Up until very recently, my parents’ home movies were the earliest I had seen. That was until I got the DVD disk from Cousin Myrna. So, sue her, not me, if any of these put you over the edge as one of the stars. Uncle Walt was on the job as videographer by approx. 1942. In the earliest scenes: Lois, Kenny, and Darlene:
Next, Darlene & Duke the dog on July 4, and Kenny et. al. in Autumn Leaves:
Finally, Irene with birthday cake (?-don’t know whose; Lois’ 6th is coming later); Lois & Ken’s tea party, and some men smelting on the Cowlitz River. I think the one in the hat is my Dad(Lovell), age about 27. Enjoy.
I love the pictures. Course, you all know, that since we lived so far apart, we didn’t get to spend time together, only if you came out to the Sidney area on vacation. Seems our Dad was always so busy making a living, but, as I recall, when families would come, there would be lotza food, the older folks would sit around talking and the children would play.
I only vaguely remember Reatha and Lovell and children coming out to our area.
I would love to see the picture of Lois, maybe Myrna and I, when I was about 1-1/2 -2 yrs old. I believe the story goes like this. We were all out at the Valley farm, south of Sidney, at Uncle Harvey’s ??? and Mom had made me this pretty little “yellow” dress. Now I was a little “toe head blondie”, but, Mom said I was so cute in the dress. Well, along came the other girls, as I said, I think it was Lois and Myrna ? and they were dressed in yellow also. Mom said they looked so cute in their “yellow” dress, and it just made me look so faded and washed out, as I was so blonde. Well, you know, mother never dressed me in yellow again, and funniest thing, yellow happens to be one of my favorite colors today. If anyone has a pic. from that time, would be interested to see it.
Thanks so much to all of you who contribute to this adventure. Carrol
Who is the girl in the pink dress???
Lois, where did your family live at the time you were whitewashing the fence?
In the smelting film it looks like Ivan in the foreground of the first clip. Definitely Dad (Lovell) in the hat. George–is there extended footage of the fishing outing? I’d love to see more.
Yeah, that could be Ivan. No, that’s all there is of that scene. A few of Walt’s clips are longer than most of Reatha’s, but I’m sure they were both concerned with the cost of film and precessing. I hope Lois can ID the girl; I’ve got some harder ID questions lined up from North Dakota trips, both Walt’s and Lovell’s.
Love those old movies! They’re sometimes a little embarrassing (was I afraid my little brother would drink too much of our “tea?” If I remember right it was only water anyway!) I must have been a bossy big sister.
The birthday picture of my mother was on her 29th birthday. A little story about the clock in the background: Dad gave that to Mom for Christmas the year before (1941.) A few days before Christmas she was trying to guess what was in the package. The part I remember best was after she’d named 3 or 4 other things she asked if it as an electric clock. Well, I (age 4) dissolved into tears and said “Now you went and guessed it.” They thought it was really funny but the more they tried to console me, the more I cried.
The fence painting was at the house we lived in at 456 15th Ave. in Longview. I think I painted just those three slats. That was it, not as smart as Tom Sawyer to enlist some help I guess. I think Dad was just being nice to me letting me paint a little bit. (Hmm, never thought of this before, HE was the Tom Sawyer in this case.) The girl in the pink dress was a neighbor girl and I’m trying hard to remember her name, think it MIGHT have been Barbara. Maybe Darlene remembers as I think that girl was at least one year older than me or maybe a year older than that, making her same age as Darlene. We were merciless to poor Kenny. He didn’t like being buried in leaves and there we were, the big kids (and girls at that) all ganging up on him.
A clarification for Carrol—those yellow dresses were worn by sisters Myrna and Marcia. My mother wouldn’t dress me in yellow either, said my skin was too pale and yellow wasn’t a good color for me. Now I wear it and love it, but that’s partly because since I’ve “blonded up” a bit it blends well with the lighter hair. (-:
Oh—another comment, question maybe. In the 4th of July picture of Darlene , could it be that the dog was named Tuffy?
Bonnie, I remembered the name of the girl in the pink dress. It was Barbara Gordon. The Gordons lived next door to us on 15th Avenue.