Week 21 - "digitize and preserve old family photos"

Jim, Bill, Barb and backyard friends





Cheryl at 9 months - Mrosko Studio





     Cold, windy, snowy days like today are a good time to think of some indoor activity.  Actually, I have been preserving old family photos for quite a while now.  So much so, that my hard drive is getting too full and I had to enlist David to help me figure out how to save some space.  It seems as though all my pictures are taking up too much space; so I will transfer some to a flash drive.  That is a project for another time, though.

     Today I wanted to share a couple pictures with you.  The one of me is taken at age 9 months in the studio that we used all through school.  My brother and all three sisters had our senior pictures taken there.  My engagement picture was taken there.  If you look closely, you can see the dimple on my left cheek (which has since turned into a wrinkled crater).

     But I love the picture of Bill.  Someone gathered up the kids playing in the backyard  one afternoon, made them stand in the hot sun, and took a picture to make a memory 55 years down the road.  The talll boy in the back is Bob Schwerdtfeger.  Bob was mentally challenged, but a neighborhood friend and playmate none-the-less.  Bob is the friend who braved the ice on the river one afternoon when Bill fell through while ice skating.  Bob held his hand until help arrived and saved his life.  Bob's brother Gary is beside him in the picture.  Bill's brother Jim is on the other side of Bob in the back row.  In the front is Bill's sister Barb, scratching a mosquito bite and too hot to bother with a shirt.  I have many pictures of my sister and I playing in the yard with just shorts and shoes (except for maybe a gun and holster strapped around our waists).  Next to Barb is a neighbor Paul Fox.  Then comes Bill.  The only one obviously enjoying himself out there that afternoon, even though he has wet his pants and was too busy to take time to go in to change. Of course, if you ask him, he denies what the picture proves.  He thinks he probably just spilled a glass of water on himself! 

     The moral of this blog is to take pictures and make memories with your families.  Who knows which picture you take is going to be treasured and show up in your great-grandchildren's blog in the next 55 years.