I have recently acquired a small bundle of old family photos--some over 100 years old. One photo is of my grandfather, Thomas Edwards Mills, in 1887, aged about three. He is wearing a dress, and has shoulder length curls. The back of the photo is inscribed: "Tommie E. Mills, to his dear Grandpa" in faint, almost indecipherabole copperplate. So this piece of cardboard thad I hold was written on by his parent, probably his mother, my great-grandmother. The photograph is faded but I can see that little Tommie is bracing himself against a table that holds a vase of flowers. Photography in those days took several minutes. I'll bet it was hard for him to hold still. His right hand--the unbraced one--is a bit blurred against the white of his dress--perhaps he moved it. His face is severe, concentrating, I imagine, on the immense effort of staying still. I imagine that three was the earliest age that one could ask Tommie to stay still for a picture.

Leap forward several generations and more than 100 years. I am using a scanner and computer to capture the photograph in digital form. I have the technology to enhance the photo, to increase the resolution and the brightness, so that we can see details long lost in the original version. I see his chubby fingers spread out on the tabletop, I observer that Tommie is wearing little high top leather shoes--they must have been expensive. The face that looks out at me now is the face of the sixty year old grandfather that I remember so fondly. I am so pleased that I have recovered the details of his three year old self--and yet, as I look back at the original, faded cardboard, there I seem to see the real Tommie E. Mills. For he is indeed faded in my heart and indeed is lost to almost everyone still living. The mother who dressed him for the photograph lived only 9 more years, and no picture remains of her, just the copperplate and the look on Tommie's face as he stood so still for his mother.