Featured Family Stories

These fetching young folks are my grandparents, Carrie & Paul Vansickle. This photograph was most likely taken in West Virginia during the 1930’s. They were young, barely in their 20s. I see sparkling energy in their eyes! My Grandfather was a body and fender man, a house builder, a teacher (of special needs young people) […]

“A portrait is not made in the camera but on either side of it.” -Edward Steichen This photograph was given to me by my mother. She found it at her mother’s home in West Virginia on a recent visit. The only thing I know about the man in this photograph is that he is my […]

I have so many memories, stories, songs, and rhymes I want to share, and remember, and pass to my children from Grammy. She was truly one of a kind. Vibrant, sassy, lovely, fiery, thoughtful, and a hard worker. (Among so many other things.) I can hear her voice now, always sharing useful facts and tips […]

Wyoming (near Yellowstone or Cody), late 1950s. Over 45 years later and I’m seeing this gem for the first time! My Grandpa took his boys, my Dad and Uncle and their cousin G, out on an adventure. I wonder what their perspective of “the West” was at this time? My grandparents, who are now 91 […]

My grandaddy (bottom left), his siblings and his cousins in the early 1950s. I have many photos of my mom’s maternal side of the family, but not many of my mom’s paternal side. This is the first photo I ever saw of my granddaddy from when he was a young boy. I love his priceless […]

“All personal photographs are trying to get lost. Whether they are tucked away in a photo album or existing as ones and zeroes in a computer hard drive, it takes work from their caretakers to protect personal images.” – @toddwemmr I had the pleasure of assembling my great grandmother’s Life Story four years ago after […]

So far this year, my family has celebrated a 16th, 21st, 25th and 50th birthday and a 25th, 30th and 60th wedding anniversary. Now we celebrate the first of two 80th birthdays happening this summer. It’s a very special one: my Mom’s! As part of this milestone celebration, we digitized Mom and Dad’s 8mm movies […]

I received a call at work that was vague and worrying. It was from my mother, telling me to leave work right away. When I arrived at the house, she was in tears, sitting in the corner of her bedroom on the floor. I had lost my grandfather, G.W. Marts. I was in shock, and […]

My parents Carlo Gabriele and Elena Conte as boyfriend and girlfriend in 1948 or 1949. This picture is important to me because maybe it’s the only photo of my parents as boyfriend and girlfriend that I have. I have photos of my mother as a young girl, my father as a young boy, but just this one […]