54: old pictures

My cousin has officially purchased and is about to move into his grandma's house. In the attic they found a bunch of old photo albums. I was not allowed to keep any of the photos, but I'm scanning quite a few in. Seeing all those old pictures makes me sad. There's a note in my aunt's handwriting after some pictures of a woman with that woman's name and the notation "She has since passed on. I miss her letters." I just find that heartbreaking. Who did she leave that note for?
I brought the borrowed albums to my parents' house for my dad to go through. Most of the pictures, the really old black and white ones, weren't labeled, and my dad couldn't remember who they were of. He says, "this damn thing in my head, I can't remember." He talks about his Alzheimer's like it's a tumor. I guess in a way it is, huh?
So as I scan in and restore these old pictures, I'm going to post some of them. The one I really wanted, of my great-grandfather (Aunt Bert's father) with a giant rattler he killed "up at the farm" (now a town park), wasn't in any of these albums. I remember seeing it as a child and my mom remembers it too. I thought it would be fun to send a copy to the historical society. Oh well.
My dad then pulled out a photo album I never knew existed, with pictures of him as a baby with his mom--the grandma I never met. Supposedly I look just like her. She was pretty so I guess it's a compliment. Aunt Bert always said I was the spitting image of Ruth (that was her name).
Funny that in my dad's album there wasn't one single picture of his dad. Not one. I'm not even sure I know his name. Maybe Sal? Weird.