Heritage Album Update

 

It's time for an update on my heritage album project!

At some point a few months ago, I felt like my mom's photos were organized enough -- and I had mapped out enough of her family tree via Ancestry -- to scrapbook her family's older photos with some confidence. So I've been making a concerted effort over the past few weeks/months to get all of her family photos into albums, and I can now say that I have accomplished that goal!

I still plan to add family trees to the albums but those trees are not quite ready for prime time yet. As I finalize them, I'll print and add them to the scrapbooks.

First, let's take a look at where this little project started -- because I know that some of you are in the same boat. After my dad passed away in 2013, I brought home ALL THE PHOTOS. Then after Grandma died the next year, I brought home nearly all of HER PHOTOS. 

This is part of what I had in front of me. Truly, it was a mess. Both sides of the family were mixed together, and nothing was in order. Only a few photos had labels. I was pretty overwhelmed, not to mention grieving the loss of my parents. I couldn't even deal with these boxes for quite some time.

I've periodically shared updates on this project as I've gone along, and you can read those posts if you'd like (search "heritage"). The first step was separating the photos by family (my dad's versus my mom's). Then I split them again into the maternal and paternal sides for each of my parents. By doing that, I could deal with only one "chunk" of photos at a time, and that seemed a lot more doable. This post goes into more detail about that process.

In addition to the photos, I had boxes of memorabilia that I hoped to add into the albums -- within reason, of course. I put a lot of that material into Life Binders. You can read more about those in this post. I can't stress how much the concept of the Life Binder helped me see my way through this project.

 

These are the tabs for my mom's life binder. As I've worked on these albums, I've pulled memorabilia from her binder to add chronologically to the albums. The binders helped give the boxes of mixed-up stuff a bit of structure -- and they helped me immediately find documents when I was ready to add them.

So now I have three relatively complete binders for my mom's side of the family. I won't lie: It hasn't always been easy. Photo identification was often a challenge. And I won't even get into the emotional component that comes with a project like this. But I am SO HAPPY I at least have this much done. It is one of the most rewarding scrapbooking projects I've completed.

These albums start with the oldest photos from Mom's side of the family and continue through her high school graduation. My parents got married the fall after she graduated, so the next album I start in this series will pick up there and move through my childhood. I'm definitely not ready to tackle that chapter yet!

 I enlisted my mom's sister to help me identify and date the photos. That helped enormously, and from there I was able to sort them by age -- basically elementary school, middle school, and high school. I tried to group photos logically within those categories, then arrange them on pages.

 I also had a few photos of my mom and her sister with their extended family. It was a great feeling when I finally could identify all of the people in these photos and even find them on my family tree! As a result of this project, I have a much, much better understanding of my family history.

 

 My mom kept a few special cards and letters over the years. I incorporated many of them into the album. I made pockets so that they can be pulled out and read easily.

 

During high school, two of my mom's best friends (twins, actually) drowned in a nearby quarry. This tragedy affected my mom profoundly throughout her life and, as a result, she was terribly afraid of water. In going through her memorabilia, I found the funeral programs for both of these girls and wrote up a small piece about them.

 I also added in Mom's report cards using small pockets so they can be removed and opened.

My mom had some great stories about detasseling corn in the summers as a high school student. I found a few photos from her detasseling crew then, in going through her box of papers, I found her pay stubs, too. It was fun to match up those photos and memorabilia and add them to the album.

 Mom kept a lot of memorabilia from her high school days, including her time playing basketball. I used her yearbooks to figure out dates for her team photos so I could add them to the album.

 

 

Mom was crowned Homecoming Queen during her senior year. I enlarged a photo to use on this page.

 

 I also included all of her senior photos. A few years after these were taken, my dad's parents had them hand-tinted for her. I learned this from a note on the back of one of the photos.

 

I also included pages for my mom's sister and her late husband, including their wedding invitation.

In the section about my grandma's family, I added a page for each of her siblings. It was such a great feeling to be able to finally know who is who in these photos and be able to create this record for posterity.

 

I know I've said this before: My mom was a woman of amazing talents but organizing her photos was not one of them! From the time I was a young girl, I've been on a mission to get her pictures organized, and this is a big step toward finishing that project. I know that my mom would have loved these albums and would be so happy that her story -- at least the first part of it -- is now recorded.

If you're in a similar photo/scrapbooking situation, take heart! I hope my posts will show you that it IS POSSIBLE to document your family's story through scrapbooks. It just takes time, diligence, and emotional fortitude. Even if no one but you cares about the albums now, your family will thank you in years to come.

Now to clean up the craft room, re-group, and keep going! I need to turn my attention back to my dad's family albums. No time to waste!

Happy scrapbooking!

jp

Feline Friday with Rory

It's been awhile since we've had a Rory post. In case you were wondering, she is living her BEST LIFE in Texas! 

While Rory's meowmy has a lot going on these days, Rory has managed to keep her summer schedule free to allow ample time for relaxation!

She enjoys hanging out on the couch and watching an occasional movie.

Rory also loves watching nature outside the windows and serving as parking lot monitor! But mostly she stays busy just striking cute poses, a skill that obviously comes quite naturally to her.

Rory says Happy Feline Friday, y'all!

 

Feline Friday: Progress!

  Great news! Lily went this week for her regularly scheduled anal glands appointment, and the vet was very pleased! He said that her glands appear to be expressing normally (that's a first!) and were barely clogged at all. 

This was especially good news because at our last appointment, our vet was skeptical that Lily's anal gland problem could be fixed. He suggested pumpkin but didn't think it would really make a difference.

I credit this progress to two changes we've made: The addition of pumpkin and extra water/liquid to her diet. Thanks to faithful reader Kimberly Marie for the suggestion of water! The vet agrees that water is a key to healthy anal glands. Unfortunately, I've only had modest success with increasing her water intake. I have, however, been giving her some low-sodium broth which she readily drinks. To encourage more water consumption, the vet suggested putting ice in her water bowl to make it more enticing and also looking into a bubbly fountain.

The addition of pumpkin has been easy, since Lily will eat most anything. A lot of cats don't care for it so it can be mixed into wet food, but Lily will eat it directly out of the can. 

  Since the pumpkin will spoil in the fridge before she can go through an entire can, I've been freezing it in small ice cube trays. I just pop out one at a time and let it thaw. It's a nice, filling treat that so far seems to be having the desired effect. 

The vet suggested increasing the amount to one "pumpkin pop" (as I now call them!) per day. The vet was so pleased with Lily's progress that he's going to suggest the pumpkin pops to other patients. (Note: Be sure to use pure pumpkin...not pumpkin pie filling! As tasty as it may be, the added sugar is not good for kitties.)

I scheduled Lily's next appointment for three months out, and if she's not exhibiting any scooting behavior, I will cancel it. We're hoping that the combination of additional water and the fibrous pumpkin will keep her on the right path...and away from the vet!

Happy Feline Friday!
jp

Feline Friday: The Opportunist

I was in the kitchen one night this week when I noticed a sneaky disturbance at the automatic feeder. Turns out I had left the lid unlatched and A Certain Opportunist detected a whiff of the tasty morsels stored inside.

As is often the best choice, I decided to just let things unfold. 

Our Opportunist literally shoved her snout under the loose lid and lifted it up with the back of her head. While her head was inside, she grabbed (and swallowed whole) as many tasty morsels as she could scoop up.

Then she sat down to re-group, all the while leaving her head inside to prop up the lid.

After a deep breath, back in she went to vacuum up a few more morsels.

 Deeper and deeper she dove...

 

Until she was headless!

Opportunists have to work quickly! This whole incident took just a few seconds before the Meowmy snapped the lid back on tightly. This party was over! 😸

Happy Feline Friday!
jp

Organizing Family History Albums

 Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?
-- Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton --

In recent weeks, I've been working very hard on my family albums. I decided to jump into my mom's family and tackle those photos because many of them have now been identified, thanks to a couple of older relatives. I still have a ton of work to do on my dad's side of the family so I'll get to back to that when these albums are at a logical stopping point.

I've learned a lot as I've worked on my mom's albums, both about preparing to make a heritage album and also about organizing it. In this post, I thought I'd share a bit about how I've approached the process. In the next post, I'll share some recent pages.

Organizing Photos

I inherited a lot of family photos from my mom. Bless her heart, she was a woman of many talents but organizing photos was not one of them! In fact, throughout my entire life -- starting from my late elementary school years -- I tried to organize her photos to no avail. In spite of my efforts to set up a system for her, they were scattered around the house in drawers with no organization whatsoever. Well, better late than never: Mom's family photos are now organized! I always told her I'd get it done! 😌

I sent a large batch of photos home with my aunt. She and her cousin did a great job identifying many of the people in the photos and in the process, I received copies of several photos I didn't have. Once I had them all back, I used my family tree to set up a file folder for each married couple (my grandparents, great grandparents, etc.), then I dropped the photos into the proper folder. Now when working on the album, I just grab one family's folder at a time. This has made the process much less overwhelming.

A well-sourced family tree is a MUST for creating an accurate family history album! I would not be comfortable creating these albums if I didn't have an accurate family tree.

As I go along, I've uploaded many of the photos to Ancestry so that others who are looking for them can enjoy them. As I've worked on family history, I've learned that many people are possessive of family photos and resist sharing them. That's something I just can't understand. It's a true joy to find a photo of an ancestor you've never seen. Why not give someone that happiness? *sigh* I found these photos of my 3rd great grandparents on Ancestry, thanks to someone sharing them.

Memorabilia

When I cleaned out my parents' house, I brought home boxes of keepsakes for both of them and for my maternal grandma. This photo was taken back in 2014. It took me a long time to sort through those boxes and separate the memorabilia by person so that I could use it in these albums.

Eventually I created a small tub for my dad, my mom, and my grandma. As I tried to see my way through all of this stuff, it made more sense to me to put the papers and memorabilia into a binder format. If you've been following my blog since then, you might remember that I decided to create a "life binder" for each of them.

I created a binder with tabs for birth, elementary school, high school, work, etc. This format allowed me to sort the memorabilia so that it was "scrapbook ready" for my chronological albums. You can read more about that process HERE.

 

I've had the binders done for a few years, just waiting to be scrapbooked. They truly made the scrapbooking process much, much easier. If you have family history albums to make, I highly recommend making a life binder to get you started.

  

 For example, because I had made a life binder for my grandma, I was able to find and include a letter she had written to her sister when she was a little girl and valentines from her classmates, all of which can be pulled out to read.

 I had organized all of her school memorabilia into that section of her life binder, and I matched it up to the photos I had from that time period then added some information about the one-room school house she attended. What a delight it was to find these little end-of-school-year keepsakes from her teacher! If not for the life binder, I'm sure I would have forgotten about them. I think that including some of these little pieces makes a scrapbook so much more interesting.

On this page, I included a "year-book" from a Farm Bureau meeting held at my grandma's family home. As I went through my photos, I happened to find a picture taken at one of those meetings. You can pull out the year-book and see that in December, my grandma (then a young woman) gave a presentation on Christmas decor. Her mother, my great grandma, made several presentations throughout the year on flowers and other homemaking topics.

 Album Organization

I have two albums going for my dad's side of the family and now I have started two for my mom's side. I don't have a lot of photos for her dad's side as my mom's parents divorced when she was very young. Because of that, I have actually finished putting photos into this album but still need to print family trees and a bit of family history for context.

 

 Each album is tabbed by married couple: Grandparents, great grandparents, etc. I'm sure there are many ways to organize a family history album but this just makes the most sense to me.

 I have started out each tabbed section with a photo of the couple or the entire family (typically a professional photo).

 

 The subsequent pages include snapshots and memorabilia associated with that couple and their children.

I'm really pleased with the progress I've made on these albums in just the past few weeks. I won't lie: It takes a long time to identify photos, sort memorabilia, and figure out your family tree. But all of that preparation makes putting together the scrapbook so much easier -- and very gratifying. It's a great feeling to look at empty photo boxes and life binders and know that photos and memorabilia are now safely stored in scrapbooks for posterity.

If you're working on a similar project, I hope you'll be encouraged! A bit of organization on the front end is well worth the time and will help you navigate a big and complex project like this.

jp

Feline Friday

Lily has started her own consulting business! 

 

 

She offers expert advice on a number of topics, including diet... 

...and exercise!

 Payment is easy...and often as close as your fridge!

Happy Feline Friday!

jp & Lily