My great-great-grandmother Franciszka. Born in 1879, she and my great-great-grandfather married in 1900. In 1944, he passed away in the morning, and she died that exact same evening. I restored her photo and made it into a physical magnet to keep her memory alive.

I found this beautifully damaged photo of Franciszka in our family archives, along with their marriage certificate from 1900. You might notice the document is written in Russian Cyrillic—this is because Poland didn't officially exist on the map at that time. Their region was under the Russian Partition, so all official documents had to be written in Russian by law. The document states she was 21 at the time of the wedding (born in 1879), though you can see they signed their Polish names at the very bottom.

They lived through so much history and two World Wars together. According to a note on a post-mortem photo in our family album, when my great-great-grandfather Wincenty died on a morning in 1944, Franciszka's heart just gave out, and she followed him that very evening at the age of 65.

Seeing her photo fading away broke my heart, so I spent some time restoring it digitally and then handcrafted it into a premium physical magnet so she can stay in our daily lives. I do this for other families too, but this one was incredibly personal.

I've attached the restored version, the original damaged photo, the 1900 marriage act, and a short video of the process. I hope you guys like the result!