SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND!

When I was rummaging though boxes looking for old photographs of my Mother's school, I came across a pile of black and white photos, tied together with some string.  I stood with them in my hand for a few minutes, trying to remember why they were tied together as they were, and where they came from.  I knew they were not any of our original old family photos.

I released the string and started flipping through the photos.  I tell you I struck GOLD!  They were all photos pertaining to my Father's side of the family, and then I remembered that the last time I had seen my Aunt Margaret, who is the eldest of that family, she had handed me the bundle telling me she wanted me to have them.

These photo's are old, but in incredible shape.  My Aunt Margaret always put dates on her photo's and most of these were from the 1940's.  There were some of my Grandpa Fischer on his farm, when his farm looked way different to how I remembered it.  There were some of Aunt's holding babies, some of Great Grandma Effie Owens from Iowa - and then there were about 12 photos that looked like a parade.

I flipped them all over and then pretty much flipped myself!  What I held in my hands were original photos taken by my Aunt Margaret during a visit to Winnipeg in 1949, of a parade in downtown Winnipeg, honouring Winnipeg's 75th birthday!

Can you imagine?  I have these original images of a historical occasion in the City of Winnipeg!

I am not sure what I should do with them.  They belong to me - but really, they belong to the City of Winnipeg as well.

I think I am going to try and take photos of the photos, so I can work with the images.  I would love to have some of these images of old city buildings and parade floats on my walls... any maybe then I will contact the archives.

In the meantime, I am organizing this wonderful pile of memories that my Aunt placed in my hands.  Some will be framed and go on my Family Gallery Wall in the family room, others will go into albums...


I decided to try taking those shots of those old photos before I finished writing this post - it was not as hard as I thought it would be.  I will work with the images a bit more and see if I can get them clearer, but for now I just wanted to share my find with you.

Here are a couple of pictures from Winnipeg's 75th Birthday Parade in 1949

As great as these are the one picture in the pile that really touched me was this one.

This is my Mom, with her three oldest sons.  My oldest brother Wayne, on Mom's left, Mervyn on her right, and Norman on her knee.

I have never seen this picture before, and it is one of the happiest pictures of her I have ever seen.

I am so glad I rummaged through that box of pictures - 

What an awesome day this has been!