Thursday, July 10, 2008

Baby Boomers, Preserve Your Memories

Marcia is the Amiable Archivist. She took a 14-week class with me. While I decided to create a website dedicated to the 50-something lifestyle, her interests steered her toward chronicling other person's memories.

Why write down or collect photos about the past?

I can only speak from my own experience: Dad died about 6 years ago. Now mom is moving out of her home of 40 years. Emotions are flooding our senses as we sift through all the remnants of lives once lived. Memories once fresh in our collective minds have faded somewhat. Details are less precise. And contrary to what I perceived my post-50 years to be, my life is not only incredibly busy, it is slipping by.
Marcia's job is to get us to focus on preserving our memories and capture them for our children and grandchildren. She unfolds our stories in digital format. And she's "amiable" too.


5 comments:

Diane J Standiford said...

I have hundres of family photos, union soldier--my great great grandfather and photo of hIS mothers gavestone. Letters writen from uncles heading off to the goldrush, hopping trains, and of course my 101 year old great unt still has stories. Her ohotos were all I ever wanted as an inheritance. Priceless.

Bear Naked said...

What a wonderful idea.
Now I will have to find the time to look through all my photos and memorabilia.
Thanks for the link.

Bear

Ms. 50something said...

Congrats for realizing the importance of photos. Diane, if you don't get your photos and letters in order (I'm a history nut), I'll have to find you and squeeze your little neck. You have some real treasures. Wow! I'm so jealous.

Nancy Chisum said...

I have been working to preserve memories at an even more feverish pitch than ever before. I use a great journaling software program to scan and preserve pictures, letters, scraps of writing and journal entries. This is in addition to my geneaology charts. I like to think my kids will value it as much as I valued the time it took to pass it on.

Ms. 50something said...

Nancy,
You're obviously a do-it-yourselfer. How lucky for your kids that they'll have these memories assembled so lovingly. What is the name of journaling software you are using? It sounds worth blogging about!