After spending much of my childhood on the farm, I love nature. And I love photography. I like to feed the birds, so I have a lot of bird pictures. I love flowers and trees. I enjoy visiting the mountains and oceans. My spiritual journey lead me to make a photo book where I combined…
Write Your Story
The last several years, I have developed an interest in genealogy. Why? Because I was scanning my mother’s photo books and found so many details about our family that I didn’t realize she had saved. Suddenly, I wanted to know more. Now I am determined to write something that our grandkids will have after we…
January 28 – Data Privacy Day
Today, January 28th, is Data Privacy Day! Do you think about data privacy when you go on-line or sign up for that free app or game? Do you ask yourself “is it worth the amount of information required to get access?” A game does not need to know your age or where you live. So…
Write Your Story
The last couple of years, I have developed an interest in genealogy. Why? Because I was scanning my mother’s photo books and found so many details about our family that I didn’t realize she had saved. Suddenly, I wanted to know more. For example, I had always heard the story that my father lost his…
Painful Memories or Blessings
Since we lost our son, James, I have attended grief groups, conferences, read many articles and participated in Facebook group discussions. Even though we are in our sixth year, I still find it difficult to read long articles; and have read very few books. I simply cannot concentrate. When our son’s fiancée cleared the home…
Father’s Day
Being a father is special. As with most parents, we were extremely excited to welcome our first born into our family. And 2 1/2 years later, welcome a daughter. The perfect family…a boy and a girl. While life has not been perfect, we have many fond memories of our children growing up, playing sports, graduating…
View a Year Later
By June 1, 2020, staying home was routine. I started to focus on scanning my mother’s photobooks. It took many hours to scan all eleven of them…and many more hours to enter the information available for each picture into my desktop software. A year later, I am finishing the last book. Of course, I have…
Birthdays
Birthdays are special! You remember the excitement of welcoming new life to your family…you experience the overwhelming joy…and responsibility! Today is our son’s birthday. Forty-one years ago, we had a beautiful baby boy! Our first child, something we had been hoping and dreaming of for several years. This year James would be 41. While we…
Ten Questions to ask yourself about your photos?
I’m sure you are like me and have priceless pictures of your kids, grandkids, grandparents or a favorite picture of your pet. Then you need to ask yourself these questions? Are my photos backed up? Is the cloud storage I use temporary or permanent? Are my photos and stories easy to access across multiple devices?…
Mother’s Day – 2021
We all know that Mother’s Day is a special day set aside to honor our mothers. We usually celebrate our mothers with cards, breakfast in bed or a gift. Or we remember our mothers and grandmothers who have passed. It is a day that I celebrate our daughter and grandchildren. This year, I also celebrate…
Bereaved Mother’s Day
We all know that Mother’s Day is a special day each year that celebrates our mothers with cards, breakfast in bed or a gift. It’s a day set aside to honor our mothers. However, have you ever thought about mothers who have lost a child? Did you know there is a Bereaved Mother’s Day? Bereaved…
National Scrapbook Day and Heritage-Memories Open House Zoom event
Join me on May 1, 2021, between 10:00 a.m. & 1:00 p.m. Central Time (US and Canada) as we celebrate National Scrapbook Day and begin the journey to “Capture Our Life Stories” one step at a time (Class begins at 10:15 a.m.). Each week, a topic will be introduced. As you write the stories, you…
Memories
Our granddaughter was four and a half when my mother, her Great-Grandma Velma passed away in April, 2011. Just the other day, she shared her memories of visiting great-grandma every week, swimming at her retirement center pool and going out to dinner with her. We were blessed to have 4 generations for four and a…
It’s been six years!
Every day, I think about our son, James Watkins III. I remember the passion he had for sports in spite of his size; the passion he had for music and the love he shared with his niece. In October 2016, as we prepared for the holidays, I asked our granddaughter what she wanted for Christmas;…
First Day of Spring
Spring is my favorite time of the year. Flowers bloom, trees bud, grass turns green after the spring rain. Many animals are born in spring and birds come back from their winter home. I can once again spend my morning meditation time outside. And of course, it is tornado season our area. I’ve always been…
Fall Memories
Our family loves to go to the National Parks. The best part is being able to revisit them via our photo books which I make after our trips. We also enjoy finding places locally that are peaceful and beautiful. These pictures were taken a few years ago…but just looking at them brings a peaceful feeling….
Stories
Not a day goes by without thinking about our son, James. But this time of year, memories are triggered by Mother’s Day, Memorial Day and Father’s Day. But within this 6-8 week period, we also have his angelversary and his birthday. It’s a lot to process. I like this quote: “We don’t “move on” from…
Family Recipes, a tradition shared.
Do you have recipes that have been used in your family for generations? My Mom was a country girl; I was one until the end of my sixth grade, when my parents moved to a small town outside of Omaha. I always helped Mom cook supper so making gravy and mashed potatoes were second nature. …
Family Traditions
Do you have any family traditions? Most families have some yearly traditions around the holidays. Our family has had one weekly tradition that has carried forward into the next generation. Friday night is pizza night. I can’t remember exactly when we started; but the kids were in grade school. I love to cook. Kids love…
I don’t know what I would do if I lost my pictures in a tornado! (hurricane, flood, fire or hard drive crash)
Recently, my husband, Jim & I attended a local chapter meeting of The Compassionate Friends (https://www.compassionatefriends.org/), a world-wide organization that provides friendship, understanding and hope to parents, grandparents and siblings who have lost children. During the discussion, one person said; “I don’t know what I would do if I lost my pictures in a tornado!”…
Protecting Your Photos and Other Files
We store photos on our phones, SD cards, USBs, computers, external hard drives, and in the cloud. There are many services that seem to protect us with automatic backup to the “cloud” or to external hard drives. Free “cloud” storage sounds like a great idea but please read the Terms of Service – before trusting…
Family Reunions
Last weekend, The Watkins Family Reunion was held. It had been many years since our last reunion. This type of event gives us opportunities to gather family stories. Many of us brought pictures that everyone enjoyed. A trip back to the “good old days.” This week’s photo is one of those. Here’s some ideas for…
Finding Family Stories – in letters!
If you are like me, you didn’t take time to write down family stories. The question now is “how can I find these stories?” Perhaps you have siblings, aunts, uncles or cousins that could tell stories for your family history. Friends of our son occasionally share stories; which makes me want to hear more stories. …
Finding Family Stories – in the least expected places
Last week, I talked about the importance of writing stories down so the details don’t get lost or distorted. Stories build more than a family genealogy chart. Stories tell future generations about our family. You know — the real people; their personalities; their experiences. I’m talking about the stories that our Grandparents told about “the…
Welcome to Heritage-Memories.
This blog will focus on ways to keep family memories alive thru stories. I will share some ideas on how to organize, the tools I use and options to preserve these memories for future generations. But why are these memories so important? Today is our son’s 39th birthday. There will be no cake, no gifts,…
Life’s Unexpected Turns
Welcome to Heritage-Memories — Where Family Stories Come Alive! I keep getting off track in writing these articles. Life just seems to take unexpected turns. I went to the doctor in early June expecting to learn if I had some kind of infection. They tested for COVID which was negative… but noted that my heart…
Storms
We live in the Kansas City area. The last several weeks, we have had numerous rounds of “severe weather.” It feels like every morning I look at the forecast and see “There is a likely risk of severe weather today. Wind, tornadoes and hail are possible. Look out for damaging winds. Stay aware and be…
Memories
So you may ask, after nine years, how does it feel to lose a son? The pain is still there, different but still present. Often triggered by another person’s loss, a date on the calendar or a memory. You often hear that people don’t talk about your child because they don’t want to make you…
Puppies
As you may have read, we are bereaved parents. Our son passed away in 2015 after five years of cancer treatments. It is a grief like no other. We have been able to find comfort in our family dog. Our daughter rescued a dog ten days after losing her brother, our son. The shelter guessed…
Sticky Albums
I was reading information on sticky albums that were popular in the 70s. So thought it might be helpful if I passed along what I’ve learned over the years. If you run into these in your inherited boxes of photos, there are ways to deal with them. I would recommend taking a picture of each…