My Mom’s birthday was yesterday. What better way to celebrate than to reminisce? She recently sent me this photo of herself as a young girl, on her 7th birthday. This picture was taken October 16, 1959. My Grandparents, Paul and Alberta, worked very hard to make a living, starting out in Chicago and then purchasing […]
Last Thursday, I took my 90 year old father to the emergency room after he showed great weakness and confusion. While my 4 brothers and I waited for the doctor, my Mom (87) stepped outside the exam room into the hallway where she tripped and broke her hip, requiring hospitalization and surgery the following day. […]
“The day she had her curls cut off,” it says on the back. My grandfather found my grandmother’s stash of things, her things that he hasn’t touched since she died in 1992. Apparently, there was a very special book, an album that belonged to my great-great grandmother Blanche! And here she is, Blanche Dolton nee […]
My grandmother Jane was a nurse during WWII, she spoke Japanese, and raised my mother as a single parent. On my best days, it is my hope that I might be regarded as half the woman she was. For the sake of brevity, to tell you how this photo truly moves me, you must know […]
Imagine discovering a face that holds clues to your family history. That’s exactly why this portrait matters. This is my great-great-grandfather Valentine Wertz (1886-1976). I received this photograph of him two years ago from a gentlemen in Pennsylvania. His grandmother had it in her possession. Since he wasn’t related to Valentine, he decided to pass […]
That little boy is my father and that house is the one I visited my grandparents in when I was his age. Now I visit my father in the house I grew up in. He doesn’t recognize me. The good days are fewer. Less solace is taken from spending time and instead taken browsing through […]
It happens every day. In fact, there’s a good chance it has happened to you. A loved one dies, family members gather to grieve and to clean out their loved one’s home. And then someone makes a striking discovery: a big box of family photos stashed deep in a closet. At first, everyone is excited […]
After he retired, my grandfather used to sit on his porch with his radio, newspapers and notebook for hours. He spent a lot of time there. In fact, his children called him “deputy of the veranda” when he prematurely retired from politics. During the holidays, on that same porch, we spent so much beautiful time […]
This photo features the Yamamoto family, my great-grandparents, grandmother (center), and her siblings. It was taken in 1925 in Rosemead, California. My great grandparents came to America from Hiroshima, Japan. For a time, the American dream was theirs. They started a family and share-cropped a farm, growing flowers which they sold at the market in […]
Somehow you’ve ended up with boxes of photographs, slides and piles of albums, and now you’re the family historian! You might have some old family photos that still look good, some may be ready to scan and some may need some serious restoration. Before you begin the lengthy and sometimes costly restoration process, here are […]
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