Picture This

A Gift to my Descendants

Hello, Kids and All Readers,

Between working on Book 7 in my Botanic Hill Detectives Mysteries series and all its related tasks, I’m keeping a decades-long promise to myself. Call it Spring Cleaning, Common Sense, or my Gift to my Descendants.

By choice, I became the repository of 150 years of family photos. You probably know where this is going. Three huge plastic tubs of my family’s pictorial history have been calling to me for almost fifty years. About ten years ago, I sorted them into year groups. Brava to me for that foresight because finally, I’m preparing the photos to scan onto flash drives.

My main reason is so my daughter doesn’t have to do it someday when I’m not around to provide the necessary backstories, identifications, and relationships. The other reason is that I can’t stand stuff and clutter! It’s time.

I didn’t realize the emotions this project would engender: Who was my great-grandmother and namesake, Annie Lavinia Sherrill Lanyon, really? I wish I had known her. Ah, those were the good old days when I was a kid! I had just met Nancy Drew, her chums, and their mysteries. I miss my relatives who are long gone. I wish we could all gather around the Thanksgiving table once again, and my grandmother would wrap me in one of her squishy hugs one more time. How can I have a daughter who’s in her forties now? Wasn’t she just born a few days ago? And I even have grandchildren! (I’m not complaining.) And so on. And so forth. A big message washes over me each time I return to the project: Time flies like the wind.

So, get a clue, dear Readers. It’s important to let those you love know it. Often. And ask them lots of questions while you can. Don’t take anyone for granted. Put down the cell phone and enjoy each moment with them. You’ll thank yourself someday. So might your descendants.

(All photos are the sole property of my family and me for our use only. Thank you.)

Photos from top to bottom, left to right: 1. My great-grandparents, John and Annie Lanyon, and children My grandmother, Nellie Lanyon, age 12 years, is the shorter girl in the back row, 1895. 2. My father, age 6 months, 1912. 3. My parents on their Wedding Day in 1947, in the house where four generations of our family lived from 1945 – 2016. 4. Baby me, age 2 month, 1953. 5. Child me, age 10 years, 1963. Baby bangs were in, thanks to Audrey Hepburn. 6. My high school graduation picture, 1970. No bangs were in. We girls wanted to look cool like Marcia Brady. 7. 1987 me when big hair and big glasses were in. 8. 2003 me when small hair and small glasses were in.

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