It's a Team's Life

Preserve the Memories

By Linda Caffee
Posted May 5th 2021 9:47AM

Recently I discovered some old pictures that not only mean a lot to me, they mean a lot to my sister and cousin. They were pictures of our childhood. Not many images survived due to various moves, and the final straw of many of the snapshots getting wet and moldy in a basement.

Our family was very close when I grew up until my 3-year old cousin had an accident and died. Shortly afterward, our beloved grandfather died, then the parents of the deceased cousin divorced, and it seemed as if everything fell apart. We all drifted apart and yet shared the same childhood memories.

Over the years, I have used an online service to preserve a lot of what happens in our trucking life. The photo books are relatively easy to make, annotate, and preserve for future generations. Maybe the future generation will care, perhaps they will not, but I know it is better than deleting the photos we take to make room for new images.

I use Shutterfly to create the family book, and I was able to share the link with my sister and cousin to look over the album before I have it printed and sent to them. It was fun to reminisce over the memories the old photos brought back, and we also shared some tears. The photo books are in many ways like a diary or our history, and our annotations I hope will help our families to understand the past.

Each year I create two twenty-page books of what has happened to us over the year. One book is given to grandparents, and one is for us. In some years, when we were able to take an exceptional vacation with friends, I like to get copies of everyone’s pictures and create a book of that vacation.

The funny thing is I do not enjoy making the books, but I sure like the result. If you have never made a photo book, you might consider it to save those great photos you take. It is worth the time, and the price is not outlandish to preserve memories.