Reel #3 Clip #1. Ruttgers Lodge, 1949
Got to love the opening shot with Mom on the camera, of Dad backing out the clean black sedan, reflecting the bright sun in the driveway, and heading out onto 7th Avenue; then the footage cuts to the entrance of the Ruttger’s Lodge. Ruttger’s was an historic resort in 1949 on Bay Lake, near Brainard, about two hours from Hopkins. Many of the original structures still stand surrounded by the expanded resort now called Ruttger’s Bay Lake Resort.
Mom and Dad are playing shuffleboard with friends connected with the Minnesota Gas Company, where Dad rose to Director of Engineering. Of note, Mom and Dad are passing the Kodak camera back and forth, and this wonderful sequence was edited all in-camera! I see something new every time I watch this footage, looking for how my father shot the scenes, as I have been making movies too.
This embarrassing footage of this eight-year-old’s first horseback riding experience, especially the dismount, is for Lynn ‘Dahlberg,’ my grade school crush, recently reconnected.
Wonderful footage of the ‘Irish Twins’ follows, then back home on the front stoop at 304 7th Ave North, with friends drinking Kool-Aid, in a masterful cinematic pan that was featured in the mini-doc driving past our first home.
Reel #3 Clip #2. Sara’s Second Birthday, 1949
We are still living on 7th Avenue North in Hopkins, just several doors away from our cousins, Wayne, Joan, Bobby and Bernadette who were children of Aunt Bern and Uncle Jerry. Mom and Aunt Bern were sisters, children of Anne Marie and Raymond Sarazin. (That’s my hand reaching for a homemade popiscle in the last seconds of the clip.)
Reel #3 Clip #3. Uncle Bud and Anna C’s Visit, October 19, 1949
Lawrence J. Desomery is the second boy born to Grandma Sadie and her first husband, Joe, in Minneapolis. It will take more digging to learn how he met and married Anna C. Dubard from Mississippi; and, if they had any offspring who would enjoy seeing this clip. It’s wonderful, especially the opening and it takes off from there. A stunning example of a prize genealogical document which I hope to post on Ancestry.com.
Reel #3 Clip #4. Christmas & New Years Eve, 1949
Dad has the Christmas morning intro ready to serve the years, and it does. He begins with a pan of the tree and gifts, under and surroundng the tree, then cuts to the kids entering the magical scene in the glare of two movie lights on a stand blasting the bright light, required to imprint the regular 8mm film.
Reel #3 Clip #5. Wisconsin Dells, 1949
Reel #3 Clip #6. Warner’s Off to School, 1949