My wife finally got around to going through her late Mom's photo albums.

[NNadir]

The photos are circulating between the sisters in the order of birth, my wife being second. We're supposed to select the ones we want and pass them on to the next sister. My wife, considerately, isn't taking many she believes her younger sisters would want.

The photos go back to the very early 20th century and even a few from the 19th century. We're not entirely sure who all these people were, but its fun to speculate from the family stories we know. They say you die twice, once physically, and then when no one remembers who you were.

What is striking to me is that my mother-in-law had quite a few pictures of my wife and I from the period before we married and some from the early years of our marriage. This is somewhat surprising since I don't think my mother-in-law particularly liked me at the time, although we worked out our problems eventually.

I guess I looked slightly less dumpy back then, but damn! I'd forgotten how drop dead gorgeous my wife was physically. (She's still drop dead gorgeous, but in a different way.) I do remember all the men hitting on her, but she stuck with me somehow. I was very lucky.

There's one of us standing on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon - a stranger must have taken it for us - during our trip moving out to California that just blows my mind. I sure looked happy, and I sure know why.

I recall hearing from a colleague that the guys who worked for me at one of the jobs out in California that I held early in my marriage asked him what the hell a woman that beautiful was doing with the likes of me. I kind of laughed it off back then, but I see what they were wondering about.

I don't think I have an answer.

We've been together 40 years, and I still don't have an answer.

Of course, her looks have very little to do with who she is. It is the latter, who she is, that matters in the end.

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Why not scan the whole album and distribute copies of the scans?

Software can vivisect a whole page of photos into individual items. A few hours and it's done. They storable, printable, and everyone can have all copies. Of course, you need a scanner, but some libraries are up to the task.

[NNadir]

2. It's taken two years for my wife just to open the box and go through the pictures.

When my mother-in-law died, my son, the artist, put together a video collage for the funeral. At that time, I did scan some of the pictures, those my son put into the collage which he set to music.

We should do as you say, but we both work intense jobs with significant commutes (in opposite directions). It's a good idea, but realistically, it's unlikely to happen, although I will surely scan some of them.

[bucolic_frolic]

3. That's ok, just a suggestion

I scanned some, but there are other albums. Years of procrastination. Relatives don't care very much. It's a massive project and most families have them.

[Deuxcents]

4. That's a good idea..for any of us with family photos to share

[soldierant]

5. I thnk you have the answer right there; just haven't put iit together.

You say "her looks have very little to do with who she is." You are there. She just got to "his looks have very little to do with who he is"long before you did.

[NNadir]

6. Thank you, that's very nice of you to say.

You may be right, although, quite honestly, she put up with a lot from me, my, um, "reverses" and "set backs."

Like the Cyndi Lauper song, she was very much "...if you fall I will pick you up, time after time."

Since I came to know her, I have never doubted how much I loved her, and how lucky I've been to be in her life.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

7. Digitized and shared makes family photos immune to fire, flood, or other loss.

It can be as simple as snapping photos of the photos and then sending them to each member.

I scanned all my mother's photo collection at 4800 dpi, prints and negatives, then put them on DVDs and gave each family member a copy.

[NNadir]

8. Well, yes, this is true, if one finds the time.

It took my sister-in-law a few years to send them to us. I don't know why but I have a guess:

It seems she left a lot from her life in the box; since my mother-in-law died I have the sense that the unhappiness of her childhood is coming back to her; she's begun speaking of it, in fact. Maybe she didn't want to open the box.

My wife was also unhappy growing up, but in the pictures I see that even at a young age, she was struggling to make things right; perhaps I'm reading into it based on what I know of her. Her magnificence started somewhere.

I have scanned many pictures over the years, at least those that were important to me. They're backed up. If they should survive, there will come a time when nobody looking at them will know who we were, just as we do not know who many people in my mother-in-law's box.

I have now scanned a few from this very large set, those of my wife and I when we were young, less than ten as of now. I'm sure to do a few more.