Treasure Trove of Pictures

Part of my three weeks away from Minnesota was spent in Seattle. My dad grew up there and my grandparents still live in the city there. They moved to a retirement/assisted living community probably about 10 years ago. My grandpa is now 88 and my grandma 86. My sister and I decided that to see each other, we would meet up there this summer since my grandma's health hasn't been good and because we don't know when we will be able to see them again. Then, two other sisters and my parents also joined us, making it quite the family gathering. I left MJ and T with AJ's parents and flew there for an extended weekend.

Part of what I wanted to do while I was there was talk to my grandpa about his life. That didn't turn out too well. Mostly, it was just too chaotic. Even when there were just adults in their home, two people would be off on the side gabbing. I would sit right next to my grandpa and asked him lots of questions, but it was hit and miss and we didn't record anything.

But, another objective was to look through old family photos. They have a storage closet in the basement of their building, with boxes of pictures that I don't think anyone has looked at in years, if ever. We brought a scanner and laptop and convinced my grandpa it was worth it to get them out. And boy, was it worth it. We found sooo many great photos. There were several times I gasped in pure amazement and joy at our discoveries. The above picture is my grandparents on the their wedding day in 1945.

I was particularly interested in finding any photos of my grandpa's dad, Jocko--one of the Giacomos in the family. He came to the US when he was a kid, and always lived in communities of Italians. He was Catholic, at least on paper.

This group of men on their beer and french bread picnic is one of my favorites. It was probably taken in the early 1900's because my great grandpa (sitting on the left with the white shirt and suspenders ) looks so young. I love his curly hair--part of my family's heritage.

There were several pictures that it seemed like my grandpa had never seen. We found an exquisite picture of his parents on their wedding day in 1913. He snatched that one up so fast and then make several color copies of it because he didn't want it to be lost. Unfortunately, the scan of it didn't turn out too well because of the high gloss on the photo.

We took a bunch of stuff back to our hotel to look at one night, and the next morning, he asked us if we had found the small framed picture of his mother. It was taken when she was older and was in a pretty oval frame. Yes! we exclaimed. We had it, we could bring it to him. He was excited about it and wanted to put it up in his living room.

After we had gone through everything, scanned many photos, and were preparing to take it all back, my mom was looking for the framed photo of Mabel, his mother. She had set it out special knowing how he was looking forward to it. She couldn't find it. It wasn't where she left it. We all started searching. We search through the entire hotel suite we were all staying in. My mom called the front desk to ask about a lost and found. Was there any way she could have taken it to breakfast? We looked inside the sofa bed. We pulled the drapes back. We tried to get my sister's three year old daughter to cough out its location. Tempers flared and we snapped at each other. I was on the verge of tears because I was so upset about it and because I wasn't getting enough sleep. Finally, my sister found it tucked upside down in the corner of one of the drawers in her bathroom. It turns out that the box my mom set it on was just the perfect height for a curious 16 month old. He must have picked it up and found a special place to put it. I was just so grateful we found it and we all vowed not to ever tell my grandpa that it was lost for a while.