OT Burned Photos | Arthritis Information

 

Two weeks ago my parent's home burned to the ground. My dad has been dead for 12 years, but my mom continued to live there and it was, of course, filled with family possessions, 49 years of living in it, plus everything they had brought from Ohio, and any possessions their families had passed on to them. This is a word to the wise, because at this point my mom can do nothing but deal with the loss of everything she had. Make copies of your photos, keep them someplace seperate from your house. Give copies to your children. My mom had portraits of all her grandparents, she was the last of her siblings and had accumulated all her family's photographs. The irony is our oldest DD had been bugging Mom to let her make copies of them and twice she said no, because DD would have to go to the copy store and Mom wanted her to visit instead, as recently as a month ago, DD had asked again. This won't save you from the devastation of losing your home, and I'm sure it is time consuming, but you'll be glad you did.

Sorry to hear about your mothers house and all that is now gone.

Thanks for the reminder. Recently all the members of my family made digital copies of the heirloom photos in our possession and then we exchanged them between ourselves. Our set of discs are in our fireproof box.

I am so sorry for you photographic loss and your Mother's greater loss.

Best wishes, Shug

edited secondary to an inability to tip an spilled at the same time. Spelunker2009-03-30 14:02:41Thanks for the reminder.  All of ours are out on the internet somewhere, but I have been meaning to get copies of pictures from my parents that I know are not replaceable.  And I forgot to say, I am so, so sorry.  I cannot imagine how hard that must be on your mom.  You all will be in my prayers! The photos are the only thing that wouldn't have been lost IF we had made copies of them, which was why I made this message. It's the one thing you can do and there are so many 'if only' at this point.

Joonie, your families may have photos that at some point your children might want. I would have never thought how much they meant to our DD, although she's majoring in photo/journalism.

Good for you Shug, I wish (if wishes were fishes,etc.) someone would have said to me, make copies of all those pictures, you never know what's around the corner.

Katie, my mom had been in the process of making photo albums for the 6 of us, she gave me mine, but I don't know if my brothers had been given their's so some of the pictures from our childhood are around, but the photos of my great grandparents, grandparents and parents were probably one of a kind. My mom will be 85 and had become the recipient of all the family photos. Thanks Ninilchicken2009-03-30 14:23:42Deidre, I am so sorry to hear what happened.  Your mother must be so upset.  Things can be replaced, but photos are part of our history. That's heart breaking. I have a lot of my pictures on websites like Kodak.com and photobucket. That's a good idea because if anything happened I could make new copies from there. Not all the ones my Mom has from our childhood and her childhood....but it's a start for my family I guess. My Mom had done alot of genealogy on both her and my Dad's families, which is probably all gone. She paid to have other people chase down leads and took grandchildren over to Sweden and Great Britain to visit places where the family had come from. She spent hours at the LDS library when it went in 40 miles away.

She's been real composed about the whole thing, she's always been real composed. Fifteen years ago, for my parent's 40th anniversary I had taken their slides and had copies made for a photo album, (I didn't make extra copies for myself, dumb). She had stuck it in a trunk in the tv room, that made it through the first blaze and one of the firemen grabbed it and stuck it in the garage. Then the fire restarted later and that room was destroyed. When she and I went out to see the house she opened the trunk and pulled out that album and then found her great grandparents 2 x 3 photos in those little leather, brass and velvet photo books they used to make, it's the only emotion she's shown, other than when she told me, dad's ashes and their wedding rings are gone. We're all worried she's keeping it all locked up, but she's always been the kind of person to accept what is and not dwell on what she's been dealt.

Find out if you fireproof safes will protect CD's and DVD's I don't know if it will. I had just given the kids all their photos , even the newborn ones. I sent 2 huge bins down with my ex husband to give to our son when he came up for the babyshower last year. My daughters all in 2 huge storage plastic bins but we have not yet scanned and copied them to cd....without computers it will be awhile before we can do that.

I love photos, old and the new and especially the ones from many , many years ago.

I was so fortunate here recently. When in Indiana we had placed many photos on cd and they were locked up, when I left I had forgotten about them but was reminded just the other day that he had them...I cnanot tell you how happy I was. He said "do you think I would have thrown them away? course my initial response was "Doug did" but then realized all I had to say was ...yes....

I am sooooo thankful for these pics cause my computer crashed and alllll my photos of the kids for over...what, some 7 or 8 years was on it and I could not find anyone able to retrieve them.

SO I guess I know some of loss from photos in a fire but also , keep in mind, you can also lose them on a hardrive!!!!!!!!!..

I agree, a special reminder.....get digital on cd!or online somewhere.

I am so sorry for your mother's loss, she must be devestated. Shoulda and coulda never help in these situations soo remind her she has the memory. And sometimes that is more than most have.I am so sorry for your mom's loss.
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