Dear Waltons Fans,

I hope you are all enjoying your summer over on the other side of the world. It has been quite cold here lately, especially overnight and early in the mornings. Many nights we have had very heavy fogs too. It hasn't rained much though. I have spent this afternoon with James (14 year old son) in the kitchen baking lots of lovely goodies. The whole place is smelling really nice and cosy now with the heaters going, the stove heating the kitchen and biscuits and cakes baking. A lot of the country places over here have old wood fired ovens and they are terrific to cook with and to heat the place with. I would really love to have one but in the suburbs its not really practical, and to buy wood is very expensive. Speaking of not having any rain too, a lot of places in the country only have tank water as their water supply, and with there being so little rain this year, many of them are having to buy water to fill their tanks with. A lot of the farmers are also buying feed for their animals too, because the paddocks are so dry.

I was a bit late getting this out to you all, mainly because I was waiting to see if any more letters came in for me to include. They didn't so we have a smallish digest this time, but still filled with some great Waltons news! Perhaps we will have some firm news about the next Waltons movie special soon. I hope so. During the week I heard that Little House on the Prairie was actually headed for a big screen reunion. I wonder if this will be the way reunion shows go. It will be interesting to see how it is written/produced etc.

Just one other thing before I move on to your letters. I'm not sure whether it was last Sunday or the Sunday before that it was Father's Day in the USA. My apologies to all of you on the list who are Dads, and I hope you all had a lovely day and were able to celebrate with your families. It's good to see that fathers have become much more active in bringing up their children as time passes. Now the reason that I didn't wish you a Happy Father's Day was because ours is in September, not June! Isn't it silly? We all have Mother's Day on the same date, but not Father's Day. What happens in other countries I wonder?

All the best, Karen.

From Kim:

My name is Kim, I live in Belgium and I'm a new member to this list. And of course, I'm a big Walton fan. What kind of subjects do you talk about on this list? And how many members are there? I understand the list comes twice a week? Does it always come on the same days? So far, I've only received one message. I can see the Waltons on Dutch television here twice a week. We are currently at season five. I saw Mary-Ellen's wedding yesterday. My favorite characters are John-Boy and Ben. But I like all of them of course.

Has anyone who lives in America ever visited the Walton house? What was it like? I wish I could visit it one day but it's not that easy when you live so far away. What season are they showing on American television currently?

KAREN'S COMMENT: Hi Kim and welcome to the list. Generally the digest comes out twice each week, but some weeks are slower mail-wise than others, so you might only get one. It might also have been a really busy week for me too. No, they don't tend to be sent on the same days, just as I get around to them. I try to send them Sunday evening or Monday morning and sometime around Wednesday or Thursday (Australia time).

We have roughly 65 members with people still joining up, and we talk about anything to do with the show, the actors, anything "Waltons" or if things are slow I might bore you all with the weather over here. :-)) Contribute whatever you like!

Lots of people in the USA have visited the Waltons Museum and might write to the list to tell you about it. You can also visit via the Internet by going to the following URL which somebody found. I intend adding it as a link from my page as I thought it was really good. http://xroads.virginia.edu/~VAM/Walton/exhibits.html

From Shirley:

Genealogy of Hamner Family: Here is the URL for the genealogy index:

http://www.gendex.com/gendex/

I was able to find a bit on the Ingalls family too. There was also some of my ancestors in the index too. My 2nd great grandmother's name was Esther and I had a great grandmother who's name was Olivia. I have been at work on my family history for over twenty years now. Most of my ancestors came from England, Scotland, Ireland and France. Some of them did first came to the US before landing in parts of Nova Scotia.

From Shirley:

I just received some interesting news, that Earl Hamner is hoping to add the Godsey's and the Walton grandchildren to the next Walton Special. Due to budget costs, the Godsey's didn't appear in the Easter Special.

KAREN'S COMMENT: I hope that this does happen because I think it will help to "round out" the movies more. I, for one, would love to see how Ike and Corabeth are doing, and of course what Aimee is up to. It would also be nice to sort out who each of the grandchildren are and who they belong to, although I think someone on Ralph's forum had a fair idea of who they all were.