“Do you know” is the theme for this year’s Save Your Photos month. This is a great month to celebrate with an aging parent. There are so many memories packed into old photos that you’ll want to preserve. Then you can cherish them for generations to come. Let’s take this year’s theme. Because there may be some questions you might want to answer as you save your parent’s photos.
Do you know where all the photos are?
Many elderly people still have piles of photos from over the generations. Do you know where your parent keeps hers? There might be some in albums, some in boxes in the attics, or hanging on the walls in frames. To help your parent save her photos in a way that will be more organized, the first step may simply be gathering all the photos in one place. Ask your home care assistance provider to bring down any boxes or albums to a central location like a card table.
Do you know who everyone is in the photos?
Your parent may know every cousin’s name in the family reunion photo taken in 1954, but do you? Knowing who is in each photo is important. So, as you work on saving photos, find a consistent way to label them. Your home care assistance provider can write the names on the backs as your parent tells her. Or if they are digital photos, your home care assistance professional can help by tagging the people in the photos for easier gathering later.
Do you know the stories connected with the photos?
The best part of photos besides capturing the faces of those we love is their ability to capture a moment in history so that it’s not forgotten. As you look through old photos, ask your parent where the photo was taken, what were they doing at that time, and how does it make her feel. Don’t count on your memory to keep all these stories straight, document them in some way that is connected with the photo so they can be shared throughout the generations.
Do you know which photos you’d like to keep?
Just because a photo was taken, it doesn’t mean it has to be saved forever. Help your parent weed through the blurry, boring, and just plain bad photos with a simple game of keep or toss. Sometimes having a less emotionally attached person, such as your home care assistance provider, go through the photos with your parent will make it easier to let go of those bad photos.
Do you know how you want to store them?
This is sometimes the hardest question. Do you want to put them all in albums chronologically? Or perhaps you’d rather separate them based on who is in each photo. Maybe albums aren’t your first choice. You might want to hire a service to scan them all so you can keep them digitally.
This may be an hour-long project or a year-long project but in the end, you’ll be glad to you took the time to organize and store those family photos for future generations.