Happy Mother’s Day to the Moms! My parents got a slide scanner for Christmas and have been scanning some of our old family slides. I found a couple photos of them in the days before my brother and I came along. It’s fun to see photos of those early times. The very oldest slides have some scratches but are still usable.
I found a few of Mom and Dad with me not long after I was born. You can’t tell from the early baby photos, but my brother and I got blue eyes and lighter hair than my parents, which made my Swedish grandparents happy. My parents were living in Palo Alto when I was born, and these photos were taken in their backyard. They are sweet pictures.
Here’s a photo of my brother and I when we were little, showing how our coloring turned out to be different than that of our parents. We are all tall and long limbed though, and my brother’s kids have those traits too. Looks like this picture was taken at a petting zoo (we loved animals as kids, and still do). It will be fun to see what other photos turn up as my parents work their way through the old slide trays. It’s wonderful that old slides can now be scanned in and saved. We had a lot of happy times as a family, and my brother and I have been very lucky to have the parents we did.
Edited to add:
The blog Cafleurebon posted a Mother’s Day story on the scents/smells that various perfumers associate with their Moms, and I was included. They’re also having a drawing in that post for a bottle of April Aromatics linden scent (which sounds lovely).
15 comments
Dear SSS
What a wonderful set of slides… I especially enjoy the way that the scratches in the first frame make your dashing parents look as though they are wearing very chicly patterned matching shirts!
Of course, I am forced to wonder what scent they might have been wearing at the time.
In which note, I do hope that’s not a skunk you’re petting!
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
Thanks, PerfumedDandy! That first photo was taken in their first apartment shortly after they were married. They were in Germany at the time because my Dad was stationed there for a year when he served in the army. They didn’t have much money for clothes or furniture, but they were happy to be together. (Mom traveled there to meet him and they were married there in Germany, though they met and became engaged while at Cal, Berkeley.)
I wonder if Photoshop has a tool for easily removing scratches in old photos. I need to google about the “healing” tool. I could go through and do it by hand, but there’s probably a faster way.
No skunks, lol! Lots of goats, lambs, bunnies, and chickens!
Dear Laurie
I have a number of American friends with German connections on account of the Army of The Rhine.
There is, I think, something quite European about the photograph and your parents look… perhaps their tome on this side of The Pond was rubbing off on them!
I’m sure there are tools that can clean scratches… best of luck finding them and restoring all to their original glamour!
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
I think you’re right about the European feeling. There are also a few spectacular photos taken with the Alps in the background (they took a few long weekend trips while there). They’ll probably find better photos as they go through them, and some will be worth spending time to clean up.
laurie.those pictures are priceless! you sure were a beautiful child.i’m sure that your parents were and still are very proud of you.thanks for shareing.
Thanks, Carrie. I think all little kids look cute in photos! 🙂
Laurie,
It is so lovely to see pictures of your childhood ! thank you for sharing memories of your past! And I believe that it was my eldest who commented on CaFleureBon that the scent she associates with me is Jour Ensoleille! I find it wonderful that your perfume is so connected to her olfactory memory of me :D!!
That’s sweet, Brie! She’ll probably associate you with your own essential oil blends too, which is very cool. 🙂
What wonderful photos! Thank you so much for sharing them with us. That is a great idea for a slide scanner too. I should get one of those for my family.
My brother got it for my parents and they love it! The scanner can do photos too, but they had so many old slides that they are making good use of the slide feature.
My grandfather has tons of these old slide carousels stacked almost to the ceiling. The quality of the scans (from what I can tell) is terrific!
Many of these slides are ancient and sat in boxes in the garage all this time. The scans are amazing, all things considered!
They are amazing! You are so lucky to have them!
Thse are such lovely slides and clearly precious, which makes me think of how few pictures we took in my family when we were children. We did not have a camera till I was about ten and the earliest pictures were literally singular ones taken by someone visiting and in possession of a camera, little black and white postage size. I have a cardboard box of thousands of pictures of my own children, all of them multiples of the same moments. It’s a different experience altogether. Memory is everything.
Memories and photos are both precious! Glad you were able to take lots of pics of your own children. Technology has gotten so amazing these days, but it sure wasn’t always this way. Makes those early little black and whites you have extra special. Thanks for stopping by!