1956June
The church steps 
Mama kept this one in her nightstand, not on the wall. She said the ones on the wall were for company.
June Whitfield Parks · original preserved 6 2 1
Everly An archive a family keeps
The photographs are in one house. The stories are in another.
Everly gathers what each of you remembers — the scans, the letters, the things she used to say — into one archive that belongs to the family and outlives every phone it was made on.
Originals kept exactly as you gave them, under the name of whoever gave them. What we do with your files Memorials are public and listed in Find a memorial. A private memorial shows only its name, years and portrait outside the family.
Digital memorialization
A memorial that is kept, not only carved.
A physical memorial is carved or cast, and holds names and dates. A digital memorial holds the rest: the person’s story, their voice, the photographs, the letters and papers, the film, and what the family remembers — gathered in one place, with a record of who gave each piece, kept as it was given, and passed on when its keeper is gone. It can be made after a death, or by a person for themselves while they are here; like a monument that is set in life, the closing date is the only thing added later.
What it holds
Story and voice, photographs and video, letters and documents — with the original of each kept exactly as it came, and the name of the person who gave it.
Who builds it
The family, together. One person starts it and invites the rest; each adds from where they are, under their own name, and the memorial is told in the order things happened.
How it lasts
A named steward takes it on when its keeper is gone. Nothing is sold as engagement or buried in a feed. It is a place to return to, not a page to scroll past.
How it works
Three steps, and the first one takes a minute.
01Start the memorial
Their name and the years, and it exists. One photograph with a sentence under it is already a memory worth keeping.
02Invite the ones who were there
Everyone adds from where they are — a cousin’s camera roll, an aunt’s shoebox, a brother who only remembers what she said.
03Name who keeps it next
You nominate a steward. When you are gone the archive passes to them intact, with every original and every credit attached.
A memorial, six months in
An illustration, laid out exactly as a memorial is. The family, the memories and the names are invented; a real memorial is kept by the people who made it.Forty-two memories, from nine people who never met each other’s copies.
Eleanor Mae Whitfield
14 May 1933 — 9 Feb 2024Schoolteacher for twenty-six years in Hart County, gardener for all of them. The house by the river was hers.
1958Winter
To her sister, the first winter on the river
Letter Letter to Margaret, January 1958 2 pages
“I have decided I am not frightened of the winters here, only of being useless in them.” Transcribed from the letter; the scan is kept with it.
Tom Whitfield · original preserved 3
1979Autumn
Room 4, story hour 
Twenty-six years of first grades and she read the same book to every one of them. Half the county can still recite it.
A former student · original preserved 11 4
1994August
The porch, after supper
The flood year, told the way she told it every August. You can hear the screen door and somebody laughing in the kitchen.
Dean Whitfield · original preserved 8 3 2
Why not a shared album
Not a feed. Not an album in somebody’s account. An archive the family keeps.
A shared album belongs to one account
When that account goes quiet, the album goes with it. A memorial has a named steward, and passes to them whole.
A feed shows what is newest
A memorial is told in the order it happened — 1956 before 1979 — whoever added which part, and whenever they got to it.
A feed keeps a copy
Everly keeps the original. The scan you uploaded is the scan that is kept, with your name on it, and you can take it back out.
The pilot
Everly is in its pilot: a limited number of families, nothing to pay, and watched closely.
What it is
The first thousand accounts, while we learn what families actually need from a memorial. You make one, invite the people who were there, and use it as you would. There is nothing to pay.
What we ask
Tell us what is wrong, missing or confusing. A person reads every piece of feedback, and the pilot decides what Everly becomes.
What happens after
Whatever you make during the pilot stays yours, and can be exported at any time. Paid plans for larger and private memorials come later; you will be told before anything changes.
Questions families ask
The short answers.
- Who is it for?
- A family after a loss — and in particular the one person in it who has ended up with the boxes of photographs, letters and tapes, and the job of doing something with them. A person who would rather write their own while they are here. A funeral home or monument company that wants the stone to have a story behind it. Anyone with somebody worth remembering properly.
- Who can see it?
- A memorial is public: anyone can read it, and it appears in Find a memorial. A private memorial shows its name, years and portrait to whoever finds it, with a way to ask the family for access — the memories stay inside.
- What does it cost?
- Nothing while the pilot runs. Paid plans will come later for larger and private memorials; whatever you make during the pilot stays yours, and you will be told before anything changes.
- What happens to my files?
- They stay yours. Originals are kept exactly as you gave them, never recompressed, and the whole memorial can be exported. The plain-English version is on the files page, linked below and at the top of this one.
- Can I make one for myself?
- Yes. Choose Myself when you create it. You write it while you are here and name who keeps it; the years stay open until an owner records the date.
- Can I start from an obituary?
- Paste the address of the obituary and the form fills itself — name, dates, the text and, where the site allows it, the photograph.