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[OM] Kinda OT: 50 Year-old Film

Subject: [OM] Kinda OT: 50 Year-old Film
From: Scj9000@xxxxxxx
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 10:19:31 EST
Speaking of slide immortality, just wanted to share a story. 

In 1990 my Grandmother was dying of cancer, leaving me with the proverbial
house to clean and sell, etc. In a closet, tucked under the stairs (literally
wedged on the floor where the stair met the floor at an angle) was a large box
of prints dating from 1910 on, tintypes and daggueratypes (sp???) of my
relatives from the Civil War,WW1, WW2 etc.,  and a roll of undeveloped slide
film marked "1947" in my father's handwriting. She told me how my father loved
to run around in 1946-1947 with a 35mm an uncle had brought back from the war
(Leica)...indeed my Dad talked often of it and taught me how to use a 35mm
before his early death)  and that this must have been one of those rolls.  I
didn't recognize the film type, and soon found that i could not find anyone in
that area (Roanoke, Va) who could develop it. Finally I found a large lab in
Winchester, Va (large operation a pro referred me to..sorry i can't remember
name..too long ago) that said they could, so i sent it off.

 After a week they called me and said that they felt the emulsion had been
distroyed as there was a thick layer of nasty green and grey fuzzy mold
culture that had grown into the emulsion, and could not guarantee results,
yada, yada.  I told them forget responsibility and go forth and see what could
be salvaged. Well..

You have never seen such brilliant, vibrant colors in your life!  My Mom and
Dad eloped in January of their senior year (1947) in high school (bet that
made the parents sooo happy??) to Bristol, Va/Tenn. They had to come back the
next day and "face the music". I remember hearing how they really got in an
uproar when they found that, upon arriving down there, they were too late to
get married and had to spend the honeymoon night FIRST and THEN got married
the next morning!! LOL 

 This roll had evidently been started that summer at my Great-Grandmother's
very rural farm, showing her pulling  golden biscuits out of a grand old wood-
burning stove, running clothes thru an old wringer washer, painting the
outhouse, priming the pump, almost like an American Journal. The end of the
roll proved to be even more priceless to my family, as it shows two terrified
teenagers on the very day they came home to "face the music". Pale, evidence
of my mother's tears, my Father's protective arm around her shoulder, my
Grandmother's red nose and unhappy countenance, the groups posing around the
1936 Hudson Terraplane (sp? again..cool car..)

Christmas of '90 I had them blown up for my Mother (her first wedding picture)
and my Grandmother (pictures of her Mom who she had not seen for 40 years!)

So...what ye click today is not necessarily gonna be gone tomorrow. And later,
someone else will delight in what you have done. So keep on clicking!
Susan

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