Watching home movies from the 1950s and 60s has provided a Time Machine experience back to the more innocent era of my early youth
I often write about the past because all my past experiences have resulted in the man I am today, considerably wiser than when I was young because of that very past some say I dwell in too much.
But something always comes up to turn this idea on its head and reveal once again that the past is never really past. When one speaks about the most valuable and unrelinguished memories or artifacts from earlier in our lives, I consider such things as precious letters from loved ones or dear friends from decades ago, or rare childhood photos, to be the best examples of what I want to store in my memory vaults forever.
And,for all of us of a certain age or generation before the Internet came along and eventually enabled smart phones to record and disseminate online endless homemade videos, there were the reels of film taken with clunky Bell & Howell and other brands of movie cameras. These machines, which soared in popularity during the Fidties and Sixties, produced the often stilted and unintentionally funny home movies we sat transfixed through, watching on portable screens in our suburban dens as the large projectors whirred noisily. .
My father took a respectable number of home movies from about 1958-68, and we enjoyed occasionally viewing them. But, although they were fun, novel and corny, they weren’t appreciated as much as they would come to be much later when five decades had passed since they were last viewed..
The films were stored in a metal box that got packed for my mother’s move from New Orleans to Charleston in 1993. For years after that move they languished in a box under a small desk near my bedroom at what I came to call the family house in Charleston. I always thought the film had become brittle with age and would fall apart if held and examined. I basically forgot about them, although my siblings and I recall various funny or poignant scenes of us as we grew up, snippets of our young lives having been recorded for posterity on 8 and 16 mm film.
Right before we sold the family house downtown in 2022, I briefly looked into getting the films digitized so we could watch them again. After all, it had been more than 50 years since we had seen them, and I knew I had forgotten what was in them, for the most part. But I thought I’d have to send the reels by mail to Atlanta to be digitally converted, and that seemed complicated and thus didn’t get done.
What got me thinking about them this year was my plan to finally empty out my storage unit, which was long over due and costing me a small fortune in monthly rent. My sister and I had gone through some boxes in April when she was here, and I wanted to be done with it and get the haulers to come and take everything without me ever again looking ever again at what was in there. But better judgment prevailed, and I systemically went through 25 boxes and salvaged some very sentimentally important books, framed photos and a few more pieces of Mom’s China and porcelains. We’ve already stored most of what we didn’t sell at the estate sale at my brother’s place.
Thinking I had the metal box of home movies tucked away somewhere in my walk-in closet, I was shocked to discover it in the storage unit. It was a close call. Those priceless films could have been lost forever.
Needless to say, I wasted no time in getting them digitized, and have viewed most of the 15 reels, making hundreds of screen shots to put into a series of self published family history books, as I’ve done previously.
I spent hours one night watching those precious family “home movies,” as they were called. Included were scenes of two Christmases in the early 1960s, Thanksgiving in 1960; swimming in an old mill pond; unforgettable summer vacations at Folly Beach, swimming in the ocean and building sand castles. There were many scenes of my mother and father reading to us and playfully joking and smiling. Also the humorous and sweet film of my brother and all of us at his birthday party when he turned 7.
It was very pleasant to see all these videos, given the darker reality of my father’s issues with parenting and my frequent altercations with him. But in these home movies, growing up is portrayed as a sunny, happy time. It often was, and I’m ever grateful that my father, with great devotion and dedication, made two yearly 1,600 mile round-trips from New Orleans to Sumter and back again for our Christmas and summer vacations visiting with my aunts and grandparents who I was always very close to.
A little while ago, I was sitting on my balcony at 3 in the morning, as I often do, thinking about what to write in this essay, and I had to laugh thinking about the screen shots of my brother and I, scrawny 7 and 9-year-olds, perched high atop a mule during a visit to my grandmother’s family’s large farm of 400 acres, 15 miles north of Sumter. Sumter is where my mother grew up. That was probably from 1959 or 1960, and we were visiting a couple who had once been sharecroppers on the farm for decades. Mom and the rest of the family depended on fresh produce and eggs that Walter and Nettie would bring to them from the farm during the Great Depression years of the 1930s. They lived in a weathered,unpainted one-room house. Walter still used his mule to plow at crop-planting time, and it was that mule we city kids sat atop. I laughed at the image of my younger brother pretending he was out West on a horse, galloping along with his cap pistol raised high.
The film of that visit, which like the rest of the reels, hadn’t been seen by us in 50 or more years. They were very moving, instantly recognizable, and gave me a clear image of what I looked like, my mannerisms, facial expressions and more, back in the day. It was like going back to my childhood in a Time Machine, because, there I was. Frankly, I never thought I’d see those old home movies again. I imagined the film on the reels would disintegrate after being handled for first time in five decades. I was so wrong. They were in perfect condition.
One of the main highlights of this treasure trove of home movies from another era, was the reel from our summer vacations in Sumter in 1960. Some of my happiest memories from growing up are of the times my father took my brother, sister and I swimming at Second Mill Pond just outside Sumter. I can still remember many details about the place, and wrote about the experience many years ago. I am reposting it here along with an album of screenshots of us enjoying a morning at the mill pond. It sounds idyllic and it sure was:
Summer vacation and a visit to Second Mill:
https://www.flickr.com/gp/camas/96GXm89z3b
This is an aerial view of the mill pond taken in 1948, ten years before we were there enjoying a swim on a hot summer day. At the right are the old grist mill and saw mill. I think they were gone when we were there in the late 1950s.
Some screenshots of me c 1960-1963:
https://www.flickr.com/gp/camas/SWz183ab36
My recollections written in 2000:
“Years ago, when I was around 9 or 10, we spent our summer vacations in Sumter at my aunt’s house. It was here that longing for escape from the seemingly interminable school year was realized, and I could go swimming in a mill pond just outside of town
.
“I remember how the water smelled. It was a fresh and earthy smell. The waters that backed up behind the dam had come from blackwater streams and swamps, darkened by tannin from tree leaves that had fallen into the water. There was a stationary plaform just beyond the shallow section near the shore, a hundred yards from the grassy edge.
“Here my brother and I, swimmers since an early age, would swim out and dive into the deep, cool waters. I wouldn’t go too far down because the deeper I dived, the colder and darker the water became, and there seemed to us no bottom to it at all. Stroking hard back up toward the surface, we’d burst through once again into the fresh air and sunlight and pull ourselves up onto the diving platform, which rested flat on the water, anchored to the bottom of the pond.
After a morning swimming at Second Mill, we’d head home, my brother, father and I, and come in to a kitchen table filled with the most delicious Southern food: fried bream, rice and gravy, biscuits, black-eye peas, freshly-sliced tomatoes, poll beans with fatback, and iced tea. I’d eat until I couldn’t possibly hold any more. That was the tradition of those days of summer vacation. Swim at the pond, maybe go fishing later in the afternoon. Just have fun doing things we could never do at home in New Orleans.
That is why those memories are so deeply etched in my mind. Each new school year, filled with worries and anxieties, my thoughts would return to the summer just past. By that time in September, and more so in later years, those vacations assumed the rosiest of glows. They became golden ages in my young life. I’d daydream about the jukebox on the dance stand by the shore of the pond and hear the old Fats Domino tunes, “Blueberry Hill” and “Walkin to New Orleans.” I’d wish I was back there because it seemed to me, several months later, a very long time ago. And life was oh so much more complicated and difficult.
Today, the pond is still there, the cypress trees beautiful around the perimeter of the pond and back toward where the feeder creek begins to back up behind the dam. But a four-lane highway crosses right next to where we used to go swimming, and the beach is closed to the public. People still fish along the banks, but it’s a different place.
When I last drove across the pond years ago, I found myself looking to the side where the shallow water began and we used to wade as children out toward the diving platform. I looked from my car window at the dark water, and it still appeared clean and fresh and inviting, and I wondered what it would feel like now to dive down into its depths and come up, stroking hard to clear the surface and hauling myself up onto a now non-existent platform, breathless from the exertion, but exhilarated and happy.
These are the kinds of childhood memories that last a lifetime.
Some history of the area:
“The Bradford Plantation in Sumter was a prominent estate established in the late 18th century by Richard Bradford. In 1786, Richard Bradford and his wife, Elizabeth Singleton, acquired land in the Green Swamp area of what is now Sumter County. On this property, Richard Bradford constructed a grist mill, which became a central feature of the plantation.
“The plantation was notable for its two mill ponds, known as First Mill and Second Mill. These ponds were integral to the plantation’s operations, providing water power for milling activities. To ensure a consistent water supply between the two mills, Richard Bradford directed the construction of a canal connecting Second Mill to First Mill.
“Upon Richard Bradford’s death around 1800, the plantation was divided among his sons. Richard Jr. inherited First Mill and its surrounding lands, while Robert Bradford received Second Mill and its adjacent properties. This division maintained the plantation’s milling operations within the family.
“In the 19th century, the Bradford Plantation continued to be a significant site in the region. Notably, Robert Bradford hosted President Martin Van Buren at the plantation in 1838 during the president’s visit to attend his son’s wedding to Angelica Singleton, a member of the prominent Singleton family in Sumter.
“Today, while the original plantation structures no longer exist, the legacy of the Bradford Plantation endures. The areas once known as First Mill and Second Mill have evolved into local landmarks, with Second Mill Pond remaining a cherished natural feature in Sumter, offering recreational opportunities and serving as a picturesque backdrop for the community.”
Source: ChatGPT