Mary B. Smolens – 100 Years Old Birthday Tribute

December 27, 2021 – I can’t believe I forgot that yesterday was my mother, Mary B. Smolens’ 100-year-old birthday until I saw my older brothers and sister’s photo collages on Facebook. My brother also sent the family an MS PowerPoint of old photographs he found of our mother. Thank you, John. It was great seeing those old photographs.

How did I miss the signs? I went back and looked at recent emails sent by my family about last night’s weekly family zoom meeting. All of the emails mention our mother’s birthday, which is on the day after Christmas, and that it was a 100-year celebration. Thanks to John Lennon, I guess it’s true, “life happens when you’re busy making other plans.”

Photographer of the Family

What makes me so crazy is I’m the photographer of the family. Since I was ten years old, I took photographs starting with a Brownie box camera and Kodak roll film. It began in Dr. Taggart’s (our family doctor and his son. Jeff, my childhood best friend) darkroom, and I watched him develop a photographic print; I was hooked. Since then, I have branched out to add the writing (copy, content, and feature) and digital painting to my photography talents.

Since then, I have become our family’s photographer. I’ve taken many photographs of my mother. Upon her death in 2007, I created a collage of images of my mother. I have a printed copy hanging on my corkboard near my work desk. I spent the better part of the morning looking for the original images of the collage. I know I have it back up somewhere on one of my many external hard drives. But I couldn’t find the folder with the original images. So I scanned the print. That is what I uploaded with this blog entry.

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