Beyondhood

Ep 12 - Angela Andrieux- The Family Legacy Keeper - Creating New Memories Through Old Pictures

• Nicole Suen • Season 2 • Episode 12

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Summary
In EP12, I travelled to the U.S. - San Diego to chat with Angela Andrieux, an expert in photo preservation and a fine art photographer, sharing her journey from childhood to adulthood, and reflecting on her family's influence. 

She discusses the importance of preserving family history and legacy through photography and storytelling, and how her passion for photography has given her career now at Mylio - a software photo manager for a lifetime of memories.  and a new and important identity - the family legacy keeper -  how she creates new memories with her grandmother by sharing old photos and asking questions about those photos.

Our conversation highlights the connections between family legacies and the importance of leveraging tools to create long-lasting memories for the next generations before it is too late. See the pictures Angela mentioned on our Patreon page!

New Partnership
Try Mylio www.mylio.com to see how they can help you turn a lifetime of memories organised into a family legacy. Try for Free first then enter Beyondhood as promo code @ checkout to get 15% off  

Keywords
childhood, family legacy, storytelling, photography, military life, grandparents, relationships, memories, creativity, personal growth

Chapters
01:57 Introduction & Welcome
04:49 Childhood Memories and Family Influence
06:32 Relationship with grandma
09:55 Adolescence and School Experiences
12:17 Homeschooling
12:39 Favorite Pop Culture & Historical Event
13:40 Anne of Green Gables
16:54 Career Path and Photography Journey
21:11 Beyondhood x Mylio Partnership - 15% off Promocode: Beyondhood
21:47 Capturing Family History through Photography
25:43 The Role of a Family Legacy Caretaker
28:24 Connecting Generations: Military Spouses
30:48 Sharing Family Photos  to Create New Memories with Grandma
32:06 Imagining Your Own Beyondhood
33:44 What is Your Most Memorable Family Photo
34:55 Photo: My Tool to Capture and Freeze Family Legacy
35:36 Record Life Stories = Opportunity to Reflect 
36:23 What is Your One Question for Our Current Beyonder



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Nicole (01:59)
Angela, nice to have you here on the Beyondhood Podcast. Welcome!

Angela (02:04)
Thank you so much for having me, Nicole. It's a pleasure to be here.

Nicole (02:07)
Thanks. First of all, let's start with what's your name, where are you from and where do you live? And what is your chronological age and what is your biological age, please?

Angela (02:22)
All right, so my name is Angela Andrieux and I live near San Diego, California. It's a small suburb called Santee. It's in East County, San Diego. And I grew up in the central coast of California. So born and raised California, but I've had the privilege of living at many different places in the world. My chronological and biological age, so I am 46 years old. As far as my...

biological age, it depends on what day you ask me. Sometimes I think about it and I feel like I'm still in my 20s and then other days I'm like, I feel much older. So it just, depends kind of what's going on in the world around me, kind of how I feel that day.

Nicole (03:04)
that is actually a really good way to describe your biological age. Depends on what day you feel because sometimes we just feel more into, , outgoing, doing something and sometimes we're more leaning toward resting. Really excited to have you on our podcast and we are going to start going back into your childhood to understand

your childhood with your family and then we will go to your adolescence and then we'll bring you up to your adulthood which is where we're going to share with your photography career and how do you become the caretaker of your family history as well and then finally we're going to dive into your beyondhood where we're going to ask you to imagine what is it like when you're going to be older and what are some of your expectations

and what would you imagine life would be like? So where were you born and grew up? You mentioned earlier, but what was your childhood like? Can you share a story that define who you were as a child with us?

Angela (04:12)
I was born in San Luis Obispo, California, which is on the Central Coast. It's one of the most beautiful, best places in the world. And I'm very lucky to have spent a good chunk of my life there. I had an excellent childhood overall. I'm fortunate to come from loving parents who valued family time. For a good chunk of my childhood, I had grandparents that lived nearby. And I was a pretty happy kid.

So as far as a story that defines who I was as a child, my best memories are family trips and my grandparents owned a ranch that was about five minutes away from my house. Being able to kind of be a free range child and just have access to the outdoors and go play.

Those are the things that I think really define me and being able to be not be so coddled and grow up in an area and in a time when a kid could just go wander. there's not a single story, but overarching feel of my childhood is the best way to encapsulate that.

Nicole (05:10)
your memory of a child was being outdoors. So how many siblings do you have and what did your parents do?

Angela (05:18)
I have one brother, he's seven years younger than me. he was very much wanted. He's actually adopted. My mom had trouble having more kids and so they decided to adopt. By the time we got my brother, it was seven years after me. So there's a pretty big age difference. I was little mama and I absolutely adored my little brother and taking care of him. My parents owned their own business. They sold it.

a years ago to their employees, but they ran a plastering contracting company for over 45 years on the Central Coast. And so they're very hardworking and I got a huge amount of my work ethic and how to conduct myself in business from that.

Nicole (06:02)
I know that you mentioned you grew up was having a close relationship with one of your grandparents as well. Could you share a little bit with us about that and what was the relationship like?

Angela (06:14)
Sure, so my grandparents who lived about five minutes away, I spent a lot of time with them. So I would, on the weekends, I'd go spend a day or so at their house. And they just, it was just so much fun. They had this ranch up in the hills and at one point my grandfather had built me this fabulous tree house. So I remember going and playing in the tree house.

My grandmother was very creative. She was an avid quilter among many other creative pursuits. And she taught me a lot of these different crafts as I went through adolescence and childhood. those two things kind of really shaped a lot of who I am and being able to have access to them on a very frequent basis was just really wonderful.

Nicole (06:58)
What particular did she teach you?

Angela (07:01)
So she taught me how to sew, which I'm not great at, but I can do okay. She taught me how to crochet. She was the one that got me into paper crafting, which I did stamps and different kind of scrapbooking type style stuff. She's the first one that got me my first few things on that range. So she had this wonderful sewing room that had all of these different things that I had. Actually, I have the cabinets behind me that were in her sewing room.

And I remember opening them up and she just had these piles of fabric, all these different colors and textures. And I just, loved looking at them and she'd have these like bins of buttons and just being able to go in and touch and play with these things and experience them. It wasn't like she sat there and , was a schoolmaster and teaching me something. It was just like, I would watch and observe. And if I was interested, she'd be like, here, try it. And , she'd guide me, but it was very much like,

It was play, it was fun. It was never like something I had to do. I just totally wanted to.

Nicole (08:01)
wow. So how would you describe that relationship with your grandma? Is this something that it carried on into going to have your creative side into your adulthood?

Angela (08:14)
Absolutely. I was fortunate. All of my grandparents lived into my adulthood. This particular set of grandparents, I lost in the last decade, but I was fortunate to be able to get to know them as an adult. my grandma, we became friends. And that was kind of a really cool transition to, was her granddaughter, somebody that she guide.

but also somebody I would call and we'd talk about movies. We'd talk about different books we were reading. We'd chat about life and she was my friend. So when I lost her, was devastating. But I'm that I have so many wonderful memories and I inherited a lot of things that are in my house that are reminders of her every day. And it's to a point it's been enough years to where I don't, when I think of her, I don't cry. I think of her and I smile and I remember all of the.

beautiful times that we have. still miss her desperately, but it's, that grief has mellowed.

Nicole (09:10)
That's really wonderful to hear when you speak how you were her grandchild, but then as you go into your adulthood, you guys become friends. And I think that's one of the most beautiful things about grandchild, grandmother relationship is that eventually you go through from family into friendship as well. And we are going to talk about a little bit

about your friends? Do you remember who was your childhood best friend? And how did you guys meet? And what were some of the games or adventure you guys shared as child?

Angela (09:48)
My childhood friend was kind of more towards adolescence. got to know her in middle school. We'd crossed paths many times.

early in our lives, but we really got to know each other. think we were 12 or 13, And we were in the same youth group at church, We were both musical. She was homeschooled. I was going to a small private school. And our music groups for a band would often get together. And so we performed together and see each other at church. And we did the preteen, teenager things that girls do.

played with makeup and did our hair and talked about boys and we had so much fun and she and I are still friends today. Now don't see her talk to her very often. She lives in France. So last time I saw her was probably about five years ago, but we still keep in touch every now and again and I still consider her one of my closest friends and know that she's someone that I can pick up with where we left off and we're gonna carry forward and I think

That's one of those amazing friendships that stands the test of time.

Nicole (10:45)
That's a really good way to transition to your adolescence about what was it like in school? Did you enjoy school? Or what was your most adventurous or rebellious thing you've ever done?

Angela (10:58)
So I was a good girl. I didn't really act out all that much. I was very driven academically. I enjoyed learning. As far as things that I loved at school were, it was music. I was very involved in the music programs. I played in the band and when there were orchestra activities, things like that, I would do that. School itself was challenging. I was one of those kids who wished I had been homeschooled.

struggled with other kids. Not that I'd get in fights or anything, I just kind of didn't identify. , the social aspects of school were challenging. So I was much happier when I was with a smaller group of people that I was closer to. So I would say I enjoyed learning, but I didn't really enjoy school.

Nicole (11:43)
God, you're interesting. You touch base on homeschool. And for those of the audience might not know, so in the US, is it any parent can bring their kid to homeschool? Is that requirement to send them to school?

Angela (11:56)
I think it depends on the different states and it certainly was a little bit more lax when I was a child than it is now.

Nicole (12:04)
Got you. That's interesting thing to learn about. And what was your favorite movie or book as a teenager? When did you see it? And do you remember what was it like? Why do you love it? And do you still love it?

Angela (12:07)
You

So this is a really interesting question. I had to think about it for a while because when I was a kid and especially into adolescence, I did love to read and I read a lot of, historical fiction. That was probably is and still was and still is my favorite genre is historical fiction. But one of the series that I really loved was the Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea books and movies.

especially as like a preteen and early teenager. Those were some of my absolute favorites and I still love them today. It's such a good wholesome story and it just kind of takes you back in time and

brings it back to, know, so many the things that we deal with now are constant, but it puts it into a wholesome way that is just, and a story that's just so absolutely endearing. And then I...

watched a ton of Star Trek as a kid. It was one of those things that my dad and I bonded on. I remember when I'd get home from school, he'd come in from the office, because our office was at our home. And at like four o'clock every afternoon, we'd watch Star Trek. It was a rerun on TV. I love Star Trek still to this day.

Nicole (13:25)
story about how a movie connected you and your family with your dad

I also want to ask you, what was the most important historical event that you remember? And how did you feel about it at that time? And why was it so important to you?

Angela (13:42)
I do remember when Mount St. Helens erupted. That was in 1980. I was only two, maybe three years old. I was very young, but I do remember it. And I remember my mom getting me books at the library and

It actually was probably the start of my fascination with geology. Now I've never really studied it other than a single course in college, but it's something that I've always found very interesting.

in the 90s, the death of Princess Diana was pretty shocking. And that was when I was in college, early in college, and just, , she was such a figure in the world. And to have her gone all of a sudden was very jarring. And one of my aunts was very, very in tune with her and it hit her really, really hard. So it makes you take a different look at it.

and how people attach to different celebrity figureheads in the world and just the ripples that her loss caused across multiple countries and around the

the one that really pops out to me is 9-11, but that was early in my adulthood. And that's probably one of the most pivotal for me. My then boyfriend, now husband, had just joined the military. He was away at boot camp. I was a young professional and it was,

completely jarring what that did to our world. So that I would say like as far as big historical events was probably the most impactful.

Nicole (15:02)
Yeah, I remember 9-11, I would say early teenager and until this day, I still remember the moment I watched it on TV and saw the whole building collapse. That memory and that feeling, a lot of other people like you and I, we still remember what happened and how does it impact our life. And now we're going to go into your adulthood, which is

one of the most exciting things I would like to talk to you about because that's how we connected. First of all, why did you choose photography as your career? And can you share with us how did it happen and what have you been doing with photography?

Angela (15:46)
my career path is quite interesting. started out, so I majored in college in finance. So about as far from photography as you can get. I worked in the financial field for several years. And then early on in my marriage, my husband, who was in the US Navy, we were stationed in Sicily. And just a little bit before that, he had bought me my first DSLR camera. And I had been starting to learn how to use it and was kind of dabbling with photography.

wasn't serious about it. And then we moved to Italy. And while we were there, we're in this beautiful place surrounded by all of this history and texture and color and all of these wondrous things that were all very new to me. And I just dove into photography. And so I started capturing everything with my camera and then doing better at learning how to use it. There on the base that we were stationed, we formed a camera club. And that's really where I learned

how to use my camera. So we did different exercises to understand what aperture and ISO and shutter speeds were all about. Those are things that I'd read in my manual, but it just hadn't clicked as to what they meant. And so having this community to kind of come together and everyone loved this same art form, I was able to learn in it. All of sudden the light came on and I was like, this is awesome. And from there, I started reading blogs, which were very, very prevalent at that point.

Podcasting was brand new, but I started listening to podcasts and just basically absorbing everything I could with relation to photography. After four years in Italy, by the time we came back, I wasn't really so interested in working in finance anymore. And I decided to hang out my shingle, so to say, is that I'm a photographer. What I really loved is

doing fine art photography, basically creating beautiful pictures that people would hopefully wanna put up on their walls. The problem with that is there's a lot of people who do that and it's a very, very tough market. So what I kind of evolved into is photography education. through all of this time from when we moved to Sicily and forward, I've had a photography blog and I've done my own writing and initially was just, know, anecdotes from our travels and living overseas and it evolved into

talking about photography, how I was using photography, how I was using different photography software, and I started writing tutorials and working with other photography software companies. I became an affiliate, so I started getting into affiliate marketing and promoting products that I used and loved. And from there, I actually got noticed by a couple of these companies and was invited to work with them part-time, and then that turned into full-time work, and then that's led kind of to where I am today.

working with another photography software company doing product evangelism. So I do everything from writing technical documentation to doing live streams and webinars and teaching people how to be successful with that software. So it's kind of a interesting journey to get to where I am today with photography. In addition to the work that I do with photography software today, I am active in my local camera club.

I think that that's really important for people who are creative to be able to have access to people who have similar creative pursuits and it's a great way to make friends and be social and connect. I mean, that's, it's a lot of fun and there's so many different facets to it that I think if somebody's interested in photography and being creative, there's many, many ways to do it.

Nicole (19:14)
I particularly want to focus on how did you use photography to capture your family memory? You mentioned to me about the Halloween picture of your grandfather's mom and also the story of your grandfather in the Navy. Could you share a little bit about that with us?

Angela (19:32)
Absolutely. the company that I work for is called Mylio Photos. And one of the things this software is really great at is helping you organize your lifetime of memories. And this has started me on a journey of scanning in old family photos, going through old photo albums. I'm currently working through some of my grandmother's photo albums, getting all of those pictures scanned. And as I'm doing that, I'm discovering different stories about my parents, my grandparents, and sometimes even great grandparents

That's kind of where all that's come from is being able to go in and collect those and become the historian for my family. The Halloween picture you mentioned is from one of my grandmother's photo albums. And it's just one of those funny things. my grandfather was a colonel in the Marine Corps. had a soft spot for all of the women in his life. had five daughters and my grandmother's beautiful woman.

And so he loved his ladies. And so he had this very jovial side too. But he's this very proper, very, a Marine. There's a certain thing when you think about a United States Marine, they're very stoic and proper. And then I'm looking through these pictures and a lot of them are him. There's many in uniform. There's many of him with different people in his life. And then I come across this picture of him that looks like something out of Game of Thrones.

and he's in this fur kind of cloak thing. I think he had a crown on his head. I'm not sure if it was my mom or a couple of my aunts that were in the picture with him, but it was obviously Halloween and I'm just going, what on earth was going on there? And I still need to ask my grandma about it, but it's one of those funny pictures that I look at and I'm just going, you have this one image of a person of being this professional and military.

and that military bearing, and then you see them dressed up for Halloween, and it's just the two sides of the same person, and it just gives you an entirely different glimpse into the people that came before you.

Nicole (21:28)
Wow, so what year was that about? Like in the 1940s, 50s? Or what was it?

Angela (21:33)
That was probably, I think in the 50s. I'm gonna guess in the 50s. I'd have to go back and look at the picture. A lot of them had dates or date ranges on the back. So I'm fortunate to have a good deal of information to kind of put these things together. Plus my grandmother is still living. So I can ask her and a lot of times she, really cool. I can actually text her. I can send her the picture and I can ask her for the story. She'll still text it to me back and then I can go ahead and screenshot that. And then I have that story that I can go ahead and save.

in that way as well.

Nicole (22:02)
do you? What would they dress up as?

Angela (22:05)
that's a really good question. think my mom and my auntie were dressed up like princesses And then here's my grandfather, like I said, in the fur cloak and he had a crown on his head and like, looked like something out of Game of Thrones. And it was just kind of wacky and such a fun contradiction to his normal,  Marine Corps, military bearing type photos where he was always looking very proper to here's this fun.

loving dad, doing crazy things with his daughters, and just being able to see that side of him is really cool.

Nicole (22:40)
That's what family pictures sometimes is about, seeing another side of the person compared to their normal routine. And when you were going through all these pictures, are there anyone maybe from your great-grandparent or your parent that you remember very vividly as well? And how does it create a relationship in your head to what they are like nowadays?

Angela (22:47)
Exactly.

I can see their personalities in their younger pictures. my grandmother is and always has been very proper and very pragmatic person. she had to raise five daughters. Her husband was in the military. He was gone a lot. So she's a pretty strong woman and very much, , most of the time, no nonsense. But every now and again, her playful and her silly side would come out and you'd see the laughter and those big smiles.

The other things that I would notice was the relationship between my grandmother and grandfather. Like any married couple, I'm sure they had their challenges, but in the pictures, you can tell that they really loved each other. Like they're close, the way they look at each other, you can see that there was a kindness and a love there that I think not a lot of people are fortunate to have. And to see that come through in the photos throughout the years, even though knowing that they're human and they had

challenges like anybody else, that that was always what things came back to, was family.

Nicole (24:06)
you now using picture as a family legacy caretaker, how do you see that role and what makes you so enjoyable doing it as well?

Angela (24:20)
Well, you get to learn things about the people who came before you that you didn't know. And it just gives you a glimpse into their lives and why they are who they are now, or maybe as you knew them. But as far as the role, I take it pretty seriously because it's preserving the family history for the next generation. So whoever comes past me, I'm able to go through and gather details before they're gone, before they're forgotten, add that to the database of images, and

that stuff can carry forward. And then people who come after me and go, that was, , grandma Bertha or that was uncle Bruce. And they know who these people are in the pictures, even though they're long gone and the people who directly knew them might be long gone. Those details are preserved. And then that family history, that story is also preserved.

Nicole (25:07)
That's so beautiful how you describe it. It's keeping the family alive and continue and passing on to the next generation. On that point, I understand you are also a military spouse as you mentioned earlier and your grandma was also one. What was it like to share that connection with your grandma and how was it different? Do you guys talk about it or what some of the differences and similarities that you guys share?

Angela (25:36)
we have talked about it quite a lot and it's been one of the things that we've bonded over because there are some things that only she and I understand that the rest of the family, while they are sympathetic to having a spouse gone and deployed for a significant length of time, until you experience it, it's really hard for other people to fully understand and grasp what that's like. Now she was raising five daughters and doing that. I don't have kids, so that makes a difference. The way technology is,

towards the end of my husband's career, we could talk almost every day depending on operational security. If there was something going on, sometimes there are days we couldn't talk, but it was very easy. Compared that to early in his career, the internet technology was not nearly as advanced and it was very expensive for us to talk. And we would talk maybe once a week, every couple of weeks, and we would rely more on letters. And then you contrast that back to my grandmother's time where phone calls were...

probably not gonna be happening from across the world. And you really relied on letters and slow mail carriers to get that communication back and forth. So being able to, the way we communicate with our spouses on deployment is so very different and it's been very interesting to compare and contrast that with her. And then some of the differences we've had with moving from different places, the relationship between her and my grandfather,

From what I understand is my grandfather would come home and say, okay, we're moving, this is where we're going. And she'd pack up the kids and they'd go. Whereas with my husband and I, our relationship is different, times are different. My husband would come home and say, hey, here's our options. I only have so much say in this, but do you have an opinion? And those differences in the generations, we've talked about that. And I think it's very interesting how relationships have evolved over the years.

So there's a lot of things we can compare and contrast. You some of the things that are similar are the little tags that the movers put on your furniture every time you move. And, , I still, we've been in this house now for I think about six years. I'm still finding things that have those tags. And some of them have tags on them from two or three moves ago. And then as I was going through some other stuff, I noticed on, I had this old trunk that was my great grandparents when they immigrated from Switzerland.

and that trunk then got stamped with my grandfather when he was in the military. It has his emblem on there and there's one of those moving stickers on the back of it from them.

Nicole (28:03)
Wow, so explain a little bit more. So what are these tags for? So is it for military or what is it?

Angela (28:08)
So it's.

Well, , it seems like it's something that any movers would use, but I've only really seen people who are in the military have these stickers everywhere. So you go through as they're loading up your boxes, they do an inventory and they put a sticker on things with a number and then they put, they have a list and they have the number and then they notate, , housewares or clothing or whatever, whatever's in the box. So that way when they're unpacking, they know what part of the house to put the boxes in.

military often moves so frequently. We have a lot of these stickers and we never fully get rid of them. And just to find one on my grandpa's trunk that's really, really old, it's just, it's one of those kind of funny similarities that just, know, so much changes with culture, but so many little things also stay the same.

Nicole (28:59)
Wow, the way you describe about your relationship with your grandma and how you can see from the picture in the 50s with them all the way to, , still having proof of your physical thing to remind you with them.

Angela (29:15)
So my grandfather was the one in the military, my grandmother, she is still alive and she's 97.

Nicole (29:21)
wow, so what is your relationship with her now,

Angela (29:24)
I try to see her about once a month. She lives here in town. I'm about 25 minutes away from where she lives. Her health is not as good as it used to be. we'll get together and have lunch where she lives and, , chat. And every now and again, if my aunts aren't available, maybe I can run her to a doctor's appointment or something.

And it's just very comfortable. I love having her close by and knowing that she's there and she's just a sweetheart.

Nicole (29:51)
Do you show some of this picture to her or any other picture that you found and what were her comments?

Angela (29:56)
absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, I occasionally will text her because even though she's 97, her mind is sharp. She's probably sharper than the rest of us in the family combined. And I can text her a picture and she will come back and she'll tell me a story that's associated with that picture in the text message. So that's actually a really cool tip for anybody who is working with another family member. If you can share that picture and get them to send you the story back, you can save that. You can screenshot it and then you can put that into your

digital album, so you preserve that in their words, which is really cool.

Nicole (30:31)
And do you guys also do video or mostly pictures?

Angela (30:34)
So we have, I have video as well and my software also can hold video files too. So if we do video, we can do that. Or if I did like a FaceTime and I recorded it, we could certainly put those in there too. We don't do that but , maybe we should.

Nicole (30:48)
I love how you say when you share the picture with her, she return you with a story. And that's the beauty of using different tool, no matter is it a audio recording like us or photography like you, then the story is what come back. And that's the important thing. And that's why we use the tool to create that sensation for it to come.

That's a really lovely point to move into the last part of our podcast. It's about beyondhood. We said beyond elderhood here, and I really want to ask you, to imagine yourself in your elderhood? What would you be most looking forward to? And what do you think you would be like?

Angela (31:34)
of the things I'm most looking forward to is, , to pursue things that I'm passionate about, whether that's photography, creative things, general learning. And I hope that as I get older, I don't lose that sense of wonder and that sense of creativity that has been part of my life. I want to always keep learning and growing.

One of the things that I've struggled with is caring too much about what other people think. And I've always been, even as somebody who I didn't really know and somebody that I maybe even didn't really respect, I still wanted them to like me. And I find the older I get, the more I'm like,  what? I don't care.

It doesn't matter if this person over here who I don't even happen to like, perhaps, what they think of me doesn't matter. And the older I get being more okay with myself and caring less about what others think is so freeing. And I hopefully grow into and continue to grow being happy and pragmatic about the challenges that I face and feeling like I've filled my time well. So that's kind of what I envisioned for the rest of my life.

Nicole (32:40)
Well, I hope in maybe 30 years, you listen back to this podcast and then you see if you are doing what you said. And that's why we do the recording because you can listen back into it in the future. And final question is, what is your all time favorite family story from all the photography that you have seen? It could be about your grandparent, about you as a child or your family.

Angela (32:48)
That'd be pretty cool.

that is so, that's a hard question because there's just so many.

Nicole (33:12)
Or what's your most memorable?

Angela (33:14)
the first one is there's a picture of my parents. I would say they're probably in their early twenties. And they're, I think at like a wax museum where they have the statues of different popular people and they were next to Spock. So Leonard Nimoy as Spock in Star Trek uniform. And here's both my parents in their twenties and just grinning from ear to ear next to this wax figurine. And it's just such a fun reminder of how

That bit of pop culture has been something that a lot of that has been passed down through the generations from my parents to me. And actually my husband loves it too, which is really cool. Another one or series of images that my mom had on the wall were of my paternal grandparents. My grandfather raced cars when he was younger. And so seeing him next to his race car, those are really cool.

And then there's a picture of my grandmother and she's probably maybe 18 years old. And she's got her dress, she's pulled it up a little bit over her knee and she's just looking all cute and like being naughty. I absolutely love.

Nicole (34:17)
why do you like using photography as a creative way to create your family story?

Angela (34:23)
Well, mean, photos are moments in time. And when we go through and we capture these moments, it freezes that into a place that you can always go back and look at it. So it's a great way to see how your life has been blessed, how your family's life has been blessed. Everyone goes through hard times and there may be really hard times coming in the future for some people and being able to look back at those memories and see those moments where people are smiling, people are happy.

and you see their love for one another, I think is really powerful and can help shape us and keep us positive as we move forward.

Nicole (34:59)
Wow, that is a very powerful final statement for our podcast. Thank you.

Great. That was really lovely. I love the end

Nicole (35:07)
How do you feel about recording your life story and having the opportunity to talk about what are you imagining for your beyondhood?

Angela (35:17)
Yeah, it's a very interesting experience and it's caused me to pause and consider a lot of different things. So when you sent me over the list of questions, I went through them and spent a lot of time considering each one and how I'd want to answer it how I'd want those things to be preserved. it's been a very interesting experience. I really enjoyed it. It's brought back some memories that I hadn't really thought of in a while. And it's really kind of crystallized.

how I want my future to be, because I've had to sit here and consider that and come up with an answer of, what do you want the next 30 years to look like? And I've really appreciated that opportunity.

Nicole (35:55)
What is one piece of advice or question for our older generation that you have?

Angela (36:01)
Well, so it's kind of a request. I would like to request the older generation, tell it like it is. Don't be afraid of the younger generation always having all of these new ideas. Just be pragmatic. Tell us what to expect, the good and the bad and what it's like to age. Also, if you see me missing an opportunity or there's an opportunity in front of me that I'm hesitating to grab, don't be afraid to tell me to grab it.

give me the wisdom that you have with your experience, share that with me. And I think that my generation and younger absolutely needs that from the older generation. And hopefully younger generation can respect that those that came before us maybe know something that we don't know. that's a really important thing. And hopefully those who are older than me and a little bit wiser than me can share their knowledge.

Nicole (36:56)
Thank you. And that's why we use podcasts and storytelling, I say too, to connect the different generation. Instead of just telling us what to do, it's sharing that knowledge and experience through storytelling. Thank you. Got


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Nicole Suen

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