Family photos for estranged relatives

[iris lilies]

I am taking suggestions and philosophies about a situation. Someone responded to an old old thread about Glenn Yarborough. Now I remember what triggered that wuestion nearly 8 years ago.

Anyways—

In 2011 I sorted out all family photos my mother had, copied the important ones of ancient people onto a disc, and mailed off discs plus a few originals and small family artifacts to children of my cousins as well as to my brother. I didnt ask if they wanted the stuff,
I just mailed them out. Because I dont care what they do with the stuff! So that project took a year and it was such a damned relief to be done with it.

But a fly in the ointment is the eldest child of her generation. Her name is Brooke. She is estranged from her father, my cousin. She is about 45 years old. I dont talk to her father or his family much if at all so I dont know if she truly never contacts him, but last thing I heard was there had been no contact. (I am not “estranged” from this part of my family, none of us are much interested in each other.) we have cordial but distant relations. The last time we saw each other was in Edinburgh, Scotland in 2009.

I made up a packet of photos for her but did not send them. This small packet has been sitting around here for nearly 8 years.

I know how to contact her because she is an artist with a website.

So, what is your thought here: contact her to ask if she wants these photos? There are a couple of her mother, and of her when she was a baby, same with images of her father (my cousin ) alone and with her. or, just mail them to her? Or forget about it, pitch them.

There is also a pretty quilt I might send to her if she showed interest. Her great granmother made lovely quilts, and I have a couple, dont need this extra one. I am think that because she is an artist she might like it.


I dont want to be a busy body old lady who stirs up trouble and who insists that we all need to know our roots, because that is not what I think. And, I have seen this kind of thing go bad from interferring busybodies.

what say you?

[Teacher Terry]

I would ask her.

[mschrisgo2]

Wait-- everybody got photos except her?! Send her the photos!! (you didn't ask anyone else first)
Send the quilt too, with a note about its history, and maybe tell her to feel free to pass it on, if that is her desire.

Remember, you are only responsible for your actions. You are not responsible for others' reactions.

[iris lilies]

Wait-- everybody got photos except her?! Send her the photos!! (you didn't ask anyone else first)
Send the quilt too, with a note about its history, and maybe tell her to feel free to pass it on, if that is her desire.

Remember, you are only responsible for your actions. You are not responsible for others' reactions.

I am not responsible for the reactions of others, but she made it clear decades ago that she wants nothing to do wih our family.It seems pushy to me, to just randomly mail stuff to her, pushy as in “we are your relatives and you must care about us, dammit!”

here is something that happened to me: i have no interest in high school friends with two exceptions. I would say, if you asked me, that I am “estranged” from my high school friends, haha. So a few years ago one of the estranged ones contacted me. She is a nice enough person but is annoying to me, annoying for SO MANY ReASONS and she annoyed me then, too.

But annoyance I can live with, not a big deal.Here is what she did that went beyond annoying: she gave me a run down on a few people in our class including the guy who killed his parents and stuffed them in a well.


People! I do not want this image in my head! I do not need to know this! This set up a whole lot of thinking about past issues concerning this poor guy. Ugh. I wish I didnt know this. I wish she hadnt contacted me.

[catherine]

I would still ask her. It's just an email to her website. Give her a week to respond, and if she doesn't pitch them.

[SteveinMN]

I'm with catherine on this one. Ask her and give her the opportunity to receive these pictures. You do not know how much contact she has had or has with that side of the family. She may want pictures of herself as a kid, if only to satisfy a moment of curiosity. And if she does not want them, fine. You made the offer.

[bae]

I’m having this problem in spades. I’m in the middle of a divorce. We had 40 years of photos - prints, slides, negatives, digital archives of some, iCloud photo stream from the whole family’s phones for a dozen years.

How do you even begin with this sort of thing? It’d be a monumental effort even to sort through it.

[Teacher Terry]

Bae, I wouldn’t even try. Offer pictures to family, throw away what you don’t want or keep it all until you die. Waste of life energy to go through that stuff. My mom told us to take the pictures we wanted when she was dying and then she threw away the rest. Many of the people we didn’t know who they were.

[catherine]

I’m having this problem in spades. I’m in the middle of a divorce. We had 40 years of photos - prints, slides, negatives, digital archives of some, iCloud photo stream from the whole family’s phones for a dozen years.

How do you even begin with this sort of thing? It’d be a monumental effort even to sort through it.

I agree with TT, take a year off from doing anything. If you don't want to look at the photos put them in a storage area.

[lmerullo]

To IL: I recommend just sending them to her. As you stated yourself, that's what you did with the others. Put in a nice neutral note, as in I found these pictures and thought of you. Make sure you give your return address... She can then decide whether she wants them or high-quality and also if she wishes to contact you, if only to say thanks.

If and only if you hear back from her in a positive manner, would I then offer up the quilt. After all, assuming the costs of postage on the quirkiness to someone who doesn't even want it is not something I'd do.I

Bae: such a huge task! It certainly can wait, but even then could / would you want someone to assist? Maybe your daughter? If she's able to handle it (emotionally), I think she may approach it from a standpoint of "all of these people are my heritage" since she will forever be a blending of you and the ex...whereas you might split things by "mine / hers" IYKWIM.

[Gardnr]

IL: I would send her the stuff. Write a note and put it in an envelope on the outside of the box. Say something like: "this box contains a lot of old family photos and a quilt made by your Grandmother. If this does not interest you, feel free to toss it. I simply want you to have the opportunity to have these things."

Then you don't have to have a conversation.

[Tybee]

So funny you posted on this right now, IL, as I have been grappling with same issue of what to do with my parents' letters and photos--do I make sure cousins get copies of love letters of our grandparents, do I copy and send them the originals, do they have their own, since my mom had a sister and presumably they split all this back when my grandmother died?? It is so much work and emotionally very difficult to deal with what is now a hundred years of letters, in some cases. Yet I would not want to pitch it all. And now I have mystery photos--who are these people??

I did some sorting last week and was so upset by the letters I was up all night, so can't do this stuff late at night. Bae, my heart goes out to you, and I like the idea of giving a lot of it to your daughter and letting her sort it out. .

[Teacher Terry]

Thankfully my parents left no letters behind and neither have I. Those are personal and don’t need to be read by anyone. Who cares about mystery people in photos? Not worth it to even worry about it.

[SteveinMN]

bae, my ex and I tussled a little over our photos. Eventually I realized that I wanted only a select few. Copies were made and XW got to do with the rest of them what she wanted to. She was more into them than I was anyway. If they end up being yours, I'd just put them aside for now. They can sit for a year or two until things settle.

I would not pass them on to Daughter unless she asks specifically to take on the task. She's dealing now with her parents splitting up; IMHO she does not need the perceived burden of taking care of family "heirlooms".

[iris lilies]

I sent Brooke a message asking if she wants these photos. If she answers in the affirmative, I will likely take a photo of the quilt to show her and will offer that as well.


I will let you know how this turns out.

[pinkytoe]

I had the task of going through family photos/mementos and elected just to mail out to various family members - both distant and close. It took a long time to go through them. I enclosed a short note with any info I had about photos or mementos. Eliminated the extra step of asking, got it off my plate and to be truthful, I didn't really care if they wanted them or not. They were photos/mementos of their primary family so it only made sense that they should deal with them and not me. They have the option now of keeping or tossing. In the case of the quilt, I would probably ask first.

[jp1]

I think you did the right thing IL. When my parents were both still alive they made the unilateral decision to discard all the slides of pictures from when I was growing up. I'm not heartbroken or anything but if given the choice I would have wanted them and probably gone through them and had some scanned to keep. On the other hand if I'd been given them they might well just be sitting in our basement storage space taking up room.

A year ago that space got broken into and my mothers silver plate utensils got stolen. Once I got over the shock of having been robbed I realized that I was actually grateful that something I didn't really want, and which had no financial value, was now dealt with through no effort on my part. I was actually more bummed that the $30 electric hand saw, which was not at all sentimental since it was relatively new, got stolen at the same time.

[Tammy]

I heard an interesting mental exercise once -

imagine that a fire burns your home to the ground, when you and your family and pets were out of town. No one died. All you have left is your suitcase and it’s contents. How do you feel?

Your feelings are quite telling. If it’s a sense of relief - then you should feel no guilt about any downsizing or decluttering that you choose to do.

[pinkytoe]

Just as a note, my brother (12 years older) recently sent me a link to childhood photos of myself which I had never seen. It has been like a bittersweet gift to look at that little girl from infancy to 6-7 years old. It answered a lot of questions about things that heretofore had been a mystery. No wonder I like Siamese cats - they are in almost all of the pics!! No wonder I came back to the mountains to grow old. Ditto...

[Tybee]

Pinkytoe, I had much the same experience looking at photos and letters-- a much better understanding of my childhood and what happened in those years.

I am grateful that my mom kept these documents, and the generational letters that actually explained a lot to me. But it can be tough going. I am glad she did not destroy all this. But it does make me realize that soon, there will be no one that remembers these people in the old letters, no one who knew them. That is a hard realization.

[iris lilies]

Brooke responded promptly to my offer to send these photos saying “That would be nice. Send themto ....[address.]

I will mail her the quilt as well, since her response was fast and positive.

There is a family ring that technically she shoild get being the eldest of that generation, but I am not done wearing it. She doesnt get it—yet.

[catherine]

I heard an interesting mental exercise once -

imagine that a fire burns your home to the ground, when you and your family and pets were out of town. No one died. All you have left is your suitcase and it’s contents. How do you feel?

Your feelings are quite telling. If it’s a sense of relief - then you should feel no guilt about any downsizing or decluttering that you choose to do.

That was a real-life exercise for my mother. She suffered an aneurysm, had a protracted rehabilitation, and during that time my uncle and I moved all her stuff into his barn. A short time later he handed me a small insurance check ($1000) and told me the barn had burned down and so had all of the contents. Nothing was saved. (I have questioned the accuracy of that story over the years, to be honest).

My mother came out of her illness and I had to tell her that she had nothing. I also lost stuff I would have eventually inherited--many beautiful furnishings from my ancestors. I lost my wedding gown, which was stored at my mother's house and moved to the barn with everything else. Family photos gone--poof!

So I've already BTDT once, and if it happened to me as it did to my mother, I know I would be more relieved than grieved.

[Zoe Girl]

I’m having this problem in spades. I’m in the middle of a divorce. We had 40 years of photos - prints, slides, negatives, digital archives of some, iCloud photo stream from the whole family’s phones for a dozen years.

How do you even begin with this sort of thing? It’d be a monumental effort even to sort through it.

Yes take time. I eventually went through and scanned the photos on a disk to my ex before I did a big move. I also worked in a photo lab. I would do what you need to do, display it, box it, only put up pictures without her, change any furniture that you hated or rearrange, plant some vegetable she always hated in the garden. Not out of anger but out of reclaiming your space.

The best day was when my ex got his 2 bank boxes of physics notes from college out of the house,