Pictures I have found

My mother had tons of pictures for a woman that never owned a camera in the 49 years I knew her. Of course, most of the photos were ones that my dad took and that I have copies of since he insisted on sharing his photos with all of the subjects in them. But she also had pictures of her life before a husband and children, school pictures of us, and pictures she obviously treasured. What I'm going to do with all of these pictures is the next question, but for now I'm just enjoying going through them.

          

The first picture is my grandfather, my mother's father. He died after I was married and living in Florida, but I remember him as the man who always gave us $20 for our birthday, let us have a soda at his store's soda fountain, and let us fill a bag of candy from the candy counter when we visited him at his five and dime store. As I got older, I knew him as the man who caused uncertainty and nervousness in my mother. I can't remember having any meaningful conversations with him, anymore then I did with any of my grandparents, but I'm fascinated with him now that I'm looking at his pictures and going through what little belongings my mother had of his. In this picture I am totally amazed at how much my brother and my nephew look like him.

My mother had a box of pictures of herself that I don't think I've ever seen. Once when I was cleaning out our utility room in Indiana, thinking to making it into an escape room for myself, I discovered a box of her keepsakes and went through a few of the pictures. I remembering finding one of my aunt and taking it to my mom to ask who it was. She wasn't thrilled I was going through her things, but she came downstairs and we looked at some of the photos. Those are here too, but I really don't remember seeing all of these. Of course, as a kid you are fascinated at first, but not really because you can't relate that child or young girl with the woman who is your mother.

There are no dates on most of the pictures nor names. A few of them she wrote on the backs, but most of them are blank so I'm left to guess or to recognize them. The next picture blew me away because at first I thought it was my cousin, and I wondered who the heck the kid was in the picture, and then I realized she was the kid and that the woman was my Aunt Helen. My cousin looked exactly like that at her age!

Then there are the school pictures of my brother and me through the years. She has gobs of those just like I do of my girls. It feels wrong to throw them away, but seriously, how many copies of the same picture does one really need? It isn't like anyone is going to want these pictures for identification purposes. Again there are no dates, but I have my class pictures so I can definitely search those for my age.

Madison had to have her senior pictures taken already for next year. She thought it was silly and didn't understand what the point was of having more pictures, especially since she just finished her junior year. Lucky for her I found our senior pictures and I showed her mine and said, "The point of these pictures is to look back at how hideous you looked at this age and make fun of them."

I hate having my picture taken, and obviously I have always been like this as witnessed in the next pictures. I rarely take a good picture. I'm just happy that my college senior picture was better. I like that one so much I might just start using it for identification. I haven't changed a bit!