Growing up, my parents usually developed their film into slides. We’d gather around the projector and share memories of our trips. It’s a fun way to experience the photos, but it’s not nearly as convenient as today’s digital format.
Mom decided to protect these memories by scanning them in. That was a monumental task. By the time it was done, she had looked through 4500-5000 slides and scanned in 3320 of them. She estimates that she put about 50 hours of work into the project. It’s not exactly exciting work either! While it’s fun to see the photos, most of your time is spent putting a new slide into the scanner and then waiting for it to scan. This is her pile of slides:
I can’t say thank you enough to Mom for doing this work! Now that they are digital (and because we back up!), these photos will be preserved forever. Imagine how neat it would be to look back at this many photos from your ancestors in the 1800s or even earlier. The family genealogy hobby is going to go through some massive changes in the next century.
To celebrate this new wealth of photos, I’m going to start “Throwback Thursday”. Every Thursday I’ll pick a photo out of the ones she scanned in and tell a little story about it. This first photo comes from my 4th birthday. One thing I remember about my birthdays is that Mom made incredible birthday cakes! As a parent, I look back on that and have no idea how she found the time. This was the first cake that I have memories of. Cake covered with candy? Brilliant!
