down memory lane

More sorting today.  This time I was working my way through cabinets and drawers full of old family pictures, some framed, some not.  Somehow, I seem to be the one who has accumulated pictures, not only of my own immediate family, but all the photos that my dad, mom, stepmom, aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers and kids have decided that I should keep.  I did manage to condense masses of pictures into two fairly small plastic bins, mostly by taking many of them out of frames. I enjoyed paging through 8 albums that my stepmom put together.  They are a photo journal of hers and my dad's life together with several family pictures I don't remember seeing before.  I also loved seeing my dad's pictures (not in albums, just bundled together) especially the ones he took when he was stationed in Brazil during WWII.  I found, in one bundle that my husband must have stashed away, bunches of newspapers from his mom's home town.  Each carefully folded paper contained the obituary of one of her brothers or sisters and her mother's.  It was sad but fascinating to read when and how they all died. My mother-in-law was one of 12 children.  Happily, among all the obituaries, I also found the announcement of her wedding with a description of the ceremony.  Old small town newspapers wrote much more satisfying announcements than those found in modern newspapers.