Something I did not know... Barbara Bush was an avid scrapbooker and chronicled every one of her life's moments in these books and had at least one for each of her children. There are 118 scrapbooks done by her located in the George Bush Presidential Library. She began scrapbooking in 1943.
I loved seeing a peek at the scrapbooks - at her handwriting and at the mementos and photographs that she assembled herself. I know I'm not an important public figure, but I hope some day that my descendants will find my scrapbooks interesting enough to look through!
Fun facts! Those would be wonderful to see in person! Right Cheryl? I mean that's part of the reason we do what we do right!?
I found this: SO COOL! http://abc13.com/politics/barbara-bushs-scrapbooks-give-insight-to-familys-legacy/3367326/
I wasn't sure about linking in the forum, so I did not... But yes, you can google Barbara Bush Scrapbooking and come up with quite a few hits. I've watched a couple of the videos. One of the videos came to me via my Facebook feed, so I checked it out a bit further.
118 scrapbooks at the Presidential Library? WOW! How wonderful is that? Of course every scrapbook is important in some way, but can you imagine her, sitting down in 1943 and making her first book? And then, how the pages changed as her life and (that of her family) changed. I wonder if she had any idea what she was starting to record? The article said that the scrapbooks have been digitized. I hope they put them online! [And did y'all see in the video how BIG that scrapbook is?! And here I am, thinking that 12x12 is big lol!]
After watching the videos, you know what I see... simplicity. I must learn to focus on getting the stories scrapped, and not worry so much about all the other things (like my quest for better shadows!) Very inspirational! Thanks for sharing!
THat was my first thought too! Can you imagine 100 of that size? I doubt all of hers are that big, but wow!
I had heard over the weekend that she was a scrapbooker. To be honest, it didn't surprise me. She was so family oriented that I just knew she would keep everything. My mother did a scrapbook of her wedding in 1954. She also did books for me growing up. I never knew about the wedding book until 5 or 6 years after she died. I was cleaning out the top of the closest she used and found it. It was falling apart so I immediately started transferring the photos into CM albums (I was a consultant then). Luckily all photos were put in using photo corners so none were ruined taking them out. My 2 childhood albums were also falling apart so I have transferred those into 3 CM albums. All of hers were like Mrs. Bush's.... just the facts! I think having looked at my albums all these years is why I have some of the childhood memories that I do have.
When my husband's paternal grandmother passed away, in her will she gave us her photo albums and her scrapbooks, DH is the oldest grandchild. A couple of the scrapbooks are large, but I don't think that they are quite that big. And like Barbara's, they are nothing fancy, newspaper clippings, ephemera from an event she wanted to save, and the occasional photo since the bulk of the photos were reserved for her photo albums. Whenever I pull them down from the shelf, I am so grateful that she passed them down to us and that they didn't end up in a trash heap somewhere.
I wish... we get bags of photos and don't know who people are. Sometimes, a quick scribble on the back, but many times that was still unreadable. I know I have no articles about me or my family, we are not as newsworthy, but I think seeing how we lived, and what we did will be fun to read in 50 years. Did she write about the items or the people? That would be the best! I had my handwriting (print) made into a font. While it is mine, it's my neat handwriting. I used that on a bunch of pages, and explained to my boys that it was my handwriting. They thought it was cool!
I did not know that. That's so fantastic! Imagine the things she experienced and chronicled in her long life and with a family that large. She will be missed.
I've had the same issue with photos. I see my mom's frustration when she goes through the (few) photos from her mom and dad. My mom has always been good about labeling photos although her handwriting is atrocious so TBH I hope I can read it when she's gone. (This is not me being cavalier: it's really bad so I do worry I won't know who's in a photo without if she's not there to tell me.) But it has made me realize that I need to do more than write the date and the people in a photo. I've started to write ages (for kids. Not adults--I'm not mean!) as well as location. We've lived in 3 states and 4 homes so far since having kids, and who knows if we'll move again soon? My kids don't remember some of these places, so it seems right to add little more info--even if it's "our backyard" or "Susan's house" if we're at a friend's place. Heck, just this weekend I was showing DD a video of her in our Houston home, and I asked "Do you remember this house?" and she said "Umm, I think?" We lived there for 4 years but she was just so young. Oh gosh, I'm getting maudlin. I gotta stop!
Almost of the photos are labeled in her handwriting, not journaling, but at least labeled. There are a few that aren't, but considering the albums start around 1920 and continue until the 1980's, not bad. In the scrapbooks, it is mostly newspaper articles, greeting cards, the occasional larger photo that wouldn't fit. It's been a while since I looked at them, but I'm pretty sure that her handwriting is included. Grandma was a career woman, extremely organized, worked for a newspaper when it was not common for a woman to work. Her husband was laid off during the depression, so Grandma was the primary breadwinner until he found another job. Lots of employer-related items in the scrapbook, clubs she belonged to, group shots, photos of her and her boss. I'm so thrilled to have gotten to know her before she passed away. Unfortunately, her husband died before I got to meet him, DH and I were just dating...
Believe it or not, I would write on the backs of photos when we were dealing with film. Each roll would be developed & I'd spend time writing down first & last names of those in the photo, the date, the location. No kids here, so I never had to deal with ages. I've gotten lax with digital, most of the time I don't even print them out. And the stack of photos that I've printed are still sitting in their orange folders from Shutterfly. At least they are in the same bookcase that my photo albums are in, but not in the albums until I do all of the above. Sigh... So little time, so much to do.