The Amanda Pape Collection at the Texas Archive of the Moving Image

In a couple of blog posts late last year, I wrote about the digitization of fifteen 16mm home movies (each ranging from 15-20 minutes long), recorded from July 1958 to August 1965, as well as ten Hi8 videotapes recorded from May 31, 1993 through March 1, 2003 (each about two hours long).  They were digitized, for FREE (well, except for the cost of postage to send them, and a 1TB portable drive for the digitized files), in the Texas Archive of the Moving Image (TAMI) Film Roundup, where I submitted them on Halloween in 2020. 

A couple days ago, I was contacted by TAMI and told that a selection of materials from my submissions can now be viewed on the TAMI website here:

https://texasarchive.org/taxonomy/term/117616

Here's an image of what my "collection" page currently looks like on the website:

The films from 1963 and 1964 are the complete film reels as recorded by my step-grandfather, Wallace Franklin "Archie" Archibald (1896-1970), each approximately 16-17 minutes long, and soundless.  They capture various childhood scenes, mostly in Houston, Texas, including Easter egg hunts, birthday parties, amusement park visits, Halloween, and a trip to the Houston Zoo.  

They also include a Labor Day weekend visit to Hilltop Lakes in Leon County, Texas, and a family trip to El Jardin del Mar, a community near Pasadena, Texas.  Both were places where my great uncle Robert Lee Brown (1908-1970) and great aunt Edith Elizabeth Wolfe Smith Murff Brown Gould Knox (1910-2006) owned some property.

The films from 1998 and 2000 are ones I shot when my offspring were young.  They are good-sized segments (about 14 and 12.5 minutes respectively) of scenes in Texas, that are parts of longer (about 2 hours) videotapes with the same kinds of family activities as those from 1963 and 1964 - only those are in Washington state (for the most part).  Understandably, TAMI is going to focus on Texas scenes in segments it highlights on its website.

The 1998 film shows a rodeo in Bandera, Texas, that we went to while visiting the nearby Dixie Dude Ranch with my parents that summer.  The 2000 film shows a Houston Astros baseball game that we attended with my aunt and other nuns in what was then called Enron Field (now Minute Maid Park).

© Amanda Pape - 2022 - e-mail me!

Tech Tuesday: My Childhood Vaccination Record

Among the papers saved by my mother, Geraldine Margaret Guokas Pape (1928-2019), were handwritten records of the vaccinations received by her five children during our youth.  In this time when some people are whining about needing one to two initial COVID-19 vaccinations, and at least one booster (so far), I thought it would be worthwhile to share this.

Below is a record of the injections I got to prevent polio, smallpox, and diphtheria / pertussis / tetanus (DPT).  The six initial shots of DPT is still standard today.  As I got older, I just got DT shots as the risk of pertussis (whooping cough) decreased with age.   

I only received two smallpox shots, as routine vaccination against smallpox ended in the United States in the early 1970s as its incidence lessened.  The last U.S. naturally-acquired smallpox case occurred in 1949, and the last in the world was in 1977.  Vaccines work!

My mother also recorded my tuberculin skin tests (TBC on her records).  In the 1960s and 1970s, when tuberculosis (TB) infection rates in the United States were high, universal screening for TB was required for all children.  This was generally the tine test, where a small device with four to six tiny needles was pressed into the skin.  I don't remember it being particularly painful, but I did get it seven times.

Polio was the biggest fear for my parents.  My dad's younger sister had polio, which resulted in one leg being shorter than the other (and numerous surgeries in subsequent years to try to improve that situation).

Luckily, a polio vaccine was developed before I was born,  The inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) was available first, given as a shot, in 1955.  This was often called the Salk vaccine, after its developer, Jonas Salk.

A more convenient form, called oral polio vaccine (OPV), was given as liquid drops via the mouth - or added to a sugar cube, the way I remember getting it.  It was developed in 1961, and was often called the Sabin for developer Albert Sabin. OPV was recommended for use in the United States for almost 40 years, from 1963 until 2000.  Thanks to the vaccine, the United States has been polio-free since 1979.

As can be seen from the record below on my and my siblings' Sabin vaccines, even my parents (Fred and Gerrie) received this oral polio vaccine in the early and mid-1960s.  They also received six (Dad) or seven (Mom) IPVs between 1956 and 1962.

You'll notice I had no vaccination for measles, mumps, or chickenpox (varicella).  I had those childhood diseases before vaccines were available.  I had measles at Christmas when I was five, mumps in the early summer when I was six, and chickenpox for my seventh birthday.   I did receive the rubella (German measles) vaccine in 1973.

© Amanda Pape - 2022 - e-mail me!

Travel Tuesday: Sandpiper Beach Resort, Pacific Beach, Washington

In my previous post, I mentioned some Christmas tree ornaments I got at the Sandpiper Beach Resort in Pacific Beach, Washington.  Here are some photos from some of my visits there.

Me and the offspring in the playground in the dunes next to the Pacific Ocean beach, New Years Eve/Day 1994-95, with one of the two main Sandpiper buildings in the background.

Sandpiper was discovered a bit by accident.  My family had been going to the Forks Motel jacuzzi suite and the Olympic National Park Second Beach area for short vacations twice a year in 1992, 1993, and 1994 (more about those trips in a future post).  We decided to take the long way home on on summer 1994 trip and explore the rest of the Olympic Peninsula.  That's when we discovered the Sandpiper on the southern Washington coast, where the beaches are wider and ideal for flying stunt kites.  Our first stay, in a suite with an ocean-view balcony and kitchen, was in mid-August 1994.

Best of all, no driving was allowed in a huge section of the beach in this area, making it very safe for kids - and very likely that any sand forts or castles you built - assuming they were above the high tide line - would still be there the next day.

Above:  The offspring and some friends work on a sand fort on a New Years' Eve/Day visit in 1994-95.  You can see some of the Sandpiper buildings in the background.

Below:  Not sure if the offspring built this sand castle or not, but the photo shows some of the larger individual cabins that were also part of the resort.

We ended up visiting five times in 1995 - once for New Years' Eve and Day (the weather was cold, but nice), during spring break, and three times during the summer - some of those with relatives on my ex-husband's side.  Some of the trips qualified as business expenses for my ex (he was working on a consulting job in nearby Aberdeen), so we were able to stay in one of the two-bedroom-with-loft suites (11 or 12) on the top floor of the second main building (pictured below, a nice distance north of the other buildings).

Above:  the second building, nestled in a grove of spruce, a nice distance north of the other buildings.  Our favorite suites were 11 or 12, on the top floor, with lofts.

Below:  Sandpiper logo, which hasn't changed since the resort opened in 1973.

Besides building sand forts and castles, flying kites, and swimming (or in my case, wading, as the water was pretty cold for this Texas-bred girl), one could go beachcombing (sand dollars were prolific) or for long walks on the traffic-free beach (sometimes as far as Copalis Rock, three miles south).  Digging for razor clams and surf-fishing were popular with some guests.  

Above:  yet another sand fort, this one at either spring break or on one of our three summer visits in 1995.  More of the individual cabins of the resort, including an A-frame, are in the background.

Below:  The offspring in the garden area of the resort, summer 1995.

There was no television, but you could have a fire in the woodstove on a cold night, play board games or work puzzles, read, and watch (and photograph) storms and beautiful sunsets.  One of my favorite memories was waking up in the middle of the night on one visit (probably in the summer of 1995), looking out from the balcony - and seeing bioluminescence in the waves.  The blue-green light emitted by plankton on a new-moon night was mesmerizing - wish my photos of that had come out!

Above and below - sunsets in mid-August, 1994, and sometime in the summer of 1995.

I was sad to learn while researching for this blog post that the Sandpiper closed at the end of 2021.  The property has been sold to a developer who likely will tear down the existing cabins and four-story suite buildings, and put in something far less affordable for average folks.

© Amanda Pape - 2022 - e-mail me!

Treasure Chest Thursday: More Washington Ornaments

Well, it's Epiphany, the Twelfth Day of Christmas, so one last post for this holiday season on the stories behind some of the Christmas tree ornaments in my now-too-big collection.

Aleksandra, a reader of this blog, commented on an earlier post and asked if I had any Texas ornaments.  I used to - a ceramic Christmas-decorated cowboy boot, a salt dough Santa with a cowboy hat, and a couple ornaments in the shape of the state of Texas.  A few years ago, I donated them to a silent auction at my place of work, designed to raise money to buy gifts for an Angel Tree child.  In retrospect, I probably should have saved these to give to the offspring - oh well!

In my efforts to photograph all the ornaments I *do* have (so the offspring can decide what to keep), I came across a couple others with definite connections to places in Washington state.  The first is a Grandpa Frost / Ded Moroz / Father Christmas figure carved out of driftwood and painted.

 

The tag that came with the ornament described it as a "one-of-a-kind souvenir from the Washington Coast.  The ornament has been hand-carved and hand-painted on driftwood gathered from Pacific Beach."  On the reverse, it gives a Pine Tree Cottage, Bellevue, Washington location, and names the artist as Nancy Voyce (and you can see "Nancy V" painted on the back on the white hair below the green cap).

I found a Nancy Voyce living in Bellevue, but there was no information available about her artwork.  As for the Pacific Beach, there is actually a community by that name, and I am pretty sure that is where I bought this.  More specifically, I likely bought it in the gallery/gift shop of the Sandpiper Beach Resort, where I got the next ornament as well.

The decorated sand dollar above has "Sandpiper" written in ink on the back.   I think the sand dollar below is probably also from Sandpiper, but it doesn't say so.  Sand dollars were prolific on the beach next to the resort.

The Sandpiper Beach Resort holds a lot of wonderful memories for me and my offspring.  It was a site for many family vacations in the early 1990s, and was a great spot for swimming (or, in my case, wading - the water was too cold!), building sand forts and castles, flying kites, beachcombing, or just walking on a long stretch of beach where no vehicles were allowed.

© Amanda Pape - 2022 - e-mail me!