Meet my great-grandfather William Brent Wright. He served a mormon mission to Tonga from 1909 to 1912. Before leaving for Tonga, he had never left his home state of Utah, so naturally his journal is full of funny stories. Here is one of my favorite entries from his journal: “While on the ship Aorangi, there were several […]
My grandfather, Stanley Marcus, at five years old, circa 1910. This boy grew up to become one of the world’s most well-known retailers with a refined sense of taste and style, whose leadership transformed his family’s Dallas clothing store, Neiman Marcus, into a globally recognized arbiter of fashion. However, his refined sensibility was also expressed […]
My grandaddy and my step-grandmother on their honeymoon in Tennessee in 1976. The memory most associated with this picture is my step-grandmother, Esther Mahone. My mom would always tell me stories of how much of a “fox” she was in the 70s. When you grow up and people are older for most of your life, […]
For over 27 millennia since the first cave paintings were discovered, telling stories has been one of humanity’s fundamental communication methods. Even with technology’s increasingly sophisticated and instantaneous capabilities, our brains still respond to content by looking for the story to make sense out of the experience. This fact brings me to a core question I often […]
If you’re reading this you’ve probably scanned more than a few of your own family photos. You already know how mind-numbingly frustrating it can be when your scans look nothing like your originals. Worse yet, your scans might produce such small digital images that – when viewed full screen – they simply look like a […]
Many of my fondest memories of my childhood took place at my grandmother’s house. Each weekend, my entire family would descend upon her home to enjoy each other’s company and a home-cooked meal. It’s been almost nine years since I lost my grandmother; there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of […]
When I was visiting my family in Scotland, I found one of my Granny’s cameras. Inside, there was a roll of film. There were just 5 frames shot on it. My Granny, Jessie, had passed away 18 months before my discovery. Her camera probably hadn’t been used for years before that. The film wasn’t in […]
This is my favorite photo of my Grandma, Kay Padovano, circa 1944 when she was about 18 years old. She was the eldest daughter in her family and her parents, recent Italian immigrants, expected her not to marry and to stay home and take care of them as per family traditions of the time. This […]
Meet my grandmother and her five children. My dad is the guy in the white shirt more focused on his snack than what everyone else is looking at. Like father, like daughter! I don’t know where they were, or where they were going, but I know they were probably getting there with all of them […]
Easter Sunday. Way before the days of Frozen and mass-market Princess everything, my mother bought this Alice in Wonderland dress while we were on vacation in Disney World. I was about 7 or 8 and it was a BIG purchase only worn on special occasions…this was no plastic costume! There was a petticoat and a […]
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