University of Delaware students help restore photos damaged in fire

Students at the University of Delaware are working on a project to help an Ohio family heal.

It comes after a devastating holiday fire that killed three brothers and their grandmother.

The first year art conservation grad students are restoring 300 burned and water-damaged photographs, recovered from the scene of the house fire in rural Ohio the morning after Christmas.

"They spent the night with their grandma, so it happened at four in the morning December 26th," family friend and Ph.D. student Michael Emmons said.

Emmons was a close friend of the boys' father from high school and suggested his class take on the project.

Only ten students are accepted each year in the Winterthur University of Delaware program in art conservation.

On January 5th, in addition to their regular studies, they began the painstaking task of renewing the photos.

"You hear about these tragic stories all the time on the news, but once the photographs came in and we saw the faces of the people, it really hit me hard," grad student Gerrit Albertson said.

"We feel deeply connected to this family, it's been totally powerful, a project that we can really treasure and that we try in some small way to help this family that has suffered such an enormous tragedy," professor Debra Hess Norris said.

The students were wrapping up their project on Tuesday. They were completing the cleaning of the photos and then planned to humidify them to flatten them.

The photographs will then be placed in acid-free boxes and delivered to the young victims' parents in Ohio.