Wk. 12, Book 12: The Family Tree

my final book in this series is an answered prayer for HELP. in addition to the hundreds of photos i've taken and collected over the years, i inherited three-four times that number of photos from my mother. she loved taking pics of everybody and everything of special and unusual meaning in her life. and when pharmacies started offering special sales for duplicate film processing, she took full advantage of that opportunity. that's why it took me almost 14 years to finally do something with all these pics. it was bleepin' overwhelming facing all those boxes of photo albums and loose pics and duplicates of pics.

but then my aunt, Lorain, gave me a simple piece of advice: organize the pics into simple, manageable categories, e.g., one for each of my children, one for each parent, one for aunts and uncles, and so on. duhhhhh. i sometimes forget that ORDER is the first principle of practical spirituality.  

my aunt also gave me a few new fancy photo albums and tons of inspiration from her own ultra-imaginative family photo-scrap books. she's our family historian and keeper of rare family documents (birth/death/marriage certificates, census reports, etc.) dating back to the early 1800s. i especially appreciate her innate talent for weaving images and words together to tell wonderful stories. this week's book is a work-in-progress in that tradition. i decided to create a family tree in pictures for my granddaughter who has begun to ask about her ancestors. here's the cover:

 the first page in this book begins with little anecdotes, pics and news clippings about my great-grandmother, Charlotte (pronounced Charlottie) Johnson, one of the matriarchs of my maternal grandfather's branch of the family tree who lived to age 105. Grandma was a Tar Heel who moved to Baltimore in the late 1930s or early 1940s--I have to check that fact with my aunt.

i also thought my granddaughter, and other family members who experience this book, would appreciate reading some letters Grandma received from relatives "back home," which are invaluable for what they reveal about her and certain family relationships.

i'll continue to expand this book with more pics and memorabilia to fill out the different branches of our family tree. thanks again William for bringing this thematic focus forward and for enriching my creative life--and this blog as well--with your outstanding artistry and ancestor contributions. you give me something to stretch for every day.