Preserving the Past Part I; The Files and Photos of Grandmom Dill

My Grandmother died in May of 2011. Grandmother Dill, my father's mother. Granddad survives her, but is lonely and tired and not doing well in a rest home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

I feel that I have a strong relationship with these grandparents. Most people have stronger relationships with their grandparents than I do, simply because of proximity. Growing up, we never really lived close to either set of grandparents. But I seem to remember more visits and more traditions and more incidents with these grandparents than my North Carolina based heritage.

I lived with them for my first two years of college. It was not the most ideal set up for either of us. But we got through it.

Two years after my Grandmother's death, my Aunt Melodee and I have struck up an initiative to digitally preserve her photos and documents. I'm not a historian, and I don't know a lick about photo preservation. All I bring to the table are some project management skills and a healthy love of history.

We met in Pennsylvania in the last weekend of April in order to divvy up responsibilities and make a plan. My parents were there from Vermont. My sister and her family joined us, and we drew heavily on the professional knowledge of her husband, Dave. He does this sort of thing for a living.

There are lots of boxes. But we broke them down into three general categories. My Aunt Melodee would handle the slides. My sister Robyn and her husband Dave would take the eight canisters of film from the 1930's and 1940's and get them digitized. My parents would help with financing the project. Lorie and I took eight or nine boxes of photos, photo albums, files, and documents. We would be scanning this in and setting up the file sharing.

Through the chaos of boxes and different media, there seems to be an underlying thread of organization. We could see that someone was keeping these things well filed and stored for years. Elements of my Grandmother and Grandfather's own style of project management kept shining through.





The antique lover in me was delighted by some of the artifacts we came across. I already have a radio that belonged to my Grandmother in the Comic Sanctuary. But it was neat to see this old reel-to-reel camera. And especially the heavy, metal boxes that held the film.

It falls on us to organize the remaining memories of her life and preserve them into the future. It feels to me like a huge responsibility. But it will be worth it, and it will be fun.

I never had much to offer my Grandmother except a couple of my selfish teenager years. But maybe there's this. Maybe I can do this.

Thanks,
DCD