Blog

11
Sep

My Mother’s Smile and Aching Nostalgia on September 11th

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My mom’s beautiful smile is the only thing that could distract from the aching nostalgia of seeing the World Trade Center in this 1972ish photo of the two of us from New York’s Liberty Island. I was born in New Jersey and after a few years was raised in my mom Kathy’s hometown of Rochester, […]

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10
Sep

Discovering Vintage Photographs is a Magical Experience for Children and Adults Alike

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As a young boy, I would often stay at my grandparents house over the weekend. The spare bedroom I slept in had a varnished, wooden box on top of the wardrobe that opened out into a writing desk. Inside it were an assortment of black and white family photographs of my parents, grandparents and other […]

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09
Sep

Me and My Mama Bear in a Snapshot of Unconditional Love

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Mama bear and me, 1981. My mom was 36 when this picture was taken, which is my age now. I am her baby and the youngest of four. Shortly after this photo was taken, my mom made the difficult decision to leave my father (deservedly so) and raise us on her own. She took multiple […]

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05
Sep

Things I Learned from My Dad Max

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The man holding the camera is my dad, Max, around 1969-70. He was a journalist, musician, artist, photographer, businessman, local alderman, and community activist. Most important, he was a husband and a father. He loved to travel and the souvenirs he collected were friendships with diverse people. Today we say farewell to him and honor […]

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02
Sep

Everyone Has a Story. Be a Good One.

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Meet my parents Moulay Said and Elkamla, pictured here with my aunt in the early 1960s. This portrait was taken in Morocco, a few years after my parents’ wedding. It represented the start of a new life together. They were leaving the beautiful city of Fes for a new season of life in Casablanca. Although […]

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01
Sep

Why I’m Thankful That My Parents Took Photos of Us Almost Every Day

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Mama’s birthday is today. She would’ve been turning 86. Here we are, thick as thieves in December of 1961, with my beloved Gund Cubbi bear, that I still have of course. I was 2 and she was 32. Lots of our photos are of me standing on something, mostly cars it seems. They waited later […]

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30
Aug

A (Family) Photograph Never Grows Old

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“A photograph never grows old. You and I change, people change all through the months and years, but a photograph always remains the same. How nice to look at a photograph of a mother or father taken many years ago. You see them as you remember them.” – Albert Einstein Cookout. Peabody, Massachusetts. June 1961. […]

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27
Aug

These Two Tiny Snapshots from our Family Archive Reveal a Legacy of Love

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My grandparents Jim and Tommie Sue were both teenagers when they met on a little dirt road in a small town in the 1950s. They got married soon after and had four children together in six years. Jim is in his eighties now, but he still has that twinkle in his eye and a mischievous […]

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26
Aug

Discovering My Family’s Italian Ancestry by Traveling to New Orleans

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Over a hundred years ago, my great grandfather Girolamo (better known as Jerome) Gargano was born in Palermo, Sicily. According to the story my Grandpa told us, times were tough in Sicily for Jerome’s family when he was a little boy. So, his family sent him to America when he was only eight years old […]

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25
Aug

Love at First Sight, Simply Pictured in an Old Family Photograph

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Just found this photo of my Mum from 1967 next to my Dad’s bed. She died 7 years ago. On the back he wrote,”Patricia, making my car so attractive.” This photograph would have been taken shortly after they first met. My father was very proud of his Triumph Spitfire sports car, which he probably thought […]

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