Posted on 04/25/2020 9:51:35 AM PDT by June2
My Dad saved many letters that family members wrote to him in 1948. He was 17 yrs old and had just enlisted in the Air Force. I would like to make a book with copies of the actual letters, photos and then a transcript of the letters. Many have faded and some of the writing is hard to decipher. I have several family members that would enjoy this. Any advice?
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I did a similar project for the family years ago: Mother-in-law’s handwritten recipes. I took closeup pictures of them. Used Adobe Photoshop to change contrast, straighten, get rid of stains, get rid of rips or bend marks and so forth. It worked quite well. I then use a photobook service (I like Shutterfly)and made books for certain family members. By the way, Shutterfly has sales all the time (50% off and so forth). Good luck.
I have a box of letters uncles wrote home from WWII.
I was going to do the same thing. Then I found they were dreadfully boring. Not especially well written and certainly did not contain much of anything exciting.
I could go though them, which was fine, and edit out the boring stuff and get, maybe, one line per letter worth “archiving.”
I ended up scanning most of them using a good photo quality scanner. The rest went back into the box with a letter of what they were and a thumb drive of the scans. It will be something my kids can decide if they are worthwhile in 30 years when they are cleaning out MY crap.
Scan them while you can at first.
Digital copies won’t degrade any further and are easier to share and maintain.
for archival purposes don’t use any adhesives or glue to apply the letters to the pages - if you can use some “mounting brackets” on hard cardboard “pages” (photo book companies will have these) and store either in a nice binder or even a hard protective binder which will keep out bugs and light.
You first need to decide on the medium you’re going to use. Hardcopy, digital, or multimedia all require different technologies and approaches.
Regarding hard to read letters, you probably already have, or can easily get, filters for your smart phone camera that may highlight the text and make it more legible.
If I were doing a project like this, I’d lean toward something I could put on a thumb drive. Hope this helps.
http://www.loc.gov/vets/
https://nationalhomefrontproject.org/
http://www.thememoryproject.com/stories/WWII/
We enjoyed just three nights ago going through my son’s “memory book with our grandson - looking at his dad’s first-second-third-fourth grade drawings and sketches of planes, trains and automobiles. And tanks and - did I mention airplanes and battleships? The individual drawings or letters or sheets were either laminated or set in their plain letter-size clear plastic sheet protectors, then kept in a three ring binder. All three kids - each in their own binder. The slide-in pocket sheet protectors are much easier than laminating by far.
Remember too to add a separate page (my mom used a letter or envelope) or write on the back of the photographs the date, the group (birthday party, wedding, or party or holiday location) and the names of the people in the photo!
My mom labelled a 1914 photograph of her dad, his brothers, their mom and dad. She also labelled, for example, a photo of her brother ordination, her mom and dad, her sisters and brothers. For the kids? “Daytona Beach, July 1996, with Aunt Connie and cousins Mark and Allison.” Aunt Margaret’s wedding, as ring bearer with cousin Mary. “
Get as clean of a copy of the various letters as you can. Take them to your local print shop; they will photo copy and size the letters so all are the same size then bind them with a plastic spiral type binding. Cost should be quite reasonable.
Be sure to make durable copies of the letters soon, before they fade any more. Also, the more widely distributed they are to family members, the better chance they'll last.
My wife is a creative memories consultant. She has made numerous physical albums of our trips and has made digital family albums. This was nice because her brother and sisters could buy one for themselves.
Use acid free paper for a traditional album.
My project had an extra step. The letters were in German. Some were post WWII related to relief sent to some German citizens - some individual and some series. Another was a series from my grandmother to my mother - approximately 1930 - 1955. I learned to read the German script by Xeroxing the letters and copying each letter beneath the written line. WordPerfect had a German spell checker, which if I remember used an * for a wild card. This could be used if one did not recognize a letter. If I could not reco*nize the word, I would type it into the spell checker. It would pull up all of the words in its dictionary that matched the entered letters.
I keyed in the German version and then made an English translation. I make hard copies of each and saved both versions digitally. The originals were all in excellent shape and I have saved them in archival plastic pages in three ring binders.
In addition to the actual letters, etc. you will probably need to write material for context.
Beau L'Amour, son of Western author Louis L'Amour, has done probably the most comprehensive project of this type. Take a look at LouisLAmoursLostTreasures.com . They have published a Volume 1 and Volume 2 which might give you some ideas. Right now, it's all about his early writing, story attempts, research, ideas etc., though I understand that publishing his correspondence is a possibility for the future.
As far as getting something like this printed, I am sure ADOBE has a tool that can help. Amazon has Kindle Direct. Snapfish if it's still around, and Shutterfly as well as most "calendar" creaters can do this kind of thing.
Best of luck!
I read a letter from my uncle to my dad during WWII. He was in the Merchant Marines and transporting Chinese troops(not sure where to as he couldn’t say). It was quite enlightening. He wasn’t really politically correct though.
Copy them as best you can. Send them to the WWII National Museum at New Orleans. This is a scholarly institution. Your father will live on.
Thank you all for your comments, stories and suggestions. Looking into getting a scanner to start off. Not sure if I’ll go a book route or maybe a website.
Again, thank you all!
Go the book route. WEb sites die and fade, A book is pretty permanent. You have the letters because they are on paper.
I am considering doing the same thing. I have a Brother MFC 9840-CDW combination laser color printer, copier, scanner, which is almost 10 years old.
Is it worthwhile to get a dedicated scanner which may produce higher quality text and photos than the one I have? If so, and, more importantly, what brand and model would you recommend?
Same questions apply for a dedicated printer...
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