Lost History

Last night my daughter in law came over for dinner. After we ate, we decided to look at picture albums. We wanted to show her our family from the "early years". We went through the old books dating back to 1980. She saw me, at her age. As we were looking at the albums, my husband ran downstairs to the basement and came up with an old tattered album that used to belong to his mother. He wanted us to look at his family history. My mother in law, Gloria, loved family pictures. If you had a picture that she liked, it would disappear from your album and find its way into hers. She used to line up the family and take a picture of "four generations of men" then "four generations of women". I smiled as I told my daughter in law that story. As we looked at Gloria's photos, I realized that I had no idea who most of these people were. I recognized her brothers and their wives and a few random relatives, but all of the others were strangers. If they were in her album, they must have held a special place in her heart. None of the pictures were labeled and when I looked on the back of the photos they were blank. All I had were nameless faces peering at me. Some pictures look like they were taken in the 1920's and were faded and yellow. Ninety years of family history, sitting in a book, lost forever.