Featured A Family Mystery - OK Not Really - Kinda

This is David James Rickert born Oct 23, 1883 died September 13, 1967

This is Olive Mae Sturgis Rickert Born March 10, 1886 Died February 7, 1954

This is Olive with Herma (born 1914) and Verona (born 1918)

Herma died on February 4, 2007 at the age of 92
Verona died on July 6, 2007 (just six months later) at the age of 89.


The bit of a mystery part (and one that really sucks for Verona) She married Russell Erb in 1936. He died the same day as Herma February 4, 2007. Could you imagine losing the closest people to you on the same day?

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/53620213/david_james-rickert

Until I was writing this post, Olive died February 7. I'd be leary of February if I was a member of this family.

I find it so sad, that at findagrave, these women had children, grand children and great grandchildren, and I bought these photos in a thrift store.

 

That is so sad. I love old pictures likes this, they tell a history & great story. It makes you wonder why they were not kept. But I have had situations where some of my family members didn’t want the pictures, I will always gladly take them & some have asked for copies or the pictures back which I will always do. Makes me wonder what my kids will do with all of my pictures, then again they think I am storage USA & they are 34 & 35! I still have whatever crap they left when they left our house. Now it is just stored in the attic.

 

This is one of the things that is hard for me when we do estate liquidations. The family photos that no one wants! They tell us to throw them in the trash. Sad.

 

When my father passed on, and my mother had already passed on, and the last of my grandparents passed on, I took some photos to keep.
The rest had to go because I don't have the room to keep them all.

I have my grandparents wedding photo which I love. My grandpa towered over my grandma, so they had him sit down and her stand up in the wedding photo. And I have my great grandma standing outside of the apt building talking to someone on the street. I always wondered who it was.

 

That's my son as well. In his defense, he has a small house and not a lot of storage, but I think he should have less stuff. My basement is filled with his old toys, books from every stage of his life, I have a kayak in the garage etc. I've told him that he either thins it out now or when we're gone, but it has to be dealt with. Sometimes I sneak things out to GW and he never notices, mainly old clothes from high school.

These are lovely photos and I'd bet the heirs might want them now, but it's too late.

 

I know photo albums are a thing of the past they are hard to store & keep up with. I have mine & my husbands Grandparents some displayed some stored. For years we had a picture displayed who my husband said was an old relative, only to find out from his Aunt - it was not a relative but that his Grandmother (her mother) took the frame, picture & all from a random trash can. Here he thought it was a relative who passed before he was born.

 

my daughter will someday get my wedding photo's to her mother......other than close family..... she won't know 90% of the folks there...... and all my photo's , and my folks family photo's ...........will be lost to history .....and some may end up in an antique shop... that's part of life !

 

And now that everyone's photos are on their phones, generations to come won't have much - if anything - to look at when curious about their ancestors.

 

I think it's another one of those things--- when sitting for a formal photo was difficult and expensive, it really was valuable. From my own childhood, I have 50-100 printed pics of me and my sister, which I value, but don't consider essential heirlooms. Today, growing up with a phone, today's young adult has 1000's and 1000's of pictures, and almost all of them mean nothing.

Easy come, easy go. That's the way of the world.

 

Yes. I have a few more of Verona I have to add.

 

I take horrible photos. I take photos with my android (I don't use it as a phone) and never look at them. It's like anything else, I like to hold something tangible in my hand.

 

I wonder what happens to all of the personal digital photos that just get abandoned in the cloud? When we went to make our wills, the lawyer told me that I should write down all my passwords so my heirs would know what to do with my "digital footprint". He was referring to closing email accounts, closing PayPal accounts, bank accounts, the list is l o o o ng. He never mentioned photos, but I'm sure that's part of it.

 

One of my mother's neighbors died a couple of years ago. Her son was selling a bunch of stuff a few months later. One of the things was a box of 20th-century photos. I thought about adopting them, to go along with many other adoptees. But they were too recent to go in my collection, and there were too many of them to do research. They were not in albums, just in boxes, otherwise loose. So I left them there.

Our own family, after my mother passes, will adopt the photos she has. Not sure about the next generation, though.

 

It's a whole new world.

I love old movies. From when sound was first invented, there's always an old guy in the movie complaining about the new generation. I always think "it would have been a great time to be alive." I'm now the old guy complaining. But, I can actually point to the issues with the modern generations.

1. They don't listen to musicians anymore. Everyone is autotuned. If you ever wonder why all singers sound so similar now, it's because their voices are being tuned. I will say with some knowledge (I heard Taylor Swift live on awards shows back when she was hitting it big) she can't sing. If autotune was never invented, she would have no career. Name some famous musicians (guitarists, keyboardists, drummers) who are on top of the charts. There are none.

2. Filmmaking is on it's last death gasp. I borrow everything from my library (I have a movie theater in my attic) and 95% of the movies released now are unwatchable. I've borrowed over 400 and 300 are in a terrible list, 60 were alright, and the others were either good or very good.

3. The kids I see are non communicative. They just stare at their phones. Many wear headphones to drown out all noise, and most when not looking at their phones have a terrified look on their faces that someone might say something to them.

4. I don't like to get political. On many subjects I just shake my head and wonder how we got here.

It's sad how a person's life can be wiped away a moment after they pass away. I'm lucky. I know I have friends who want my garbage. Hopefully they get it. I know my wife will be selling most of it before I'm cremated.