This is Ruth Shepard and Alvin Holmes in the summer of 1937 before they became Mr. and Mrs. Holmes and long before they became my Little Grandma and Grandpa. My Grandma Ruth built this cabin on Big Sandy Lake in Minnesota with the help of friends while she was single and in her early 20s. […]
My mom’s beautiful smile is the only thing that could distract from the aching nostalgia of seeing the World Trade Center in this 1972ish photo of the two of us from New York’s Liberty Island. I was born in New Jersey and after a few years was raised in my mom Kathy’s hometown of Rochester, […]
As a young boy, I would often stay at my grandparents house over the weekend. The spare bedroom I slept in had a varnished, wooden box on top of the wardrobe that opened out into a writing desk. Inside it were an assortment of black and white family photographs of my parents, grandparents and other […]
Mama bear and me, 1981. My mom was 36 when this picture was taken, which is my age now. I am her baby and the youngest of four. Shortly after this photo was taken, my mom made the difficult decision to leave my father (deservedly so) and raise us on her own. She took multiple […]
What does the title “Archivist” mean to you? Wikipedia says an archivist is a “record keeper, surveying an unprocessed collection of materials primarily for conservation or preservation before the archivist begins arrangement and description.” Conservation. Preservation. Record Keeper. Those words all convey a sense of importance, trust and longevity. Here, we begin to uncover my personal […]
The man holding the camera is my dad, Max, around 1969-70. He was a journalist, musician, artist, photographer, businessman, local alderman, and community activist. Most important, he was a husband and a father. He loved to travel and the souvenirs he collected were friendships with diverse people. Today we say farewell to him and honor […]
Meet my parents Moulay Said and Elkamla, pictured here with my aunt in the early 1960s. This portrait was taken in Morocco, a few years after my parents’ wedding. It represented the start of a new life together. They were leaving the beautiful city of Fes for a new season of life in Casablanca. Although […]
Mama’s birthday is today. She would’ve been turning 86. Here we are, thick as thieves in December of 1961, with my beloved Gund Cubbi bear, that I still have of course. I was 2 and she was 32. Lots of our photos are of me standing on something, mostly cars it seems. They waited later […]
“A photograph never grows old. You and I change, people change all through the months and years, but a photograph always remains the same. How nice to look at a photograph of a mother or father taken many years ago. You see them as you remember them.” – Albert Einstein Cookout. Peabody, Massachusetts. June 1961. […]
My grandparents Jim and Tommie Sue were both teenagers when they met on a little dirt road in a small town in the 1950s. They got married soon after and had four children together in six years. Jim is in his eighties now, but he still has that twinkle in his eye and a mischievous […]
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