Monday, February 8, 2010

Week 6

Week number 6 and this is so hard. Sometimes I feel as though I'm not getting anywhere or having to do more work after the initial junk out. I decided to work on photos today. So I got the two old photo frames that have been sitting on my dresser for awhile. I decided to pull the photos out and put them in the photo album and toss the frames. These were photos in the frames that my grandmother had had on her walls. And to give you some perspective as to a time element, my grandmother died in 1971. So, I pull the first photo out, and I'm always interested to see the picture that came with the purchased frame that sits behind the familiar photo for years and years. It sometimes gives an insight as to how old the frame and the photo you've been viewing for years is. And years ago the pictures sold with the frames were usually of movie stars, not generic brides and grooms or babies. So I turn the frame around to reveal that the picture that came with the frame, are you ready for this? Some of you won't even know who this is.....Helen Hayes. A young Helen Hayes. Not the old version but the young, snazzy actress version. So now I'm in the quandry of whether to keep the frame. It's not special...but it may be old. The second frame had a picture of an old woman holding a book in a floor length dress. I "bing"-ed Helen Keller and Eleanor Roosevelt and it's not either of them. Maybe I'll just find new photos to put in these old frames and have these pictures continue to hang on a wall only to be discovered some 50 years later by my great great granddaughter who will have to google Helen Hayes. Or maybe the packrat gene will have dissipated in my line by then and they will have been thrown out long before a great great grand-daughter could discover them.

2 comments:

  1. I have a framed photo of a great-grandmother. It was left to me by my Godmother when she died along with a few other trinkets. There's a prayer card tucked into the corner of the frame and I presumed it to be the prayer card that went with my great-grandmother's funeral. (Catholics give these out at the viewing.)

    So a month ago, I have the urge to finally pull this ancient photo from it's ancient faux-gold filigree frame. It was a bonanza! Along with G-grandmom's photo. I found a formal photo of my Godmother, a formal photo of myself and my siblings. I guess I was about 7. And, get this, a photo of my Godmother and mom as bridesmaids for somebody's wedding!

    The mass card was for my Godmother's father, my great-uncle. Of course, I put it all back together in that same ancient frame, but put my mom's bridesmaid photo up front. I think that's okay with great-grandmom. She'll get her chance to be upfront again.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for sharing that lovely story with me and everyone else. I love going through old and even not so old photo frames. You never know what you're going to find. In the one photo frame, the one with Helen Hayes in it, was a picture of someone I was not familiar with but who may be a relative. Behind her photo, when I took it out, was a newspaper clipping and on it was a poem that the newspaper had published, that her grand daughter had written for her. She was a pioneer to Utah, and the grand daughter wrote of her struggles as she came from England alone and then to Utah. So you're right, photo frames are wonderful encasements for treasures.

    ReplyDelete