This photograph was taken during the summer of 1963, a moment in time frozen forever, just months before the nation would be shaken by the tragic events of November that same year. When I look at this picture now, I realize it captured not only my family, but also a piece of America just before everything seemed to change.

The people in this photograph are my family: Gene and Fern Ingalls and their eight children. To most people it may simply look like a large family portrait, but to me it is so much more. It is a snapshot of who we were, where we were, and the life we were living in that season of our lives.

The photo was taken by my father’s twin brother, Uncle Eugene, and like many family photos, getting it just right was not as easy as it might seem. It certainly was not accomplished in one quick click. As I remember it, my little sister Cheri was sitting in my lap, and every time I turned to look directly at the camera, I would somehow disappear behind her or shift just enough to ruin the shot.

After several failed attempts, Uncle Eugene finally gave up on trying to get me to cooperate the traditional way and said, “Lee, look at your Ma!” Naturally, I turned to look toward my mother, and in that exact moment, he snapped the picture. That is why I appear in profile rather than facing the camera. What might have seemed like an accident at the time became one of the very things that made this photograph so special to me.

In fact, this has always been one of my favorite family photographs.

There is something about it that feels so honest and so complete. It was not staged to perfection, and because of that, it captures us exactly as we were, a real family in a real moment. The kind of moment that might have seemed ordinary at the time, but over the years has become priceless.

That is why this photo was chosen for the cover of my first book about my parents, Ingalls on the Prairie: The Gene and Fern Ingalls Story. It felt right that this image, one that holds so much of our family’s spirit, would represent the story of the two people at the center of it all, my mother and father.

At the time this photograph was taken, we were living in North Minneapolis, a place that was part of some of our earliest family memories. Not long after this photo was taken, our family would make a move to Anoka, a transition that marked the beginning of a new chapter in our lives. Like so many moves in a growing family, it likely felt practical and necessary at the time, but looking back now, I can see how these transitions quietly shaped the story of who we became.

That is one of the reasons photographs like this matter so much.

A single image can hold an entire world. It can preserve not just faces, but relationships, personalities, seasons of life, and even the feeling of an era. This one carries all of that for me. It reminds me of a family still in motion, still growing, still becoming. It reminds me of my parents in the middle of raising eight children, of siblings packed close together, of summer light, and of a world that still felt innocent in many ways.

Most of all, it reminds me how important it is to hold onto these pieces of our family story.

Because one day, what seems like an ordinary picture becomes a treasure.

And one day, the question is no longer just, “Who are these people?”

It becomes, “Who were they, really?”

This photograph is one small answer to that question.

Seated in front from the left are Margo, Kurt and Brad. Seated on the couch from the left, Mom, Candy, Barbara, Monty, Lee (me), Cheri and Dad.