I have been going though my accumulation of old photos, trying to find a satisfying way to both organize and preserve them. Particularly urgent are the colored snapshots and portraits made back in the 1970s and 1980s. Unbeknownst to us then, that lovely color was doomed to fade. Before long they will be ghost photos. When I first realized what was happening I began taking selected photos to places that could make new negatives and prints for me, a slow expensive process. Now, though, I have my own scanner, a wonderful invention and preserving old photos has become simple. I scan, paste into a Word document, write explanatory text then send them off to my daughters and their families.

Below is one of the old photos I plan to include in my book. It was in a box of miscellaneous items that came into my possession after my father died. The image is still visible though the color has faded almost completely. It was rescued just in time.

Loretta, Agnes (Young) Willems, Jacob Willems (1983)

I love this photo. It is such a good likeness of my parents. Mom is sixty-two years old, Dad sixty-nine. I am forty-five. All three of us are in our prime. This is how I want to remember us. I will not just use it in my book, I shall have it printed and hang it on my office wall.