As I have mentioned before, the City Council and the Mayor approved a proposal I made to run a senior citizens program on the first Monday of each month. My goal is simply to provide a way for seniors to get-together and share their interests as every health advisory I have ever seen has emphasized how important it is for seniors to socialize.
Each month I have a suggested topic and the one for March is FAMILY HISTORY: in particular, I have some ideas on what to do with your family history to share it with your family. Some items I will bring to show and perhaps inspire others to try -
1. For my daughter's 30th birthday and my sister's 50th, I made scrapbooks from photos I had of them over the years. Needless to say, I had photos of my daughter from the day she was born. I bought scrapbooks when they were on sale at A. C. Moore, for about $5 each and pads of scrapbook paper and stickers and trims. Since I had never done done scrapbooking before, I had to buy some magazines to get ideas. After I did the first two, I decided no one was ever going to do one for me unless I did my own, so I did one for my 70th birthday! I used my computer to find and print out things such as pictures from my favorite tv shows from childhood, and headlines from the years and so on. It was fun and totally engaging.
2. Another idea I had was to make postcards from some of my oldest photographs, for example, I had a Halloween photo from my aunts from 1940. Five children in costumes sitting at my grandmother Lyons' dining room table. Belia copy center put a border on it. I scanned it and took it to them on a thumb drive but they are willing to scan for anyone who doesn't have a scanner or smart phone. I have an old black and white HP lazer printer/scanner that I have used for most of my projects. I made the Halloween postcard, 50 cards for $40, then I made a Veteran's Day one of my father in his navy uniform, and a 4th of July picnic one, and a Valentine one of my mother and father.
3.Finally, I had the idea of taking photographs of some family heirloons which, although they have no financial value, have family sentimental value. For example, my Great-grandmother Catherine Sandman Young was a seamstress and she supported herself and her family in her widowhood by sewing. She and my also widowed grandmother Mabel Wright both sewed uniforms for the Schuylkill Arsenal to support their families. I have her sewing machine from early 20th century. It isn't worth money, but the idea that it was the tool she used to support her family makes it a symbolic and sentimental treasure to me. So I took photos of that, a deck chair from my Grandfather's Merchant Marine days, and a dozen other artifacts that have somehow made it to this point in my life and I put a copy of a family tree on one page, on another a collage of a photo of the person to whom the item belonged, the item itself, and sometimes another image, for example where they lived. When the 25 or so pages were complete, I scanned them at Staples and had them spiral bound in 7 sets, one for each of my siblings and one for my daughter and a spare. So far I have only given one to my brother Joe, as I haven't seen the other siblings recently.
Early in my own family history research, I made photocopied and spiral bound books with the information I found on our relatives in the family tree, and one year, I made a family tree for each sibling and a photo collage featuring each family member for whom I had a photo dating back to 1868! I had the original 2 foot by 3 foot collage color copied at Belia (in Woodbury) for about $20 each, and found year sale frames to frame each one for a Christmas gift for the siblings.
Although no one took up genealogy as a result of my efforts, everyone I shared with did appreciate the work involved and did show interest in the information. Who knows, maybe somewhere down the line, some grandchild will see one of these items and become interested in following the trail, as I did from the photos passed on to me in a wooden box by my grandmother Mabel Wright.
I hope the attendees at the March Mt. Ephraim Senior Citizens meeting will find it of interest.
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