MY MATERNAL grandparents owned a lake cabin in northern Minnesota. On one wall of their bedroom hung a large circa 1903 photograph of my grandfather as a baby. In it, he sat wearing the long gown commonly worn by babies in the nineteen-aughts. The thought of Grandpa wearing a dress always made me giggle.
When I realized the picture was missing from the family photo collection, I asked my mother if she knew of its whereabouts. Her brothers had all since passed away, and I assumed she or one of my cousins was now the owner.
A CHANGE of HANDS
I learned that after my grandmother’s death, the picture had been claimed by the eldest of her five children, John Raymond Schanhaar. Uncle Jack had dabbled over the years in what he called ancestoring, and his collection of family papers and photographs included items inherited from both parents, as well as from his father’s sister. They helped him with his genealogical work, but research was painstaking in those pre-internet days. He tried using Broderbund’s Family Tree Maker, but by his own admission “just sporadically pecked away at it.”
A life-long bachelor, Jack lived in California, far from family who lived primarily in the upper mid-west. He developed dementia in his late 70s and died at the age of 81 in a Marin County care facility.
A GREAT LOSS
When notified of his brother’s death, my Uncle Bob inquired as to the date of the funeral. He was understandably shocked when told it had already taken place. It was an egregiously managed situation in which the family was deprived of the chance to say goodbye.
Also tragic was the preventable loss of a family’s history. All of Jack’s effects were donated or thrown away. Among his papers were a letter written in 1850 by my maternal 3rd great-grandmother to her husband in Boston, a letter of recommendation written in 1865 for my maternal great-great-grandfather, and many irreplaceable photographs, including my grandfather’s baby picture.
With today’s tools, my uncle could have easily shared these items and the many others in his collection. I intend to use those tools to prevent my own collection from meeting the same fate as Jack’s. If his story teaches anything, it is to share what you have and what you know before it is all tossed aside by people who don’t recognize its value.