A little bit of family history

I recently started a little project for my family. I offered to convert all of our family slides to digital files using a slide converter. My dad, and I later found out, my Grandpa Warner, took all of our family pictures on slides. There are 5 big boxes that each hold 16 little boxes of slides each holding about 20-30 slides. For those of you doing the math, I'm guessing there are at least 2000 slides...I'd complain about the drudgery, but I am actually really enjoying it. My parents visited this weekend and I feel like I learned more about my family history in one weekend than in 20 years. I'm sure bits of it I knew, but it is different to learn these things as an adult.

Here is just a sampling of what I found.

This is my mom at probably about 25-26 years of age. Younger than me now and no kids yet. My sister looks so much like her.

This is my Great Grandpa Warner whom I found out was a farmer who raised pork, corn, and wheat in Hicksville, OH. That is my dad's childhood pet, Happy. Never knew my dad had a dog.

This is the car my dad learned to drive in a 1960(?) Chevy Impala 4-door hardtop. He told me that about 3 times this weekend, but I'm pretty sure I still got the year wrong. My dad is standing by the passenger side door.

This is a picture of my dad as a boy with his Grandma Warner (my great grandma). I've been told I favor the Warner side of the family, but I could never really see it. Probably because I've never seen pictures of my dad as a boy. I have a picture of myself making an almost identical expression. I couldn't find it, but I found another that the resemblance shows.

This is my dad and his brothers. My dad, being the youngest, is either being squashed by his big brother or acting squirly. Either one is possible.

I think this is one of my favorites. It is my dad, his brothers and my grandpa Warner. When my dad saw this he said, "Oh yeah, my dad always took us on hikes on Sunday afternoons" like I totally should have known that. I was 6 when my Grandpa Warner died and have very few memories of him, it was cool to learn more about him and my family.

Below is a photo of my 2 brothers. My brother Andy (the older boy) died when he was 6. I was only 5 months old. Over the years, I've heard bits and pieces about him, but I'd not seen many pictures. Since he was the oldest, there have already been about 100 pictures of him in just the first box. Seeing his pictures bring out a whole wealth of thoughts. I was obviously too young to have any memories of him, but it makes me wonder how my family would have been different had I had 2 big brothers especially since my mom says we were a lot alike. As a mother now myself, it also makes me think in a new way about the painful time it must have been for my family. Such a sweet little face.

Too end on a less melancholy subject, the picture below shows my dad during his, "misunderstood artist phase." He actually was an art major in college and apparently felt the need to look the part. He is in the far right hand side of this photo. Yep, the guy with the fu-man-chu looking goatee and the beret.