Sharing My Most Precious Possessions

The most precious possessions I had to disperse among the family were the photos, letters and cards.  I was very fortunate that my father, Stanley, and then my brothers, Stan and Al gave me family photos, cards and letters.  I started making copies of family photos in the late 1980s.  At that time, the only way to make a copy was to bring the original into a photo shop and have a negative made of it.  Then, copies can made and shared with family members.

My Dad, Stanley F. Zapisek

Stanley F. Zapisek II

Alfred Zapisek

One day my Dad gave me original studio portraits of his parents dating to about 1900.  As these are the only copies in existence, Dad wanted me to wait while the negatives were made.  I made an appointment at the photo shop, arrived at the appointed time and waited for the store owner to make negatives of these special portraits.  Then I reported to my Dad who was very pleased that I was so careful with irreplaceable family photos.
 

Stanislaw Zapisek is on the left with unidentified men

Rozalia Duchna Zapisek is on the right with an unidentified woman

 As I visited cousins, I brought copies of family photos that were greatly appreciated.  The cost of having negatives made and then copies from the negatives was a bit pricey and I would make copies of what I thought were the best family photos.  Along came the Internet and scanners for home use. I started scanning and labeling the oldest photos and backing them up on CDs and on Eric's computer. 

My Dad died in 2000 and my brothers, Stan and Al, gave me all the family photos, letters and cards they found while clearing out Dad's house.  I agreed to scan, label and make the photos, cards and letters available to them.   Each year I gave my brothers CDs with more and more family photos, cards and letters.

For the last five years I've scanned and then labeled all the family photos, cards and letters in my possession.  I burned the files to CDs and sent them to my cousins.  Some of my older cousins are not computer savvy and were unable to open the files.  They were frustrated.  I was frustrated.

I was working on a blog at work as part of staff training.  Photo sharing was part of the training and I became familiar with photobucket.com.  All I had to do was upload and relabel all the family photos, cards and letters and tag them too.  (They are not all tagged yet.)  Now I send the email addresses of the photo albums I created at photobucket.com and the passwords to cousins and invite them to share the info with other family members.  My older cousins have improved their computer skills over the years and this type of sharing works well for them.

After all this scanning and labeling I gave many photos and some letters to my cousins.  The rest were split between my son and daughter, Adam and Diane.

Stanilsaw Zapisek is on the left with an unidentified man

 Last month I went in a different direction.  This photo is over 100 years old.  I had this photo digitally restored.  Thanks Edra!

Restored photo