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At a luncheon after a funeral, there was a small collection of photos on a table along with a rustic looking scrapbook highlighting an annual camping trip the deceased would take with his family.
These trips were Winter trips made in the snow. The pages were contained between two thin wooden covers decorated with wood burning, decals, bits of map and simple painted illustrations and titled Winter Camp.
The trips were organized in chronological order, starting with a honeymoon period trip with the gentleman's new bride then continuing each year with children added, then as they grew up and left the nest, they went missing from the album. This recorded a span of nearly thirty years, I'm guessing, and carefully turning the pages---the album was too fragile to "flip" through---there was a timeline of their camping equipment as it changed over the years, and their clothes and cars as well. I found it fascinating, and the one constant was the huge grin on the father's face.
He obviously enjoyed being in his element and his bride enjoyed being with him!
The final entry was particularly poignant. His bride had proceeded him in death so there was a gap of one or two years in the book, but his daughter (who had disappeared from the scrapbook eight or nine years earlier) returned and the duo made the last trip together. A gift of sorts to her aging dad. The expressions in the photos were priceless.
Oh, the snapshots were all black and white, which added a timeless quality to the book. I asked why they weren't color and was told the old patriarch was concerned about color shifting.
Anyway I think this is a really cool idea and if I had the foresight, it is certainly a type of memorial I would love to leave behind, so I thought I'd share the idea.
These trips were Winter trips made in the snow. The pages were contained between two thin wooden covers decorated with wood burning, decals, bits of map and simple painted illustrations and titled Winter Camp.
The trips were organized in chronological order, starting with a honeymoon period trip with the gentleman's new bride then continuing each year with children added, then as they grew up and left the nest, they went missing from the album. This recorded a span of nearly thirty years, I'm guessing, and carefully turning the pages---the album was too fragile to "flip" through---there was a timeline of their camping equipment as it changed over the years, and their clothes and cars as well. I found it fascinating, and the one constant was the huge grin on the father's face.
He obviously enjoyed being in his element and his bride enjoyed being with him!
The final entry was particularly poignant. His bride had proceeded him in death so there was a gap of one or two years in the book, but his daughter (who had disappeared from the scrapbook eight or nine years earlier) returned and the duo made the last trip together. A gift of sorts to her aging dad. The expressions in the photos were priceless.
Oh, the snapshots were all black and white, which added a timeless quality to the book. I asked why they weren't color and was told the old patriarch was concerned about color shifting.
Anyway I think this is a really cool idea and if I had the foresight, it is certainly a type of memorial I would love to leave behind, so I thought I'd share the idea.