Hinkle family home movie collection

Contextual information regarding the circumstances in which this home movie was filmed, provided by Ardis Savory at the time of donation:

"This 16mm color film was made in the summer of 1944 when the Walter Clarence Hinkle family (Walter, Vera and Ardis), on a trip from Alfred, New York to Kansas and Colorado, stopped in Maywood, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, to visit the Clifford Nelson Hinkle family (Clifford, Ura, Charles, Marjorie, James, Carolyn, Robert and Ruth).

This was during the Second World War when my mother (Vera) and I usually made this journey by train each summer to visit relatives because gasoline was rationed, and we were unable to save enough ration stamps to have sufficient fuel for the trip. I remember that a good part of the two-day train trips was spent sitting on our suitcases in the aisle because the coach was filled to overflowing with troops.

Both my Uncle Clifford and my father (Walter) were engineers (Kansas State University). Clifford worked for Standard Oil of Illinois and later became VP for the company. My father taught engineering at Alfred State College and during the war he could seldom make the trip with us because every Friday afternoon he took the over-night train to New York City where he served as a war-time consultant to the Brooklyn Naval Yards. He would return to the college early Monday morning just in time to teach the "Ninety-Day Wonders." He later became President of Alfred State College, part of the SUNY system of New York.

The trip in 1944 was a special occasion because it was the only time during the war we had enough gasoline to drive. The man in the suspenders is my father (Walter) and the woman with the white flowers in her hair is my mother (Vera)."

Ardis Hinkle Savory. December 17, 2013.