Touching Story of Keepsake Memories

by Marsha Knackstedt / Monday, 06 December 2021 / Published in Interesting Projects, News

Jon relayed to us about a recent video transfer project that we did for him. Jon watched all the videos we had transferred and made notes. The videos were all of his children growing up, who are now 18 and 20 but he was amazed to see all the other relatives that were caught in the lens. One of the videos was a recording of a Christmas celebration and the client renamed that file “ghost of Christmas past” because he counted nine relatives that were captured on the videos who have since passed. He had transferred the videos to capture the memories of his children growing up but what he got was so much more than that, he also got keepsake memories of numerous lost family members. This time he ordered three more digital copies of all of his video transfers on flash drives.

Anne brought in this cute photo of her and her husband dressing up for Halloween many years ago. Anne had made the Mickey and Minnie costumes and she told us that they did win a prize for their costumes that night and that she still has the costumes. We made several copies for her to share with their kids.

Brenda had a lot of unique edits to do to her collection of photos. You know how it is when you have a group photo that everyone except for one person looks great in the shot. Well, she had us switch out some heads from one shot to another to make one even better looking photo. She also had us make some collages of several cute photos together in one 8×10.

Kari brought in some slides to scan for her employer, Platte River Power Authority. We actually live up by their power plant north of town and get to drive by these furry guys every day. They also had some artistically interesting shots.

Pat brought in some damaged 8mm films to be transferred to digital files. Some of them were from July 1946 after the A bomb was dropped. We don’t usually get footage of night time scenes. I put the more interesting segments at the beginning, added a still image regarding the showing of A bomb footage and then showed the entirety of the reel shot of Chicago lights downtown at night. See the footage here

Scanned in some transparencies (large positives) for Dick. He was thrilled with how they turned out. It always helps to have a nice image to start with.

Transferred a wire recording for John from Wisconsin. Our client relayed: My mother gave me a wire audio player and a reel a long time ago. The player didn’t work but she thought I could fix it. I had never seen one or have a clue as to how it worked let alone how to fix it. It has his mother’s voice on it as a child. His mother died in the 50’s. Imagine the joy he had when listening to this special recording for the first time.

Michael brought in this very damaged photo of his grandmother who was royalty for the day many years ago in some competition. He brought it into our Englewood dropoff location for us to restore her to her former glory. Thankfully she had nearly all of her important parts present. We just filled it in mirroring what was on the other side. He will hang this special photo in her new assisted living apartment. Won’t she have a grand time sharing this story with all of her new friends?

Sarah brought in nineteen audio reel-to-reel tapes that were literally degrading as she set them down on our counter. The cases that they were in created a lot of white dust as she set them down and had pieces of the cases missing. Have no fear, we were able to capture her reels and give her the mp3 files of each of them.

Deb brought in a collection of slides of her parents for us to digitize. She wants to downsize and share these memories with the rest of the family. I particularly enjoyed this slide showing a classic cinder block and board shelf all decked out with stockings hung with care. Do you have any unique memories of where you hug stocking in your home? We’d love to hear your stories.

Mary brought in a long lost and very damaged photo (including a good bit of sand) of her great grandmother on her wedding day. She was seeking a good restoration of it and a reprint so that she could hang it up for her mother who is losing her memory. She thought it would be great to have images of her relatives in her mother’s new surroundings.