Another Project

It will surprise no one to learn that we’ve come across more treasures, these in Mom’s “Minnie’s Memories” box. As with other treasures, these have created an entire new project. I call it the “pile o’ negatives” project.

All black and white negatives from early 1950s, and more 6x4.5 cm than 35mm, all cut into individual negatives. They don’t fit in my 35mm scanner, so I had to resort to sneakier methods of obtaining the positives.

I did the same thing I’d done years ago with some old glass negatives: photographed the negatives on a lightbox, and inverted the images in Photoshop. Glad I still have my lightbox and lint-free gloves for handling raw film.

I started with something like this, with several negatives spread out on the lightbox, to determine which to prioritize—can’t promise I’ll do them all.

I’d do my best to ID people, pick a negative, and photograph it:

Then invert it: et voilà, Mom and her twin brother, with assorted trophies.

So far, many great pictures have surfaced that we’ve never seen before. Among my favorites (so far) are these of a giant snowman my mom and aunt made.

I do have a question, though.

Is this a Wisconsin thing?

Are there pictures of the rest of our aunts in the snow in bathing suits? Aunt Ellen?

I asked my sister-in-law, who is from Wisconsin, if she and her siblings frolicked in the snow in bathing suits. Nope. Possibly just Mom’s family.

It reminded me of something my brother said when the priest asked us for recollections of our mom.

“She was tough,” he said.

Now we know part of the reason why.