Entries tagged as ‘preserving’
February 12, 2010 · 1 Comment
If you’re like me, you’ve inherited old photo albums with the pictures held down on so called magnetic pages. The trouble with these albums is that the adhesive used and the plastic liners damage the photos over time. Removing the photos is a priority. I went looking for help and boiled my research down to these seven essential steps.
Step 1. Before attempting any photo removal make certain to scan digitally each album page so that should a photo be damaged, you can still recover it from the scanned image.
Step 2. Select a practice photo that has no value to you or is badly out of focus. A word of caution. When removing photos be sure not to curl or peel them back as this could cause permanent damage.
Step 3. Use a piece of dental floss and carefully pull it under one corner of the photo. Using a sawing motion slowly work your way to the opposite corner. With any luck the photo should pop right off.
Step 4. If a photo is glued so tightly that floss won’t work, then try one of the following removal methods:
a. Use un-do, an adhesive remover that won’t harm photos. It comes with an applicator that allows you to slip the remover under the photo.
b. Place the album page in your freezer for a few minutes. The glue will become brittle, making it easier to remove the photo.
c. Use a hair dryer set on low heat. Run it back and forth on the back of the page holding the photo. Be careful not to overheat the photo as this could damage it. Once the glue has softened, quickly and carefully remove the picture.
d. Place the photo album page in a microwave. Make certain there are no metallic pieces. Start the microwave and run it for five seconds. Check the photo and keep using five second blasts until the glue softens and the photo comes free.
Step 5. Take your photos and where possible write on the back the following information: the names of people in the photo, their ages, the year, the location, and the event. Avoid using a ball point pen as this could damage the photo. Use a soft lead pencil or an acid free pen available from a craft store.
Step 6. Digitally scan your photos, store them on your hard drive, and than upload them to a web based site like Flickr or Picasa. That way if your hard drive crashes, you won’t lose your digitized photos.
Step 7. Store your photos in cardboard photo boxes that pass the Photographic Activity Test (PAT). You can obtain such boxes at Archival Methods, Carr McLean, Light Impressions, Gaylord, and University Products. If you have a large collection, layer an acid free sheet of paper between each photo. Photos should be kept in a cool room with low humidity. That generally means keeping them out of attics and basements.
Photo by iStockphoto
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Categories: Ancestors · How to · Photos · Resources · Tips
Tagged: How to, old photos, preserving, save, storing
This past week I’ve been reminded how much our treasured possessions are a window into the stories of our life. My frail, ninety-one year old, mother has started to go through her modest collection of jewelry. She’s carefully trying to match each piece with a relative or friend she thinks would appreciate having it after she has died. Sitting with her, she began telling me the stories behind each piece. There are the art deco black-and-white earrings she bought to go with a very fashionable dress my father bought her shortly after they were married. A silver bracelet brought back by my dad from Pakistan during WWII is tarnished but her memories of my dad’s war experiences remain vivid. Each piece unlocks a story in my mother’s life.
And then there was a colleague at Victoria Hospice who told me of a unique funeral celebration he attended. A friend of the deceased gave a eulogy that was built entirely around photos of the shoes in her friend’s life. Each pair of shoes had a story to tell.
In The Globe and Mail newspaper on Thursday, I read an essay entitled Family Ties. It tells the story of a son’s remembrance of his father through the neckties that were passed down to him. Here’s an excerpt:
The other day I was getting ready for work and went into my closet to get a tie…I reached for a brown-, blue- and white-striped tie and I remembered that it was one of my father’s. He died last year and shortly afterward my mother, who was almost 80, made the decision to sell the big house we all grew up in. It took her a while, but she finally tackled the job of cleaning out my father’s closets… My father had a lot of ties – dozens and dozens and dozens of them…. And so, on this morning, I found myself knotting my father’s tie, remembering how we stood in front of the mirror years ago, him teaching me how to get a half-Windsor just right. I smiled, knowing I might be the only person in the building that day with a tie on.
Another interesting use of objects to tell a story appeared on the NPR website. Entitled A Catalog — Literally — Of Broken Dreams, it reviews the book Important Artifacts, by New York Times op-ed page art director Leanne Shapton. The NPR article points out:
Foregoing narrative entirely, Shapton tells the story of a couple’s relationship in the form of a staggeringly precise ersatz auction catalog that annotates the common detritus of a love affair — notes, CD mixes, e-mails, photos, books— and places the objects up for sale…. In choosing the conceit of an auction catalog, Shapton reminds us that the story of love can be told through the things we leave behind, but also by the condition in which we leave them.
All of this got me thinking. Wouldn’t it be interesting to do a memoir or life story built around the special things someone possesses? Something to keep in mind. Have you already done something like this? Love to hear from you, if you have.
Photo by Kylie
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Categories: Life stories · Memoirs · Personal historian · Tips
Tagged: family keepsake, favorite things, memoir, Personal historian, personal histories, preserving, reflection, stories
If you don’t know your history, then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree.
Michael Crichton - (1942 – 2008) American author, producer, director, screenwriter and physician
We live in a world that prizes speed, innovation, newness and youth. We’re constantly looking forward. And in the process we’ve become strangers to our past. We’ve either never heard our family stories or forgotten many of them. We pay a price for this. We feel rootless, unconnected and at our deepest core anxious and unhappy.
Recording and preserving our stories is not some flight of nostalgia. It is in fact a determined act to reclaim our history.
Photo by justneal
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Categories: Ancestors · Life stories · Preservation · Writing
Tagged: family stories, memories, Michael Crichton, preserving, quote, rootless
Benjamin Disraeli
The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write a book about it.
Benjamin Disraeli - (21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881) a British statesman who served twice as Prime Minister
This quote struck home. For my mother’s 90th birthday I interviewed her for thirteen hours over several weeks. I then edited this into a 117 page hard cover book complete with photographs. I thought I knew my mom pretty well. Surprisingly, it wasn’t until I began to talk to her about her life in detail, that I really came to know her. It deepened my love and affection for her because I saw more clearly the underlying values and passions that had directed her life.
If you’ve been considering preparing a life story of a loved one, I urge you to make it happen this year. You won’t be disappointed.
Categories: Life stories · Quotes
Tagged: benefits, life story, preserving, quote, Writing
The longer we listen to one another – with real attention – the more commonality we will find in all our lives. That is, if we are careful to exchange with one another life stories and not simply opinions.
Barbara Deming, (1917 – 1984) American feminist and advocate of nonviolent social change
We live in an age of opinions. Everyone has an opinion about something. Is it just me, or do you find that annoying? That’s why I like this Barbara Deming quote. One of the rewards of helping people record and preserve their life stories is that you appreciate that we’re all interdependent. We are connected by the great themes that bind us all – birth, love, illness, family, and loss. It’s our stories that count not our opinions.
Photo by ky_olsen
Categories: Life stories · Personal historian · Quotes
Tagged: life story, listening, opinions, preserving, quote
Some years ago, when I was a filmmaker I did a documentary on family caregivers. The show dealt with five caregivers, two of whom were struggling to look after a parent suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. I had a close-up look at the challenge it inflicts on patient and caregiver alike. Since I became a personal historian five years ago, I felt that there was therapeutic value in recording the life stories of those with Alzheimer’s.
Soon after starting my personal history work, I had the opportunity to do a series of video interviews for a charming and accomplished woman who was at an early stage of Alzheimer’s. Both she and her family realized that if I didn’t get the stories recorded they would soon be lost forever. She thoroughly enjoyed my visits and seemed stimulated by the recall of familiar stories from her past. Today that same woman has deteriorated considerably but her family finds some comfort in knowing that her life lives on in these recordings we made.
The other day I read an article in MayoClinic.com Alzheimer’s: Mementos help preserve memories which seems to bear out my anecdotal observations about the value of life stories and Alzheimer’s. The article notes:
“Caregivers become the memory for their loved one with Alzheimer’s disease,” says Glenn Smith, Ph.D., a neuropsychologist at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. “By gathering memories, you can bring important events and experiences from your loved one’s past into the present. You’re the link to his or her life history….By creating a life story, you affirm for your loved one all the positive things he or she has done in life and can still do. Even after your relative’s memories start to fade, creating a life story shows that you value and respect his or her legacy. It also reminds you who your loved one was before Alzheimer’s disease.”
Tom Kitwood in his groundbreaking 1997 book, Dementia Reconsidered believes that a Life History Book for a person with dementia, complete with photographs, should become best practice. He says, “In dementia a sense of identity based on having a life story to tell may eventually fade. When it does biographical knowledge about a person becomes essential if that identity is still to be held in place.”
If you know a family member at an early stage of Alzheimer’s disease, you might give serious consideration to recording their life story. If you’re a professional personal historian unsure if you should work with clients who have dementia, give it serious consideration. You could be providing a wonderful gift.
Web related resources:
Alzheimer’s Association (USA)
Alzheimer Society (Canada)
The Fisher Center For Alzheimer’s Research Foundation
Photo by luca:sehnsucht
Categories: Life stories · Resources · Tips
Tagged: Alzheimer's, benefits, life story, memories, Personal historian, preserving
Memories are like summer clouds – ephemeral and soon gone. Here are five ways you can start now to preserve your special memories.
- Begin to scan and identify all of your family photos. Write a note with each photo indicating the place, date,event and who is in the picture.
- Use a digital voice recorder and begin describing your childhood. Include things such as favorite memories, places you lived, pets you loved and celebrations.
- Create a list of 30 things about yourself. Think of it as a mini autobiography. If future generations were to know 30 things about you what would they be?
- Keep a “Memory Jar”. Plan once a day to write down one favorite memory from anytime in your life and add it to the jar. After a month take out your memories, print them on good quality paper and give them to your family.
- Keep a “Gratitude Journal”. At the end of each day take time to reflect on what you are grateful for that day.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: lost memories, preserving
