FEDERAL WAY, Wash. -- Shirley Simcoe is proof heritage fits into a suitcase and can be glued to a page.
Just make sure you have four suitcases. And hundreds of pages.
"I love to look at photographs to see how the family's growing, to see loved one who aren't here any more," said the 66-year old woman entrusted with family scrapbooks dating back to the 1880's.
"It's a treasure," Simcoe said as she flipped through photos of German ancestors who settled in Puyallup. "We have a reunion once a year for my family, and people spend hours going through the pictures and the books."
Flip over any of those photos you'll likely find a name that dates just as far back: Kodak.
But these days, an iconic American business appears to be teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. The Wall Street Journal reports Eastman Kodak could file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in as early as a few weeks.
"It's sad, my first camera was a Kodak," said Simcoe.
The 131-year old company revolutionized the point-and-click consumer camera, even pioneered digital photography decades before it became mainstream.
But many say Kodak just has not kept up with its own technology. While most stores carry digital cameras from the likes of Nikon, Sony, Canon and Fujifilm, often all you'll ever find from Kodak are memory cards and disposable cameras.
"People frankly are taking more pictures than they've ever taken, but without the need for getting film developed to see them," said Chris Lockeman with the Fred Meyer in Seattle's Lake City neighborhood.
Lockeman said while they used to develop up to 150 rolls a day for customers, but in the age of Facebook and Flickr and camera phones, he may develop as few as ten film rolls a week.
Echoing other local photographers, he said he's not surprised the company is in a tough financial situation.
"They could create a great chip, they could come up with the technology that was inside," he said. "What I saw was they didn't seem to be providing what customers wanted."
And even a family historian in Federal Way knows what customers want.
"A little instant camera that stores it in memory," said Simcoe.
And while Simcoe admits there's nothing quite like history on paper, in a few months, even all her books -- and with them, those "Kodak moments" -- will be digitized in a few months.
"That's my heritage," she said.
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