I often wonder why more documents and photographs aren’t passed down in families. After I received that beautiful scrapbook that belonged to the Culver sisters (you can read about it here), I realized that sometimes it is because branches of families die out. There is nobody left who cares about the history of the family.
But what happens in so many other families? Sometimes someone moves and loses a box of photographs. Or they pass away and leave documents in the care of a descendant who hates “stuff” and throws it away.
Sometimes, though, it is in the hands of nature. A tornado, hurricane, fire, or flood carries away these valuable family treasures. I’ve tried to protect as much as possible against these possibilities. A fire safe and a supply of acid-free envelopes and boxes helps with that.
Nevertheless, I had a little taste of the damage that can occur from nature the other day. Well, maybe not nature–more like repairman error.
Last spring I walked around the corner of the house and heard a raging fountain. Water poured into the hall, on my beautiful alder wood floor. Our hot water heater had burst. We discovered that the repairman had set it down, covering the drain, so the water had nowhere to go but out into my house. Ultimately the entire large-sized heater contents poured into my house, flooding the hall and downstairs bedrooms. The only reason it didn’t get into the living room is that the hallway and bedrooms are three steps lower than the living room.
Professional dryers lined up by my pool
We got help cleaning up the mess, and because we live in Arizona, where it is dry, everything seemed fine.
Until Tuesday that is.
I keep a plastic mat in the walk-in closet where I store my scrapbooks, books, and old writing. That’s because, to make more room, I have a library cart full of books and need to be able to move it from in front of the file cabinet. Because it’s so weighted down with books, it sinks into the carpet and needs a mat to roll on. I keep another plastic mat under my desk for my chair. Well, what I didn’t know was that although the carpet was dry, the slab (no basement in Arizona) had absorbed moisture from the flood. So when I put the plastic mats down, over these ten months, moisture collected underneath. The carpet developed rust spots. And at the edge of the closet mat, on the wall hidden behind the file cabinet, black mold developed. It didn’t grow on my wall or in the carpet, but on the baseboard and on the scrapbook I had leaning between the cabinet and the wall. You see, that scrapbook was not a treasured heirloom, but something that belonged to me.
It was from 1989 and 1990, when I graduated from grad school (Western Michigan University). Because I have an iPhone and a camera, I was able to take photographs of the “treasures” in the scrapbook and throw them away. But years ago, that would have been very unlikely. Film was expensive and everyone didn’t have a camera.
I added the “My Graduation” ribbon to this photograph to cover up something I had written in my bad handwriting on that page ;). But I still have the photograph of the original page.
In the following photo you can see the black mold a bit better. It is a flyer advertising subscriptions to a literary magazine. The flyer featured a poem by yours truly, as well as one by another poet. Look at the mold! I was wearing latex gloves to handle it.
Years ago, my mother-in-law’s basement flooded. She had a wonderful collection of antiques and childhood keepsakes that belonged to her and some to my husband. All gone in a flash. Every once in a while my husband remembers something else that was in the basement and is lost forever.
The Family Kalamazoo 
Now you have made me nervous! I have probably 30 photo albums sitting on a bookcase in our bedroom. One of the tasks I was going to accomplish when I retired was scanning every album. I figured if I did one a week, I’d have it done in a year. I have not yet done one. It’s SO boring to scan, and many of the albums are the type where photos are stuck to the pages.
But using my iPhone to do it would be much faster! Maybe I will try that instead. Maybe next week….
Amy, make sure that nothing is too close to the floor, and that goes for storage boxes. If you have a basement, this goes for the basement, and if you don’t have a basement, that goes for the first floor. I agree about scanning being boring. Ugh!
We do have a basement, and anything like photographs or letters are in the house, not the basement. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be destroyed by fire or some other disaster. Gee, such pleasant thoughts….
Do you have a fire safe you can store them in? Those things are so expensive, but they are supposed to protect the contents in the event of a regular house fire.
No, we don’t. But we have a huge collection of photo albums. If we kept them in a safe, we’d never look at them.
Yup, water is a culprit in so many ruins, no matter where we live. I’m sorry you lost some treasures, although being able to take photos does help.
If it’s not nature, it’s the hot water heater or burst frozen/thaw water pipes or your neighbor’s leak that eventually finds its way through the party wall. I’ve experienced it all but fortunately not losing much other than my mind. 😦 we found black mold pervasive in the baseboards upstairs (my old bedroom) at Mom & Dad’s in Michigan when moving them to a condo. It ruined Dad’s Marine uniform stored in a cedar chest.
Not to mention it has very bad health implications, so I am glad you found it relatively quickly. After so many episodes of water-related issues, I find myself obsessively looking up at my ceilings and checking the basement carpet in corners on a daily basis. Crazy 😋
Sammy, I’m so sorry you’ve gone through all that hassle (and mind loss ;))and then to lose your father’s Marine uniform, too. I can understand checking your ceilings and carpets regularly! My son’s first apartment, a small studio, had water damage in the ceiling and mold and he got very sick with a respiratory thing he couldn’t beat. After 2 weeks he went to the ER and fell asleep in the waiting room and when they called his name they didn’t even come get him, but left him there. He was too sick to stay awake! I tried to help him with the California govt agency supposed to handle that stuff and they didn’t help at all. So frustrating as the landlord had just let it grow there even though there were many complaints. Apparently the mold had been there for some time and they had just painted over it so a new tenant wouldn’t see it!
Luanne – that’s terrible! And negligent. I follow a Swedish blogger who has had to move and have whole house gutted because it was infested and she’s been sick for a couple years and no one could diagnose. At least now she’s feeling better and will eventually have a healthy house.
Gov’t agencies. meh!!
Re your last sentence: you bet! That sounds like a nightmare. How awful to live in that and how awful to have to move. I read something about why mold is worse today than years ago and apparently it has to do with us sealing our houses up better.
I’m sorry re: your mold situation. Basements are so dangerous. But sometimes closets are too. And I worry about attics: they can become leaky. Stuff kept on computer can also get a virus and vanish.
As you point out, we humans depend on later generations to hang onto the stuff of earlier generations. I don’t know if anyone will do that for me. This makes me think about death in general, my death in particular, and the importance or lack of importance of my life and stuff. Oh, well….
WJ, all good places for people to search out and check on the state of their treasures. So true about computers, but luckily it is easy to do a backup regularly. Of course, do I do that? hahaha
You say that you don’t know if anyone will hang onto the stuff of earlier generations that you have in your possession. I know what you mean. I hope that I can eventually identify someone or ones who will take good care of it.
What’s worse than a flood is a jealous boyfriend who throws away all of your old love letters! Sorry about your flood though.
I read this on my phone several days ago and it made my heart hurt a little! I’m glad you were able to photograph the album before you had to throw it away. That is something our ancestors couldn’t have done.
Oh no. Mould is not only horrible, but dangerous for your health. I hope you’ve managed to get rid of it. You’ve also made me realise I need to be more careful with my little trove of photos and documents 🙂
I had an entire shelf collapse in my office and 1000s of family photos came tumbling down – it forced me to cull, and begin scanning – but I stopped and all came to a standstill. You remind me how foolish that is – things could be worse, could get worse, and I should finish the chore!
Oh, what a pain, but a good thing it motivated you. Yes, it’s a chore that goes on and on, though. And then I read an article about how eventually new technology won’t “read” the technology we’re using to digitize and if they don’t come up with something feasible all our efforts will be lost anyway!
I like to laminate importance documents because you never know when a disaster like this can happen. Sorry for the property damage and thanks for sharing
Thank you so much for commiserating! Laminating historical documents, though, can damage them, so that doesn’t work for anything you want to keep for posterity, unfortunately.
Oh that’s true… Maybe scan a digital copy? Still doesn’t save the original document unfortunately…
Right, that’s the problem. I like to put them in acid-free sleeves, but then what? I wonder if plastic tubs are ok.
Almost need to dig a ten foot hole and bury in time capsule lol