My grandparents were the repository of all of the family photos. When someone died, all the albums and shoe boxes ended up at my grandparents’ house.
There were always old photos to go through when I visited!

My grandfather took great pains to reproduce some of these photos. The sight of my grandparents working on cataloging and sorting and organizing the photos, the boxes and albums lined up with snapshots and negatives pouring out, is a constant from my childhood.

Our family now has a masterful collection of images, arranged in albums in chronological order and notes indicating who is who. They are priceless.

It is not always clear if my grandfather wrote the notes on the back of the images when he took them or later when he was organizing them and sorting them. Either way, whether he was missing his beloved wife or looking forward to the life they would share, this photo of my grandmother with his note “the girl I’m going to marry” just touches my heart. ~shared by @jessdelvecchio