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The Wedding Album



Big Update: I found out the name of the attendants! Read the Postscript at the the end.

Update: I now have the album and have updated the pictures.

My father died 6 months ago. My mom is in long term care with dementia that is getting worse. As the eldest of 5, born less than a year after their marriage, I have become the keeper of their memories - and their stuff. So I'm creating this blog to work through my thoughts and share what I know. Maybe this will mean something to others, maybe not. I just know that it feels right to not keep all this to myself.

We sold our family home after Mom moved into long term care and as Dad and I were packing up the house (I was living with them), there were some things that we wanted to keep. At that time, I took some items belonging to my grandfather, who my parents lived with from when they were married until he died a decade later, as well as some Blue Mountain pottery, vintage housewares, and a box of older sports books. (I still have them, hoping to get them to good homes. They're about the Leafs and the Jays  so if you know anyone...) I'm sure they will show up in later posts.


The wedding photographers

My dad took the family photos (boxes of them), as well as items that meant something to Mom. He didn't value too much for himself (except his copy of Perry Como's autograph). So, a month ago I spent an afternoon at my sister's going through Dad's things, designating what I will take and where other things will go. And now, a lot of those items are coming to me. 

My siblings have no interest in them, preferring a couple of items that meant something to them and their memories. I can't let go so easily because I know what they meant to my Mom, what they represented to her as she started building a home. There's also some items from before her marriage that I have as well. Other posts will talk about these things but right now I want to focus on the item that was in my mind this morning. 

The Wedding Album. 

The image above is an approximation. It's still at my sister's so I can't post a picture of it. I'll update this post when I have it. Or should I say, when my Mom has it. When I saw her a couple of days ago I asked her if she wanted it with her and she said she did. There's a drawer I can put it in and I can pull it out every once and a while for her to look through when I visit. 

Every time in the past when we've looked at it together, she's told me who people are. I don't know if she can do that anymore. More likely, she'll ask me. However, I don't know who everyone in her wedding party is. I recognize the ones I interacted with as a kid but that's it. The first page, which has spaces for everyone in the bridal party, is blank. I wish now I had asked Dad to fill that in before he died. 

My aunt/godmother was in the wedding party so I'm hoping she'll be able to tell me.  She'll probably know all Mom's attendants, as they were all family. But the groomsmen? It was 55 years ago. (My dad went into the hospital shortly after their anniversary and didn't make it out. Their anniversary was the last time they saw each other.) I do have another source for that. In the last few years of Dad's life, I helped him get back in touch with friends he had as a young man. When he died, it turned out he had a network and they all talked to me. They would probably know. 

So it's not a hopeless endeavour. Just a sad one. Because neither one of them ever felt it necessary to fill those spaces in. And now my mother looks at the picture of the two of them on their wedding day by her bedside and asks me, "who is that?"

Most of the people in that album are gone now. I don't want them to just disappear. I want to retain those memories because Mom no longer can. They mean something to me.


Postscript:

In going through the boxes, I found this. Would have been in my grandfather's things. It's my mother's handwriting. Huzzah!



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