Supplied photos
My dad, in his 80s, halfway up a wobbly old windmill.
What to do with those old family photos and films? Cherish them, that’s what!
Not only are they a visual record of your family’s history, but they also capture and preserve that visual image of whatever day and time they were taken — forever.
Drives me nuts when I hear someone say, "After ‘whoever’ died, I just went in and threw all that stuff out. Didn’t know half the people in the pictures, so why keep them?"
Well for one thing, there might be a genealogy nut born into your family in a couple of hundred years or so and those pictures would be an invaluable part of that research. To me, it just seems so disrespectful to take those irreplaceable family visual memories and trash ’em.
For all the space they take up, just put what you’ve got in a couple of lightproof containers and put them away for future reference. Then state in your will, that no matter what, those pictures just keep getting handed down. Some future relative, someday, will thank you for it and love them.
My family — on my dad’s side, especially — took tons of pictures beginning around 1900 or so, and I love looking at them. When dad (Joe Mustard) was 25, he attended the opening of the International Peace Garden south of Boissevain, paid for a biplane ride and took the picture you see here of the grand event from the air.
I never have to wonder where I got my love of flying and heights from; dad loved both.
I never know how many pictures Willy’s going to have room for with my column, but in case it’s not here, I also included a picture of my dad having climbed about 2/3 of the way up a 30- or 40-foot, wobbly old windmill in his 80s, the pic taken by me.
A great reminder of a great dad on a fab family outing. Precious.
Along with the Peace Garden picture (I wonder how many of the people in this pic are still alive), I’ve included a shot that gives both Willy and me the "willies" — a shot of my young brother, Bob, and sister, Bonnie, standing in front of a late ’30s — possibly a 1940 — minty but upside down Ford two-door. Almost brings a tear to my eye and I guess you have to wonder if there were any people hurt in the rollover. Not my family’s car, just one they happened upon.
One picture I wanted to show you today — but couldn’t find — is a picture I took of my Aunt Madge’s outhouse (one person building set over a dug-out pit for going to the bathroom — a toilet) in Margaret, Man. The house was gone, but I got permission from the owner of the yard at the time to actually take the outhouse and move it to a family cabin property in Killarney.
I tried to move it once but didn’t have the right equipment, and by the time I got back to try again, the town had cleaned up the yards and all those sorts of things had been hauled off to the "nuisance grounds."
I was truly sorry I had missed it because it was the only building still standing anywhere that all my family had been in at one time or another. Tell you one thing: it smelled a lot better in there on a cold winter’s day than on a muggy, hot summer scorcher.
Another plus for a winter visit was the absence of mosquitoes or wasps, a concern with all those vulnerable parts exposed. Of course the biggest risk in winter — depending on the length of your stay — was freezing your ass off, so one had to be as efficient as possible and hope there were still some pages left in the Eaton’s catalogue.
Outhouses weren’t only used for toilet needs, but on a show I watched recently, they were also a favourite place to hide valuables in leak proof containers. Oh, whatever you’re hiding would have to be pretty valuable to my way of thinking. One visit from Uncle Fred and you’d need a haz-mat suit to even consider entering that building again. Ever.
Outhouses were also used as dumping grounds for murder weapons. A good place to chuck the "gat" or the knife because, even if the coppers think it might be in there, who’s going to look?
Cars, trucks and all vehicles in pictures are an excellent help in dating the Kodak moment and, just on general principle, any car in any picture is never a bad thing. Save those pictures! Next week, we check out a really cool old Winnipeg house. Have a great weekend.
Comments or feedback, love to hear from you!
lmustard1948@gmail.com
