‘Pictures outlast your memories’: 96-year-old Elgin man’s photos featured in book celebrating 70th anniversary of Disneyland

Lou Perry of Elgin would tell his daughter that he took so many pictures on their vacations because he wanted to remember what things looked like.

Now, nearly seven decades after his first visit to Disneyland, vacation photos by the 96-year-old are featured in the new book “The Happiest Place on Earth,” which celebrates the 70th anniversary of the theme park in Anaheim, California.

Perry was an avid amateur photographer and lover of all things Walt Disney when the park opened in 1955. He visited it eleven months later. He then made more than 100 additional trips to the park over the next 51 years.

Each time with his camera and plenty of film in tow.

“He always said pictures outlast your memories,” his daughter Sue Bossert said.

Pictures outlast your memories. His sentiment was prescient.

Perry, who lives at The Vines Senior Homes in Elgin, was first diagnosed with early dementia in 2017, and it’s gotten progressively worse since. Bossert says he has his “good days and his bad days.”

But he does perk up when you talk about Disneyland.

“We like Disney,” he said. “I love it. Very nice place.”

Perry and his wife Donna, who used to live in Addison, visited family in California often. Every time they made the trek, they would build a trip to Disneyland into the itinerary.

Until recently, the thousands of photos, slides and albums from those trips were buried away in boxes.

Since selling her father’s house when he moved to The Vines, Bossert had started to slowly go through them all. She shared pictures online with friends, who then shared them with more people.

As it sometimes happens on the internet, a couple of photos serendipitously made their way to one of the authors of the coffee table book, who tracked Bossert down about five years ago to ask if she had more pictures.

“My father was the type to take pictures of anything and everything,” she said. “And that’s what they loved. He had pictures of things that they didn’t have.”

Bossert shared hundreds of pictures back and forth with authors Chris Merritt and Don Hahn over the few years the book was coming together.

She said that even though her dad was dealing with dementia during the whole process, he was “much more with it” early on and was able to tell her the names of rides in his pictures and other details.

While she didn’t tell anyone else about the possibility of the pictures being in a book since it wasn’t a sure thing, she decided to tell her dad.

In his decades of amateur photography, he’d never had a picture published anywhere.

“When I told him, he started crying,” she said. “He couldn’t believe anyone would want his pictures in a book. He was just so touched. He said, “They really loved my pictures?’ It was beautiful.”

Ultimately, they used seven of his photos in the book.

“I’ve been sweating it out the last five years that he would see it published, and he made it and that’s all I care about,” she said. “This whole situation has been a gift for both of us, and I’ve thanked him for it many times.”

Bossert said Merritt and Hahn were “phenomenal” during the process. They sent Perry and Bossert a personalized, autographed special edition of the book.

Hahn is a Disney legend who produced classic movies, including “The Lion King” and “Beauty and the Beast.” Merritt was a Disneyland Imagineer. She said both were exceedingly kind and appreciative.

“They told me his work was some of the best they’d seen from an amateur photographer,” she said.

During a recent interview with the Daily Herald, Perry wore a sweatshirt and hat — both adorned with Mickey Mouse, his favorite character. When trying to engage him while he was having his picture taken, Bossert asked her dad if he had any photo advice.

He had a quick reply.

“Be sure to go to Disneyland,” he said.