Home movies/transformed again

My dad started taking home movies in the 40s, with a spring wound Keystone projector.  It took 16 mm rolls of film, but when the roll was finished you'd take it out and insert it again and run it through the camera again, getting two 8-mm runs.  Always doing the switch in a closet so the film didn't get exposed, of course.

We had mainly black and white photos, but there are some surprising ones in color.

My dear son, Russ, took the originals and had Walmart's genius people put them into a DVD and then showed them to all my offspring at my 70th birthday.  It was probably pretty boring, especially with the strange sound background the Walmart guys had added.

So last night I pulled out the video, which hadn't been of any interest for years, and decided it would be nice to transform it into some stills so I could share them (and archive them) here.

Ever try to take pictures of a TV show?  Right...the black bar of death crossed most of the attempts, even when the shot was paused.

No, I didn't want to copy into a video format either.  I may try that sometime, but not yet.

Anyway, out of my attempts, and from the first 12 clips, I did get some good shots, though the originals were a bit fuzzy.  I don't know if this was original resolution, or not having a good TV screen.  And I've since reduced the resolution so I can post them here easily.  Ever notice how long it takes to post 2m photos here?

So I'll give you first a series of clips of my grandparents.

 Ada Swasey Rogers and my grandfather George Elmore Rogers, taken in about 1945.  She was around 59 and he was 68 at that time.

Location is their home in Houston, Texas, which they might have just moved to, as 3 years previously (when I was born) they had lived in San Antonio, TX. 

My parents and myself were visiting from Dallas, TX.

Their sons Chauncey and George (my father) were having a good time playing with various cameras, and included catching each other telling stories.  Since the camera wound down after about a minute, they were short stories!  More next time!

Poppy's birthday

Born August 28, 1877.  Died Feb. 1960. Age 82-1/2

George Elmore Rogers, Sr. was my beloved grandfather. He is survived by 8 grandchildren who are living as I write this, and most of them have children and even grandchildren of their own.  I celebrated his life a bit last year, (HERE) but wish to add more this year. 

I'm in an Easter bonnet here, with Poppy, (George Rogers Sr) then Gummy (Ada Rogers, then Uncle Chauncey.  Site is our home in Houstone, TX.  About 1946-7.

George Rogers Information
Listed in 1880 Willis, Montgomery County Census as age 2. George's father, William Sandford Rogers, died at the age of 29, leaving the family with some money, but at about the age of ten, they moved from Willis to Galveston and he had to leave school to go to work as an office boy to help support the family. Some land in Tennessee that Micajah Clack Rogers had owned and had been passed down to William Sandford Rogers, was sold at the time for his widow to live on. Ironically, the people who purchased it, later found coal deposits on this land, making them quite wealthy. Anyway, George learned bookkeeping and became one at the Gulf Fisheries Company in Galveston. After the Galveston Storm in 1900, which he survived, he was pressed into service to stop the looting and pick up the dead. This was about five years before he met Ada. He was a small man, a good dancer, loved to hunt, fish, and sail, but was not considered "suitable" by Ada Phillip's Swasey's family to marry her, but they did anyway.,.

George and Ada were married at the home of the bride's parents in Galveston, Texas, by Dr. Black, Episcopal minister of Grace Episcopal church. They resided in Galveston until 1918, at which time they moved to Meadowbrook Drive in Fort Worth, Texas, where he was employed by the Fort Worth Packing Company as office manager. This began a friendship with the company Manager, Norman Dumbel (sp) that lasted twenty-five years. The family home burned in about 1927, during a re-roofing project. Unfortunately, the insurance had lapsed and the house was a total loss. Among the cherished items lost was a silver-handled walking stick given to Micajah Clack Rogers by Sam Houston and had been handed down in the family. George did rebuild, but the new house as of stone with a slate roof! When the Swift & Co. bought out the Ft. Worth Packing Co. in 1933, Mr. Dumbel started a new Packing Company in San Antonio, and asked George to be his office manager, and so they moved to San Antonio, Texas and lived there until 1942, when they moved to Houston, Texas.

He never joined his wife's Christian Science Church, but he was a Thirty-Second Degree Mason. Source: cousin Patricia Rogers published 2001 on Ancestry DOT com.

 George Rogers Sr, 70th birthday in 1947, Houston, Texas.  Site, Brockton St. home of the Rogers. Some references to this photo say it's his 72 birthday, but that would have occurred in 1949, and I think this big crowd probably came out for a 70th.

This was an ablum of records that I believe was the Ferde Grofé, Grand Canyon Suite.  As you can see, when you have a lot of relatives and friends for a party in Houston in 1947 in August, you gather outdoors, in the shade.  (Everyone must have been standing behind the camera at this shot)

But Houston wasn't always hot, as seen here the same house in 1949 while Poppy sweeps his steps of snow.

Cousins, Sandra, Barbara, Mary Beth, and Claudette, in 1949 snow in Houston at Gummy and Poppy's home

George and Ada Rogers in San Antonio in the 1930s.

Christmas Dinner, back row: George, Alex, Chauncey, James, and Poppy, front row; Mataley with eyes closed, Donah V, and Gummy (Ada Rogers) Site probably the Rogers home in San Antonio, probably 1930s.

George Elmore Rogers, Sr b.8.28/1877

George Rogers Sr., 1877-1960 known as Poppy to his 8 grandchildren

George Elmore Rogers Sr. was born in Willis, Texas. His parents had married just the year before his birth, and his sister was born the next year.  His father died in that year as well, 1879.  His widowed mother moved to Galveston  where she probably had other relatives.

 

I'm standing on one leg in flowery dress with my Grandmother (Gummy) and Poppy (George Rogers Sr.) and it says on the back it's on his 73rd birthday.   I had no idea he had been so old...But I don't look anywhere near 8 for this picture, so I think I'm more like 5 or 6, and thus Poppy was just 70.  Houston, TX.

Poppy is on the left, my mother in the center, and I have my Brownie camera as well as a scarf around my neck, standing in front of my father.  I might have been 12, St. Louis, MO.

 

Poppy lived through the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, which killed thousands.  I am not exaggerating, I think 6000 was the number I read in this book, A Weekend in September.

 This book is in my possession, and my grandmother (who also lived through the storm) made notes in the margins as to who she had known.  This was before they married in 1905.

The house my grandfather built in Galveston, Texas.

This is likely the last time I saw Poppy, around 1958 or 1959.  He is on the left, next to me around 15-16, my father then his brother Jimmy, in the front row.  Back row on left is my mother, and to right is my grandmother.  This was our house in St. Ann, MO.  Poppy and Gummy were visiting from Houston, and uncle Jimmy from Wausau, WI.

Poppy and Gummy, 1955, Houston, TX.  Poppy was a bookkeeper, working for a meat packing plant in Houston.  I don't know when he retired.  But I'm pretty sure he was still going to work at an advanced age.  He supported his family of 4 sons who grew to adulthood, after losing his firstborn, as well as his only daughter at young ages.

Scroll down to bottom of next picture.

Some fun with George Rogers' sons, before they were married.  My father on right, Poppy on left.  The Rogers family lived in Galveston for a long time, then Fort Worth, then San Antonio, and finally Houston.  My grandfather and his son Chauncey built a house for Chauncey on the same lot as his home on Brockton, in Houston.

My mother on swing, while expecting me, and Gummy laughing at Poppy clowning around.  I do remember Poppy having a great sense of humor.

Three surviving brothers at the cemetery following the death of their father, Feb. 1960 in Houston.  My father, George Jr, then Chauncey, then James.

I didn't realize that Poppy had died.  We lived in St. Louis at the time.  There was a kind of taboo of talking about death in our family.  It wasn't explained as a heaven or hell either.  There really wasn't any supportive talk for grieving.  Actually, I had the sense that (which is probably more personal than actual) death was a failure, thus something to whisper about and then not mention again.  It was similar to what I later learned people in medical professions would feel when they'd done everything they could to save a life, then lost the battle.

Poppy died in February of the year I graduated from High School.  I also remember my mother's mother died the same year.  My parents had a lot of sadness that year.