I am Creating the Wayne Koecke Memorial Camera Collection

No one will ever know the truth about why Mom chose to hoard everything, which led to a huge mess to deal with when the time inevitably came to deal with things. I understood the sentimental value that Mom placed on Dad's camera collection, but I never understood why I was the only person in the family who placed a value higher than sentiment on the collection.

Dad's collection included two-to-three hundred cameras that he would pick up at Goodwill and other sources. It seemed to me that the best way to honor Dad was to loan or donate some of the best cameras to museums and to put some in displays where he was known. 

What happened was the collection remained in Dad's library room, where it collected a lot of dust. 

Apparently, the dust became significant. My older sister noticed no dust where a camera once sat. Rather than ask about it, she concluded that I was beginning to steal the collection. Anyway, it was packed up and moved to my younger sister's home, where it sat in boxes in an unheated area. I concluded that had to happen because there was mold on some of the cameras that I bought for full retail value from the incompetent trustee also known as my younger sister.

Dad's camera collection was several boxes of rare cameras that had been allowed to erode. It not only had no sentimental value to me, but it also had lost the value beyond sentiment that it once had. I let my children choose a few cameras that belonged to their Gramps, but I didn't buy any for myself. 

I would rather remember the trips to Goodwill and being in the library with Dad. The library also served as his darkroom to develop black and white photography, in addition to displaying his cameras and shelving thousands of books that he acquired the same way. 

In honor of Dad, I am creating the Wayne Koecke memorial camera collection. It will be handled differently than Dad handled his collection, but it will be a display of cameras that he would have displayed on his shelves. 

I began looking for cameras to collect earlier this year. So far, Candace has added another spy camera to add to the one she has from Gramps' collection. I have a cool Kodak, an old movie camera, and a rare Polaroid Land camera. 

I will be adding several cameras to the collection over the next week. 

Dad also loved photography. Because I often buy in lots, I have added a Nikon digital camera and a Polaroid SX-70 to the cameras that I can use, and that Gemma will enjoy playing with when we hang out with each other.

Unlike Dad, I will be ridding myself of cameras that he would not display. He had boxes of cameras worthy of displaying, but he also had cameras that either didn't work or were not worthy of displaying. I will be selling those on e-Bay.

I can then imagine being with Dad in my room that has both my small library and the Wayne Koecke memorial camera collection, and our many conversations that we had in his library!