Date: Fri 01-Nov-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: DOTTIE

Quick Words:

Burdett-photo-album-history

Full Text:

Album Project Evokes Memories For Burdett Sisters

B Y D OROTHY E VANS

Two Newtown sisters, Laura Burdett Wildman and Ginny Burdett Zinn, have spent

the last year looking back through a lifetime of family memorabilia, yet their

focus remains on the future.

They wanted to gather all their old photographs and treasured mementos

together in a safe place, attaching names, dates and anecdotes to each one, so

the scrapbook albums they created could be enjoyed by their grandchildren and

passed on for generations to follow.

"We're doing our part. We shared our information the best we could," said Mrs

Zinn, adding she was thrilled to hear recently that her 15-year-old

granddaughter was "enthralled" after poring through one of the album

histories.

Growing Up Along

The Housagonic

For the two women, and for all other descendents of Ernest Howard and Edith

Barrow Burdett, the books contain a priceless collection of treasures.

Consider, for example, a picture of their father, Ernest Burdett, at age 5,

taken on his birthday, July 7, 1905. He's wearing the traditional skirted

dress worn by young boys in those days and his young face is framed by a dark

mass of curly ringlets.

On the next album page, a clear cellophane pocket contains three of those very

same ringlets. They had been cut off just moments after the picture was taken

and somehow saved over all these years.

Luckily, there were six ringlets in all. So, after laser-duplicating the photo

of their father with his curls, each sister was able to include the same

two-page display in her own family's album.

They've worked together, in this way, throughout the project.

Another irreplaceable photo they copied for posterity was their mother's

picture taken on Armistice Day, November 11, 1918. She's shown with several

other young women, who are all holding the American flag and smiling

triumphantly.

There are Victory Garden pictures from both wars, and a caption underneath one

of Ernest Burdett labeled, "Dad, showing off his prize squash!"

There are summertime views of the Housatonic River in the late 1930s taken

from the Burdett family home in the lakeside community known as Shady Rest,

"when it was the only house around," Mrs Wildman said.

"We grew up camping up and down the river," she said, adding she still lives

there today in a house her husband, George Wildman, built nearby her parents'

house after the war.

"Housing was terribly scarce. Everyone had to move in with family or build

their own place themselves," she added.

Both sisters saved their husbands' wartime V-Mail letters, ration books and

specially issued money the men brought back as souvenirs from the allied

countries. The colorful bills had been autographed around the margins by their

comrades.

Mrs Zinn had kept a receipt for all her wedding flowers delivered on the day

of her 1946 marriage to Walter John Zinn of Trumbull. The bill was a whopping

$59.

One of the most amusing incidents occurred when they unearthed a "Marriage

Return," the oldtime version of a marriage license, for their grandfather,

Frederick Barrow, that was dated August 8, 1891. Upon close scrutiny of the

document, they found he was born in Ireland, not England as their mother, a

staunch Anglophile, had supposed.

"She was appalled when I told her," Mrs Wildman said with amusement.

A Team Effort

The documentation and preservation project might have daunted any two ladies

less determined than the Burdett sisters. They seemed uniquely suited to the

task.

"Ginny was always good at writing out the stories and adding details. I just

stuck to the bare facts," Mrs Wildman said.

"But I was the one who kept getting more stuff every time someone would die. I

kept it in the attic. My father always wanted to do a project like this," Mrs

Wildman added.

Sometimes, they said they got tired and started making mistakes, so they'd

stop for a while.

"When it's late at night, you have to put it away," Mrs Zinn said.

But they always took the project up again, even though some of the memories

drew tears.

"When we were doing this thing, we found we cried a lot," said Mrs Zinn, whose

garage had become their designated workshop.

She said what kept them going was an overriding desire to fill in the details

that would bring the past to life for future family members.

"We wanted to get down some of the `old stuff' from when we'd hear our parents

talking. But we were taught not to interrupt, so we had no idea who they were

talking about," Mrs Zinn said with a chuckle.

Sharing reminiscences and studying old tintype photos, even using a magnifying

glass to study details, were some of the methods the sisters used.

"Who's in the picture? and What's the date?" were the two questions Mrs Zinn

said she and her sister, Laura, kept asking each other.

Their aunt and uncle, longtime Sandy Hook residents Ruth and Arthur Barrow,

have been invaluable, she added, in helping them complete the histories.

"They're from another era. Uncle Art is 96 and he's the last one we can talk

to," Mrs Zinn said.

Inspired By A

Senior Center Class

The impetus for the year-long album project was a class that Mrs Wildman and

Mrs Zinn took at the Newtown Senior Center at the urging of center director

Marilyn Place.

"These ladies have wonderful memories of the Sandy Hook area over the last 60

years," Mrs Place said recently.

The album-making seminar was taught by Creative Memories consultant Michelle

Sullivan, who gave a group presentation on ways to preserve old pictures and

memorabilia in a photo-safe manner.

Since the class met at the center once a week, Mrs Wildman and Mrs Zinn grew

to be good friends with Mrs Sullivan. At the same time, they realized the

album project was something they wanted very much to undertake as a joint

venture.

"We were hooked! Her enthusiasm and guidance were wonderful," Mrs Zinn said.

Once a week, Mrs Sullivan helped the two women compile their materials,

suggesting original ways of presenting them on the album pages using special

stickers and creative layouts.

"We were ready to give up so many times, but Michelle would tell us, `You've

just got to finish,'" Mrs Zinn said.

As a consultant for Creative Memories, a Minnesota-based company which

produces photo-safe albums and supplies, Mrs Sullivan advised her two clients

to remove their black-and-white photos from the less sturdy, old family

scrapbooks whose black pages had grown brittle with age.

They should also rescue the more recent color photos, Mrs Sullivan said, from

the commonly used "magnetic albums" having pre-glued, acetate pages. Those

plastic coverings gave off gases, she explained, that would eventually turn

their pictures orange and yellow.

"Some of those colors won't even last five years," Mrs Sullivan warned, adding

that 90 percent of most albums sold today will "eventually destroy your

pictures."

She counseled, instead, the use of acid-free, buffered paper and pens, special

photo mounting sleeves and album pages that would allow the photos to lie

flat.

Over the past year, the three women worked together to complete the album

project, using only photo-safe Creative Memories products. They were also, in

a sense, working against time because Mrs Sullivan, who grew up in the Bethel

area, would be moving soon with her family to Atlanta, Ga.

Only two weeks ago, the three celebrated the "near completion" of the project

just before Mrs Sullivan's departure.

Always One More Photo

After their year of hard work, Mrs Wildman and Mrs Zinn were sorry to say

goodbye to Mrs Sullivan but relieved their albums were mostly finished.

It seems, however, there are always more pictures that "show up" and need to

be added, Mrs Wildman said recently.

Just last weekend, for example, Mr Barrow had celebrated his 96th birthday at

a special party held in his Shady Rest home. He'd pulled out some photos that

his two nieces hadn't seen before.

"It was quite exciting. I was going to start cleaning the attic today, but I

decided not to," Mrs Wildman said, adding that she'd probably be spending the

time with her sister, trying to figure out who the people were in one

particular photo.

A stiffly respectable-looking couple had been photographed sometime in the

late 1800s, posed formally, seated together in their front parlor.

"There's a calendar on the wall behind them - maybe it's Currier and Ives -

and a large picture over that. But I couldn't see the date or much detail,"

Mrs Wildman said.

"The great thing is, you can see a gas lamp on the wall and there's a key

hanging down from the fixture. We found that with the magnifying glass.

"Also, you can just see the outline of an old pot-bellied stove in the next

room, which must be the kitchen. I wonder who they were?" Mrs Wildman mused.

The Burdett sisters' family album project may not be quite over yet.