My father in law is always the one with the camera, always has been. So, when I saw the boxes of photos just sitting in the basement, I knew I had to act. I knew there was something special to find!
“Could I take these pictures home with me and scan them?” I carefully asked.
With caution he answered, “Sure.”
Oh, I was so excited! I took the pictures home and scanned them. I scanned the front then the back, this way the descriptions could stay with the photos. It was a long process, but fun since it was Christmas break and my sister in law sat with me and talked. This batch was about 400 pictures!!! Only 47 were unlabeled.
After scanning I placed all the photos back into the box…… JUST KIDDING! I bought an album and put the photos in their own pocket, this is how I returned them to my father in law.
Now that the photos were scanned what to do with them? I wanted to share them with the rest of the family. Instead of individually sending them to each family member I decided to create a family Facebook group. Here I invited all the aunts and uncles and cousins then uploaded the photos into the group.
That’s when the magic started!
Stories started to pour out of the screen!
Memories resurfaced.
Conversations between cousins ensued! Teasing included.
But one comment, that I received in a message from my husband’s cousin, stuck with me:
“Thank you so much for posting these pictures! My family never owned a camera and I don’t have any pictures of me when I was young. I was able to show my wife that our kids DO look like me!!! Thanks again!”
This comment made all the hard work worth it! I’m so glad this cousin was able to see pictures of his youth. I even told him how to download the pictures from Facebook so he could print them out.
I can’t wait to get more pictures scanned in and uploaded to the family Facebook group! Imagine magic that will happen!
You never know what miracles will happen, what stories will be told, what memories will come to mind or what healing will happen with a photo.
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