Capturing these photographs was essential

Who Can You Trust with Your History?

June 14, 2021/in Client Story, Digital Collections, Document Scanning, Preservation, Special Projects /by Anderson Archival

Recent Anderson Archival client Steve Brunkhorst found himself the caretaker of four old family albums. Like many others in the same situation, he didn’t know how to share the collection with his family in a way that was fair and sustainable for the materials.

But the biggest challenge was finding someone he knew he could trust with his collection during the project. Steve didn’t want to ship the albums to someone he didn’t know, because these were important family heirlooms. He wanted to find a digital preservation firm that would take personal accountability for his collection.

Even home collectors with amateur scanning experience can benefit from reaching out to a digitization firm to ensure they have the longest lasting file formats and image quality. We sat down with Steve to talk about trusting in the process, trusting that the physical items will be well taken care of, and trusting in the enhancement and digital versions of this history.

AA: Can you describe the collection and its significance to you?

My mother passed away last year at 93 years. She had a very long, very healthy, and pretty happy life. I live in St. Louis, so I ended up with many of her cherished possessions, including this collection of [four] photo albums. One was put together by her mother, one was hers, one was my father’s, and one was my mother and father’s from the time they met until the time they started having children.

Four albums filled with family memories. Image from Steve Brunkhorst’s collection and used with permission.

AA: That’s a lot of history in just four albums! I’m sure they piqued the curiosity of other family members too. Did that influence your decision to digitize them?

I have a brother and two sisters. Everyone has some interest in these old photo albums, so this was a problem staring me in the face. I was trying to find a way to share the albums in a way that was equitable and could be appreciated and easily accessible. And I do have a little bit of knowledge about scanning. I’ve got a fairly good amateur flatbed scanner, and I’m interested in photography a little bit, so I have Photoshop Elements, which allows you to correct images.

AA: With that knowledge, what was your original vision for digitizing the albums?

I had some knowledge of what I wanted done, but I knew I did not want to do it myself for a couple of reasons. One, my flatbed scanner does not have a large enough bed for the size of some of the albums. [Also] one of the albums did not come apart, as it was bound. And the third reason was, I just simply didn’t want to put that much work into it myself.

I knew there were scanning companies where you would send a shoebox full of photos in and they’d send you something back. I was looking for a local company because I did not really want to take these irreplaceable albums and put them in the mail to someone I did not know. I was hoping I would [physically] hand [over] my documents and feel like there was some personal accountability rather than putting a box in the mail.

AA: Did you receive that personal touch you were looking for?

This [project] was being done while COVID was still a big concern. I did not actually enter your facility beyond the entry lobby, but I was just blown away. [Principal Mark Anderson] came over and talked to me a little bit and gave me a lot of confidence that I was for sure in the right place.

AA: Can you tell me more about what the digitization process was like from your perspective?

The idea was that I’ll give [the albums] to my brother and two sisters in the digital format, so this was a dilemma of how to do that. The dilemma [could be] solved by scanning everything, so everybody gets everything in a digital format, and then each of the brothers and sisters gets another piece in the old historical legacy format.

I didn’t know exactly what I wanted in the way of PDFs or JPEGs. [Content Specialist Marcia Spicer] offered a standard package of PDFs and JPEGs at different scan densities and even TIFFs. That was something that I didn’t know to request, but due to her experience, it was offered. That worked out very well.

AA: I know that one album could not be easily unbound, and a handful of photographs throughout the albums had silvering issues from age. What was your approach to these physical challenges during digitization of this collection?

What happened is that Marcia sent me some test [images] and scans. Some were just pretty neutral scans how the equipment was able to digitize, and then there were some enhancements. I looked at the enhancements, and what I found even at home doing some digitization on these photos was that, depending on the condition of the photo, that different photos would require different kinds of enhancements to improve them a bit.

Image degradation with silvering

Silvering minimized through editing

Image degradation with silvering

Silvering minimized through alternate capture angles

AA: How would you say the digital versions of the albums helped you see the collection and its history in a new way?

[Before digitization] I had [only] glanced at these photos. My sister had looked at the albums with my mother to try to identify some of the people [in the photos], and she had stuck little post-it notes on the pages of the album. What I did is remove those notes, keeping track of which photos they were related to, which page they were on. After I received the PDFs [from Anderson Archival], I was able to use a PDF program called Nuance to insert digital comments on the pages. It looks really nice and was much nicer than scanning the post it notes.

Later on, I was looking page by page to make a few notes and understand [for] myself when these photos were taken. Looking at these photos kind of got me interested in going back to some other [historical family] documents I have scanned, to go back and understand what year these events happened. I was able to do that, going back to my digital files, finding dates, and other reference information, and then making small notes on the PDF version of the albums. That was something which I never thought I was going to do, but it kind of evolved out of it. I was giving them something that was as complete and interesting as it could be, so that turned out to be kind of a fun benefit of having the collection digitized.

Back then, the earliest photos were very small and not very crisp. Over the course of the photo albums, you can see the technology improves, the knowledge about how to take a photo and move [the camera] closer [to the subject]. In a way, you’re also seeing the evolution of photography.

AA: I hadn’t thought about it that way, but the movement through time is very apparent when looking at all the albums together. Did you learn anything new about your family from the digital albums?

I knew my grandmother pretty well when I was growing up, because my grandmother lived with my mother and father. It was more of an integrated family situation back then. I knew my grandmother from birth until I left home at 18 years old, but she was always this old grandmother to me. She wasn’t quite as old, really, as I know it now.

Looking back at her photograph album, I see photos of her and her friends with tennis racquets and cameras, in the park, in boats, and taking pictures, which is very much like social media today. I realized when my grandmother was younger, she was quite a hot young woman and her friends [were] very attractive. They were smiling and laughing and having a lot of fun. And I just never thought that about my grandmother until I looked back at these photographs and said, ‘Yeah, they were having a good time. They were having a nice life.’ That was kind of a rediscovery for me.

AA: How do you think your family will use the digital files going forward?

I’ve downloaded all of the digitized content onto my PC, and I purchased some thumb drives to store the files. [Each sibling] can send that thumb drive on to their children, who can also store it on their own electronic devices and have a copy of it. Even if they don’t look at it today, they’ll have it for some time in the future when they do.

AA: Thank you for trusting us with your collection and sharing your story. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

I enthusiastically recommend that people [who] have documents, photographs, or anything else that needs to be organized get in touch with you and see what you can do for them. Everybody’s got a big cache of photo albums. People my age still don’t want to just throw things away without having some copy or some reference to it, so I’m looking forward to telling other people about Anderson Archival and showing them what I’ve received. Hopefully, it’s a solution for some other people to know.

Adopting Digital Preservation for a Legacy of Caring

May 18, 2021/in Client Story, Digital Collections, Document Scanning, Preservation, Special Projects /by Anderson Archival

Technology is so engrained in our everyday lives that it can be hard to imagine a time when the only evidence of one’s ancestry was a single handwritten line in an archive across the country. But before the age of virtual records and digital paper trails, this was the only option for some people hunting down their history—or the history of esteemed historical figures.

Anderson Archival sat down with Laurel Bennett, executive assistant at Cayuga Centers, a nonprofit founded in 1852 as a home for destitute children. Over the last 165 years, Cayuga Centers has become not only a temporary support system for children in need, but also an organization that provides every kind of support possible for children and families regardless of circumstance.

This collection also has significance to history on a larger scale, but we’ll let Bennett explain in her own words.

AA: Can you tell our readers a little bit about Cayuga Centers’ history and mission?

[Cayuga Centers] started in the early 1860s as an orphanage. Three of the prominent families of Auburn, New York—one of which [were] the Sewards, who you might know through Henry Seward, the secretary of state to Abraham Lincoln. They saw a need for an orphanage so they created one [here].

Over the years, Cayuga Centers evolved into what it is today, which is a nonprofit that is chosen to help children, families, and individuals to grow at home. I’m going to read you our mission: ‘To grow as independent, healthy, and productive citizens through quality counseling, residential, and support services. We do this in partnership with those we serve, as well as government agencies and other social services providers.’

We have programs for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, we have our foster care programs in Florida, Delaware, and upstate New York and New York City, and our biggest program is actually our migrant foster care program for unaccompanied minors that come into the US without an adult. This is a big contract that we have with the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

AA: That’s quite the task list! How did you end up working for Cayuga Centers?

I’ve been here for about a year and a half, and I’m the executive assistant to our president and CEO. What drew me to Cayuga Centers when I first got out of college was that they don’t just provide foster care for these children—they also provide counseling, they provide schooling, they provide any and everything that they need.

Cayuga Centers legacy of caring digitized

Cayuga’s legacy of caring dates far back in history. Image from Cayuga Centers’ collection and used with permission.

[The children] are at a disadvantage when they go through the foster care system, and that’s what really drew me into it. If I had children and somehow they got separated from me, I would want them to go to a Cayuga Centers foster home. For the children that come over the border, we make sure that they’re in a home that speaks their native language as well.

AA: How did you decide to reach out for digitization services?

One of my duties [when] I came into this job [was] to look after our archive, which is located in our headquarters in Auburn, New York. [It’s] this big old library, and before COVID happened, people liked to come in to view the records from back in the orphanage for genealogical purposes. Our staff also likes to look through them because they’re really cool old books. After researching how to properly store these [books] and what we can do to best preserve them, I found Anderson [Archival] and sent them off to be digitized.

AA: When you were looking for a digital preservation vendor to help you with this project, what specific challenges did you know going in that your collection would have?

They’re very fragile. When you look through them, some of the pages are falling out, some of them are torn up, some of them are very faded.

Finding a company that was able to capture the image and make sure it was the best it could [be] was really key for this particular collection.

I was looking at different providers, and you guys fit exactly what we needed. [Anderson Archival’s facilities] have everything in house. We can just send them to you and [know that] you take good care of the books. They are very fragile, they’re from the 1800s. You scan every page and then send us those files for us to keep on file for ourselves. I like that you guys are all in-house and just seem like a good reputable business. And that’s why we chose you.

AA: Did you learn anything new about your collection through digitization?

It’s a lot bigger than we originally thought it was. We see it and where it’s stored, and then seeing all the individual files…there’s so many of them. The books are a lot thicker than they look in real life.

Also, there was a prominent figure in Auburn who was the head of the orphanage, and they actually had an all-female board that ran it, which was very cool and rare for the time. I found that when looking through the old annual reports.

AA: If these books were available for the public to come in and look at, are the newly digitized files something that you’ll be using in that way?

Yeah, sometimes people have to get permission from us to come in to view them. But some people haven’t been able to come in because they’re from all over the country, and they have an ancestor that stayed in the orphanage and they wanted to come here and find their files. Now that they’re digitized, we can find the specific year and the register that their ancestor, parent, or grandparent lived in and can send that to them.

Also, we have staff from multiple locations throughout upstate New York, Delaware, and Florida. Not everyone has been able to come in and view the collection, so we make it available for our staff to be able to look through whenever they have the interest to. That’s something our staff would really like, to be able to see from wherever they are, especially because of COVID. People haven’t been able to travel as much as they used to.

AA: Are there any other ways that you foresee using the digital collection in the future?

One of our books actually has Harriet Tubman in it because she adopted a child who I believe is blind and that’s how she came to live with her and fostered her at home here in Auburn. Just looking through [the collection] one of our staff found [that record], and then we were able to find out that Harriet Tubman was involved in the early history of our agency, which is very cool.

Harriet Tubman appears in the Cayuga Register

Cayuga Centers’ relationship with Harriet Tubman displayed in this record. Identifying names have been redacted. Image used with permission.

It makes sense because Harriet Tubman was very involved with the Seward family and Auburn. I believe they were involved in the founding of the original orphanage, which was [originally] called the Cayuga Asylum for Destitute Children.

We want to think of a way that we can share it on our website, like the Harriet Tubman register or the scrapbook, for more particular interest to the agency and our history. We’re thinking of ways to share them with the public [too].

AA: Can you share any other stories about these personal connections to the past?

[There are a few stories of] people that have come in to view the collection that have been able to see parts of the digitized collection before it was finished. We had a woman whose aunt stayed at the orphanage as a child, and she wanted to try to find everything she could. They were going to the state to try to find her adoption papers and everything. Looking through the books, it was actually very hard to find her because your eyes miss things. But as it was digitized, I was actually able to find the exact page that her aunt was on, and I was able to print and send that page to them because it was digitized. They were out of state, so she was so grateful. Because the image was so clear I was able to print them out a blank one and then I also printed out one where I was able to highlight where she was in the page.

AA: That has to be really special for people, to have that physical manifestation of their ancestor. What other impacts has the digital collection had so far?

Another gentleman came in, and some of his cousins, I believe, stayed [at Cayuga]. He came in and was looking through the books but wasn’t able to find anything. But then, after it got digitized, I was then able to more easily find where they were. He said that he cried because he was so happy he was able to find more about them, because they actually had siblings that also came in through here.

A lot of people come in because they have some sort of family connection to Cayuga. There’s a big cemetery in Auburn where we have a few of the graves of the orphans that unfortunately died from illness when they were staying here, [and it’s] the same place the Sewards are buried, that Harriet Tubman is buried. A few years ago on our 165th anniversary, we had a little ceremony there.

AA: Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me.

Thanks so much for being interested in us, and thank you guys for doing a great job.

Digitization captured this hidden love note

Love Letters Over Zoom: Connection in the Time of COVID

April 19, 2021/in Client Story, Digital Collections, Document Scanning, Preservation, Special Projects /by Anderson Archival

The power of human connection is stronger than ever after such a disruptive year. It’s hard to feel close to loved ones when, over the course of a life, people spread out and go in their own directions. Historical collections can show us that those connections are still powerful and tangible even from afar.

We sat down to talk about this and more with Rosemary Cassie, one of Anderson Archival’s recent clients. Her collection of letters written by her father while he was on a US Navy minesweeper during the Korean war reminded us that the powerful connections we make in our lives can foster new connections, even after we are gone.

Now that the digitization of these love letters is complete, Cassie shares the collection virtually with her entire extended family. The group meets twice a month via Zoom and reads selections from the collection together and discuss the members of their family that left the record of their lifelong love behind.

AA: What’s it been like to be able to share the collection digitally with your entire family?

Since both my parents have passed, these letters were my way of kind of keeping us connected. When you lose the matriarch or the patriarch of a family, there’s really not that pull to stay together.

People don’t think a lot about building that connection with a family that’s dispersed, especially during a pandemic. What a role these letters have played in a time when we haven’t even been able to have a service or a mass for my mom. We’ve been able to have a memorial weekend—memorialized both of them, actually—in a way that probably we wouldn’t have done if we hadn’t been in the middle of a pandemic.

I download every year’s worth of letters from Box, and then share them with the family on Google Drive in small chunks. Then we all get on a Zoom call and discuss. When we’re on a particular letter or theme, I’ll open up to that letter, to that month, and we’ll make comments on it. We always start the call with the letters in mind, and then we always then transition to more things about what’s going on in our own lives, almost like our own video version of the letters.

This is my way of everybody getting the letters. Even some of my family who don’t choose to be part of the Zoom call are reading the letters. All my immediate siblings are participating, but it’s my nieces and nephews who are spread around the world that aren’t as involved. Now they have they have a part of our family’s history that they can keep.

AA: What was unique about the digitization process for this collection?

In addition to the letters themselves, the digitization team would photograph the big front and the back of the envelope for two reasons. The front of the envelopes have the post mark, and the back of the envelope would always have little love notes.

AA: On our end, the process of capturing these details ended up telling us a lot about your mother. She opened the envelopes with a letter opener, and occasionally made notes about the contents of the letter on the envelope itself. I remember the day one of our team members found a hidden love note that, from the way the envelope was opened, she had never seen. When our team member shared that find with the rest of us, we were floored. You can just feel how much love is in all those letters, even in a note that was never seen before.

Both my parents were pretty progressive as a couple. My mom and dad only knew each other three months before they got married, and he shipped out for two years.

The letter writer experiments with a typewriter.

AA: Wow. That’s a strong love, this young love built from three months.

Yeah, and it stayed that way, never veered away from that. I just I wish we had her side of the letters. My dad kept my mothers’ letters, so we only have one part of the story. We’re always trying to figure out, “What did my mom’s say?” But in a way, it kind of makes it more interesting to only have his because then you have to speculate or create your own version of what you think Mom would have said. You have to fill in the gaps like, “Oh, I wonder what made him sick, or what he’s responding to from her last letter.”

My brother and brother-in-law are both ex-Navy men as well. When we’ve talked about my dad mentioning something about the ship or protocols, my brother-in-law and brother will help translate. Later on in the letters, he talks about studying for his certifications. My niece was reading about this study and how my dad was so worried that he wasn’t going to pass. My dad was brilliant. He passed every test. But my niece was like, “I have to get to those parts of the letters.”

AA: She was enthralled with the story! Wow! It is so wonderful that you all can share this intimate collection of love letters. How did it first come into your possession?

I knew the letters existed but didn’t really know where they were and I hadn’t seen them. Since April, my mother had them hidden away. I moved her into my home because of COVID-19, and as her health declined, she really couldn’t speak anymore. Then she passed away, right at the end of April last year.

This photo of the happy couple was provided by Rosemary Cassie and is used with permission.

AA: They must have meant a lot to her to keep them kept close for so many years. Did she talk about them at all towards the end of her life?

About two weeks before she passed, she kept asking for them. She had a brain tumor, so she was fading fast. What seemed to really make her calmer is whenever the family came to visit, I would pull out the letters and they would read from them. What made me think of wanting to digitize them was everyone asking who will inherit the letters. I’m like, “Well, everybody should have the letters.” It was my daughter-in-law’s idea to find an archivist.

AA: How was the collection stored when it was in your mother’s possession, and what was your approach going forward?

They were in her dresser drawer. Literally in the plastic bags you get when you buy comforters and blankets. They were tied with bows, and they were somewhat in chronological order.

When I was talking with Mark [Anderson, Founding Principal of Anderson Archival] about the project and he was telling me his process, I said, “Well, they’re getting fragile. When you’re done with the letters, instead of folding them back up and putting them in the original envelopes and shipping them back, what do you have to preserve them?”

Want to learn more about storing collections safely? We outline some of the best strategies.

The team did some research and what seemed like the most logical solution was to put them in plastic preservation sleeves and preservation boxes. What’s really cool about that is that it’s a binder, so it’s just faster than trying to maneuver to the computer. It’s so nice because when the family gets together, I have them right there.

The letter writer imagines his tour to be a pleasure cruise as he spends his days studying.

AA: Have you and your family gained any insights or interesting anecdotes from approaching these letters together?

Oh, my God, yes. It’s so funny. First of all, everyone’s said how my dad’s cursive was very nice. I mean, he’s writing on a ship in pencil, probably in a two-by-two-foot space, and still had beautiful handwriting. About half the people in my family under 30 don’t even know how to read cursive.

And then there’s phrases or terminology that the younger kids don’t even know… A letter mentioned dungarees somewhere, and so my niece asked, “What are dungarees?” Or there was another word that my mom used instead of a dresser, “bureau,” that the younger kids weren’t familiar with.

But I think what we noticed right away was how romantic they are, and how it continued, no matter how long they were married—it was sixty-two years before my dad passed. In addition to the Korean War-era letters, the collection also included two letters that were from the 70s, and one from the 90s. And you wouldn’t even know there was all that much time difference, because they were still in that same tone.

The letters just keep giving us the opportunity to connect. The ability to read them chronologically without the hassle of opening them and unfolding them, and just the fact that we can scale it digitally is the number one benefit.

AA: Is there anything else that you want to share about your collection or the process?

I will just say that clarity is bar none. It’s so nice. The digital versions are much easier to read than the hard copies because you can zoom in there. The end result is so much better than I thought I would get because I’m used to like scanning from my multipurpose printer/scanner. They accommodated for the varying size of each letter and left a border around it so that you didn’t have to worry about [the image being cut off].

I really appreciated when the scanning was done, as you were working to put it together in additional formats, [your team] was very willing to arrange it in a way that would make sense to us. Again, I can’t say enough nice things about how impressed I was with the service and the communication back and forth throughout the project. It was all very professional, and I really appreciate that type of process.

AA: Well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us, Rosemary, and allowing us to work on this special collection. It was a pleasure.

That’ll be another topic for my family meeting. I can’t wait.

Whether they’re recorded in modern times or generations past, human emotions and connections will always stand the test of time. Do you have a family collection in need of digital preservation? Connect with us today!

“More to Be Told”: Finding the Right Fit for Your Private Collection

October 30, 2020/in Client Story, Digital Collections, Document Scanning, Preservation, Special Projects /by Anderson Archival

It’s finally time! You’ve decided to preserve that collection of historical family artifacts you have boxed up and collecting dust. Maybe they’re a little water-stained or faded from sitting in your basement for a decade, or possibly you’re considering offering your collection to a larger audience once digitized. No matter the size or condition, your collection is important and deserves to be preserved.

Once you’ve developed the scope of your digitization plans, it’s time to make some decisions about how to proceed. Do you tackle the project on your own with equipment you already own? Do you find an archival firm that specializes in your kind of collection? As with any hiring process, it can sometimes be difficult to find the right fit in a partner that meets both your needs as the guardian of a collection and the needs of the collection itself.

When I first came into possession of [the journals] I thought, ‘Maybe this is something I can do on my own time. Maybe I can get a scanner.’”

Collection custodian Jim Surber found himself in a tough position when planning ahead for his digitization goals. “The collection’s been in my possession for about a year now,” says Surber. “I just wanted high quality images of the covers and the contents so they could be easily shared.”

The collection consisted of twenty-one bound journals given to Surber by an extended family member. The journals belonged to Surber’s great-grandfather, contained daily diary and travel entries ranging from years 1895 to 1925, and included a number of loose newspaper clippings. The journals themselves were each about the size of a small notebook, most of them no larger than 7” x 4”. Though some of the handwriting inside had faded significantly over the years, most of the materials had inked text that remained clear even after years in storage.

Despite being nearly a century old, most of the journals were in good structural condition. “[The collection] was stored in a house as far as I know,” says Surber, “probably just a box in the basement.” Storage is an important, oft-underestimated element of document preservation and can be a huge factor when it comes to the end condition. It’s rare that a collection stored in a basement is free of water or pest damage. This collection benefitted from not being overhandled, but the tradeoff of its diligent storage is that the information in the journals had never been carefully reviewed or studied.

Finding himself with a collection that was so important to him and his family, Surber began to explore his digitization options. “When I first came into possession of [the journals] I thought, ‘Maybe this is something I can do on my own time. Maybe I can get a scanner,’” says Surber. “Then I found out, ‘Wow, this is more involved than I thought it was. This is really going to take a lot of time, a lot of dedication.’”

Many caretakers of personal collections start out in the same position. The handling and imaging of delicate pages and bindings often don’t hold up well in the small flatbed printers most people have in their home offices. An archival firm has resources like cradle scanners and imaging software that would be impossible for the DIY digitizer to afford or access.

The Surber journals in particular presented an imaging challenge; the author had used as much of the page as possible in most of his entries, and the text reached the very edge of the inner margins on many of the pages. “I’d have to press [the journals] flat on a scanner, and not all of them should be pressed flat like that,” Surber recounts. “These are fragile and I don’t want to risk hurting them.” The narrow or, in some cases, nonexistent margins required a cradle scanner and careful maneuvering to capture the entire page. For historical artifacts like these journals, using a flatbed likely would have inflicted damage and provided incomplete scans, putting a frustrated collection owner back at square one.

If a collection requires the extra care and expertise that only an archivist can provide, what’s the appropriate next step? Finding a digitization partner that values a collection as much as the guardians do isn’t always an easy task.

Interested in learning more about what a digitization partner can do for your collection? Read about Historical Document Digitization.

“I called a couple [digitization firms] before I called Anderson Archival,” Surber says, “and it wasn’t really what they did. These companies basically told me, ‘I know what you’re getting at but it’s not really what we do.’” Surber’s collection was historically significant to him and his family, but the big digitization firms he reached out to weren’t willing to invest their time and expertise. “They just blew me off,” Surber recalls. “I wasn’t able to convince them it was worth their time.” Unless your collection is a truckload full of documents that can pushed quickly through a scanner with little or no processing, many digitization firms may not work with a private collection.

One benefit of family collection projects is that the audience connection is so much more immediate. Surber says, “My digging around the family history has led me to a lot of people my branches of family hadn’t been in contact with in many years. It’s interesting to hear people’s stories and reconnect with people.” In this way, Surber and Anderson Archival approach historical collections from the same perspective. “Everybody has a different story from those days, so we’re just trying to put it all together. It’s been so long but I think there’s more to be told.” Thankfully, Anderson Archival’s digital copies of the collection can facilitate that connection.

Not all collections are understood to be historically significant to the larger public, but just because they may never be viewed in a museum or gallery or aren’t easy to feed through a high-speed scanner, does not mean that they aren’t worth preserving. Digitization of family collections is important and necessary.

If your collection means a lot to you and you’d like it to be around forever so that anyone you choose can learn from and enjoy it, digitization might be the answer. Let Anderson Archival do the hard part for you. Contact us today!

WWII Map Comes Home After 73 Years: Conservation and Digitization of a Soldier’s Legacy

October 1, 2020/in Client Story, Digital Restoration, Document Scanning, Preservation, Special Projects /by Anderson Archival

[Above: Anderson Archival’s digitized copy of the map displayed on a monitor with the original conserved map laid out on the table below.]

Working with historical documents means that Anderson Archival is privy to many valuable stories. The impact of these tales is often deeply personal as well as bearing a cultural impact. We recently completed work creating high resolution images to digitize an oversized World War II map. The global impact of this document is clear—one side of the map bears a narrative that tracks the movement of the 83^rd Infantry Division from Normandy in June 1944 to Germany at the end of the war. The other, a detailed map, bears the signatures of the infantrymen it was gifted to, including the recent owner’s beloved father, S/Sgt Myron H. Miller.

But the personal impact doesn’t end there.

Founding Principal Amy Anderson recalls, “When I heard their story second hand, I just knew we had to write about it!” And thankfully, S/Sgt Miller’s children, Myra, Lynette, Marshall, Del, and Ken, were more than willing to share the incredible one-in-a-million tale of the map that made it back to their family “73 years later via a Frenchman.”

Anderson Archival: What do you know about your father’s involvement with the map?

The Miller Children: We know that the map was printed after the war ended as a gift to the soldiers of the 83^rd Infantry Division in September 1945. It commemorated their service as a unit from Normandy, June 1944, to Zerbst, Germany, and the end of the war. With the fighting over, they had occupation duty as military police restoring order in Germany and Czechoslovakia.

Of the eleven buddies who signed the map, two joined Company K as replacements on the same day in July 1944 in Normandy—our father Myron H. Miller and James V. Cocola—and they ended the war together. Sgt. Hutchinson appears with them in a photo our dad saved. The others joined January 1945 and later. By those final days together they must have been very close.

Pfarrkirchen, Germany. Sunday, July 29, 1945. Sgt. Hutchinson and S/Sgt. Miller are on the left. Image used with permission.

AA: How did the Frenchman you reference come to be in possession of the map?

MC: Antoine Noslier, an expert on the history of the war in Brittany specializing in the 83^rd Infantry Division, residing in St. Malo, France, purchased the map on eBay in 2011, about five years before meeting our family. He bought the map sight unseen because it was described to have original autographs on it.

Myra was advised to contact the expert Antoine for information as she was planning the family’s trip in 2016 to follow our dad’s footsteps through France, Belgium, and Germany. Antoine had been recommended as a reliable authority on military actions in Brittany. Myra, Ken, Del, and Marshall wanted to find the location in St. Malo (Brittany) where their father had pulled his wounded buddy out of the street after he had been hit by a sniper.

Just a few weeks prior to our arrival in St. Malo, Antoine was working on another project when he pulled out the map to check another name (James V. Cocola) that he remembered was on the map. His eyes landed on the name “S/Sgt Myron H. Miller, Dixon, Missouri” and he was amazed. He contacted Myra to confirm that our father was from Dixon, Missouri. Then he described the map he had—with our father’s signature. We were floored.

That summer, after we arrived in France and met Antoine, he took us into his kitchen—where he had the map spread out on his table. We took photos of the signature and sent them to our sister Lynette (who was not on the trip) to confirm the handwriting. She was 100% positive it was our father’s.

Then he described the map he had—with our father’s signature. We were floored.”

AA: What do you know about the process and reasoning behind returning the map to you?

MC: When Antoine showed the map to us, we were simply thrilled to see it and took many photos. We did not ask for the map from Antoine, as he had purchased it for research.

The following summer, Myra returned to St. Malo leading a Footsteps Researchers tour, and Antoine presented the map to her as a gift to the family. It was quite a gift. We are very grateful and thankful to have the map in the family.

Antoine Noslier presents the Miller children with the map. Left to Right: Myra Miller, Del Miller, Antoine Noslier, Marshall Miller, Ken Miller. Image used with permission.

AA: What plans do you have for the conserved map in the future?

MC: We have had the map professionally restored and preserved by NS Conservation in a frame that allows viewing of both sides.

We believe we have a valuable piece of World War II history and an heirloom to be displayed and treasured by the family. We will have replicas made from the digital copies to use for display at our speaking engagements and book signings with our new book Soldiers’ Stories: A Collection of WW2 Memoirs, Volume II, and with Footsteps Researchers. It is important that we stop further damage to the map and showcase our father’s signature and those of his buddies.

We also want to send a copy of the map to Antoine Noslier as a gift since he gave the original to us.

AA: What lead you to Noah Smutz/NS Conservation?

MC: Our family friend from Philadelphia, Robert “Bob” McNabb, searched the Internet for someone in St. Louis who could do a professional job. Bob’s father, James McNabb, fought with the 83^rd Infantry Division, Company K, with our father, and he has a strong interest in World War II history. Bob called Noah secretly and got information, then he told me to call after he felt Noah was right for the job.

Smutz, in turn, directed the family to Anderson Archival for the creation of digital images. In addition to the work itself, we are grateful to Smutz, and to the children of S/Sgt Myron H. Miller, Dixon, Missouri, Company K, 331^st Infantry, 83^rd Infantry Division, for allowing us to be a part of this one-in-a-million story and to share it with our readers.

What family stories can Anderson Archival help you safequard? Contact us today for more information about how we can help you connect the dots and digitally preserve your family’s historical artifacts.

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