Home Today

With Sabrina at home today with a slight fever and cold, I had time to sit with her and sort through the trunk of photos. Lots of interesting and fun things to find.

I've got most of the Gibbs side of the family photos sorted into a single box. There's lots of duplicates in the stacks, but still will take some detective work in getting them in groups. I would find one photo with no id to it, and then get into another stack, and find the same or similar photo, with voila, a name to it. I think with some work, some of the unidentified folks may also be renamed-by comparing the photos with identified ones--many are unique looking folks, so I think we can identify many, but alas, probably not all. I've also got a stack for Jim to view, in the hopes that he might know some of the people.

I did find some fun things in the piles--in one letter to Susan, Grandma Madge explained some of the origin of the Philippine chest that Jennifer took back to Atlanta--even with her suggestions for restoration of it--I'm going to copy that portion for inclusion with a photo of the chest I shot over the weekend in a scrapbook page--thought it made a nice side note to the chest. Soon as I get it copied, I'll get that to you Jen so you can have it to go with the chest.

I found a graduation picture of Grandma Madge on her graduation day from Kansas State, and part of what I think is a scrapbook of photos from her KState days. There are a few photos of buildings of on the campus-I'm betting that some of the KSU alumni at HCC might be able to tell me a bit more.

I also figured out the English church we kept finding stuff on over the weekend---Jane Clark Gibbs was born in England, in that area that Grandma Madge had all the information on. In another stack-Madge had written out a nearly complete explanation of the history behind that--the Clarks owned the Abbey Mill, and Jane had played as a child on the steps of the church-next door to the Mill. How cool is that.

The key thing was to rid the photos of the cardboard, bags, tape and other acidic items that they were wrapped and stored in, to stop further deterioration.

It's a treasure trove folks, I've had such fun going through the stacks-the old history major is enjoying the mysteries that lie within.

I'll share more in the coming days-don't want to let all the cats out of the bag at once. I hope to install the genealogy software sent by Uncle John and attempt to make sense of the hundreds of pages of meticulous notes (some of which aren't genealogy related, but fun to read), and start to piece it together for us.