“My grandmother kept all the letters my dad sent home from the war. I have them in a trunk. He had access to a camera during the war. I have the pictures he took and put in his WW2 scrapbook.”
My mother and her 3 sisters lived into their mid to late 80’s. Supposedly, they were to divide up the tons of photos from post WWI to this century. That fell into untouched stacks after each one left this orb.
I literally sneaked about 2 inches of photos from my Mother’s stacks. I helped her to make her final move before she went to a retirement home. So, I sneaked some photos away.
A sibling got a big stack and has done nothing with her stash. Fortunately, our mother, was big on writing on the back of family photos, dates and whom. So we know basically who, when and where.
My wife has even more photos as her bros took the few they wanted. Her mother took photos of everyone and every happening. She had divided them into 3 stacks, one for each adult child. No one else is really interested in either family re photos/genealogy.
One of my maternal nieces and I are the only family members into genealogy. Since her kids became teens, her additions to our 2 families have slowed down to a trickle. My sibling and my wife’s siblings do/care basically nothing re the genealogy and their picture stacks.
I traced my family back to a descendent who died in prison for being involved with the Knights Templar. My goal when I retire is to scan everything that I have.
BTW we use familysearch.org.