I was fortunate enough to know my great-grandmother. Perhaps these days, more and more people are able to experience that. However, not too long ago, the life expectancy did not enable people that privilege. My great-grandmother lived to be 105 years old. Amazing isn’t it?
It gets even more amazing. She also learned to email in the last few years of her life. I’m not sure exactly when it was that she started emailing, but it was somewhere when she was in her late 90’s or early 100’s.
When I think about the fact that she was born in 1902, I think about all the amazing changes that she must have witnessed all around her. She saw wars, and the great depression, the invention of the car, etc. I wish she were still alive so that I could talk to her about all of the things that she witnessed in her life. And to think that she started emailing is truly amazing!
While not every family probably has a centenarian in it like mine, you can still scrapbook a page about someone who lived an extraordinary life. I have thought about one way to scrapbook my great-grandmother’s page. It would include a large photograph in her earlier years matted on nice paper. On both sides, I could create a timeline of special events in history that happened during her life, as well as events that happened in her own personal life. It would be a great way for future generations to have the ability to think about what it really means to live such a long and happy life. They would have a kind of “at a glance” type look at her life. I would definitely include the email letters we exchanged.
Although it is impossible to capture on one scrapbook page an entire life lived, you can definitely create a page that will help you pay tribute to a wonderful, long life. If you feel like you have more information on a particular person, you could create an entire album around their life.
The most successful way to make this work is to interview this person while they are still living. It is much harder to gather accurate facts, and life stories of someone once they have passed on. So, if you are thinking of starting an album for a certain person in your family, think of doing it before it is too late.
I wish I had more communication with my great-grandmother when she was alive. I was busy growing up, going to college, getting married, and living my own life. However, I treasure those emails I have from her in those final years of her life. They are something that I hope to one day scrapbook myself, and help pay tribute to a wonderful life that she lived.
Meredith Ethington is the author of this blog. To learn more about Meredith, and her history with Scrapbooking and Genealogy, go here.
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