from use. I used black electrical tape on both sides of the page and repunched the holes. That should last for a few more years.

I found instructions for removing photos from paper backing BUT would have to tear every page apart. Not going there!

The next thing I have to do is mount all of the many MANY loose photos of ancestors in the vintage books I was able to locate at e-bay. Fun ahead!

To get to the point now, I have scanned 21 of Mother's afghans. She would be totally embarrassed to know that she spelled it wrong. Chuckle.....Can't imagine the difficulty she had to hang each one on her clothesline, take a picture, and do it over and over and over! By the way, there were more that I remember but no photos.

This one is mine!

They all were scanned in the order they were in the albums scattererd throughout.

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Photo Project

This shot may give you "some" idea of my photo project.

This the neat pile.

I have been through it extensively twice to see exactly what is here. There are at least two albums of old photos missing, according to my memory. I spoke with my brother and he also remembers the same photos in the missing albums. It is a mystery. They are the snapshot photos of both he and I and our twin sisters in the years between 1936 - 1942.

So far, according to my perceived needs, I have ordered three blank vintage albums from e-Bay and new black mounting corners. One of the albums has arrived and there were two packets of white mounting corners inside. That was a surprise. Some of the pictures in the old albums are mounted in white corners, but most are either pasted! glued! or mounted in black corners that have come loose.

I ordered 9 packets of black corners, each containing 252. (2268 corners will hold around 567 photos.) I think I'll have enough corners.

So far I have spent only $104.06 including shipping and handling charges. ($49.14 corners) ($54.92 blank vintage photo albums, two brand new). I sure hope that will be all!

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The other two albums arrived today. One was brand new and there was a packet of black mounting corners in it. The date on the packet was 1952.

Now I should get down to business!