It's almost over! Perhaps these photos will help you decide...

Tomorrow will be the final day to enter the Flip-Pal Giveaway.

Let me tell you a true story that happened in our family.  A horrible house fire swept through my father's home just a year and a half after my mother passed away.  As we later went through the ashes, we found that the only things that were saved were:

1.  Most all of the genealogy and family history records.

2.  A good many of the photo albums, but not all.

3.  His underwear.

The photos were in magnetic photo albums that were popular at the time.  We now know they are not the best way to house our precious pictures.  However, my sisters and I recently went through those albums and attempted to reconstruct what we found.

 This is a photo of my dad's brother, Charles Clemens, that was rescued from the fire in 1985.  You can see the damage from both fire and water.

 After scanning it with Flip-Pal, I was able to crop it and keep the best part visible.  I will later attempt to restore it to a better image.  This is the only photo I have of Uncle Charles.

 A scan of another one of my dad's brothers, Dewey Clemens and his wife, Edna Gilliam.  The photo was not as bad as others.

 The same photo that has been sharpened and cleaned up a bit.

My father's oldest brother, George Russell Clemens.  I have not done anything with this photo yet.  It was in bad condition even before the fire.  But, at least I have the image.

 A very tiny photo of my dad that was about the size of a quarter.  It was so little that it almost was lost.

 These last two are of my dad when he served at Pearl Harbor during WWII. I don't know that I'll make any effort to restore them, for they fine for me in this condition.  I'm just glad they were preserved.

Even though a fire destroyed only some of our precious memories 28 year years ago, others are not so lucky.  We have all seen the devastation from catastrophic events around the globe.  Our hearts have been touched as victims have searched for any memento they can find.

Please don't let the same thing happen to you.

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Disclaimer:  Flip-Pal is sponsoring this contest, and the winner will be chosen by RaffleCopter.  I purchased my own unit several years ago, and am an Ambassador for the Grandparents Community:  http://flip-pal.com/category/grandparents/

It all went up in smoke...well, almost all

It was just about 18 months after my mom died in 1984 that my dad went on a research trip to Kentucky.  My parents were wonderful genealogists, and had acquired many first-hand accounts from people that were born in the mid-1800's.

When dad returned, the only thing left standing on his property was the front door and the front wall of his house.  Lightning had struck the house and burned it to the ground.

Mom and Dad in front of their cabin in Bath, Ohio

The local fire department had been there and did what they could, but most everything was gone.

Shortly afterward, I went through the remains with dad to see if anything could be salvaged.  Behind the front door were wooden bookshelves that housed all of the research that he and mom had done.  It should have burned.  But, it didn't.  

There were some smoke stains and some water damage, but nearly everything was salvageable.

Little Peggy at Kingwood Center.  You can see some of the smoke damage on the edges

There was also a tall chest of drawers with the bottom four drawers burned.  We pried open the top three, and there was all of his underwear.  He said with his genealogy and his underwear and K-Mart, he would be just fine.

Nearly five years later, I received a letter out of the blue from a man in California.  He had corresponded with my mother up until her death.  He had found my name on the old "Family Registry" on microfiche at the Family History Center and wanted to know who I was.  We connected.

The one bit of genealogy that was pretty much unusable from the fire was the Cline genealogy.  But, this man had it all, for he and mom had what each other had.  His information made ours complete.

It was not by happenstance.  Never.