Hi everyone,

Not only did our ISP have a break down over the weekend...so did my brain. For those of you who I managed to confuse - yes you did receive 2 Waltons digests #28. Needless to say, the last one should have been #29. Sorry about that. I think I'll leave my message there though, before I have another slip up and go completely mad.....

Goodnight everybody, Karen.

P.S. I have now caught up with some of the Man From Snowy River episodes so if anyone on the list now wants to email me about these, please do so. I know some of the members were special fans of this show. I love it.

From Vince:

I only joined your list recently (I think my first Digest was No. 24) and the info. I receive is very interesting.

My name is Vince and I live in Potters Bar, Hertforshire, UK, a town that is about 3 miles north of London. I'm 29, married to Fiona and have a beautiful 5 month old daughter, Davina.

I have watched 'The Waltons' for as long as I remember, or indeed longer than I care to remember, (seeing as I'm 30 next year! <BG>). They started showing it again 5-6 years ago, then stopped and started again about a year ago. When they re-started they started from the beginning. From memory we are now in Season 3. Two weeks ago Grandpa suffered his first heart-attack (the episode where they moved him to the tent in the garden). From my childhood I remember Grandpa dying but they haven't shown that yet. I hear a lot of people on the list talking about their favorite episode. For me they're all great!

If my television blew up tonight there are only three programs I would really miss: Brookside (Soap Opera based in Liverpool, deals with very good issues), Formula One Coverage (I'm a racing nut!! Can't stand football!) and The Waltons. What makes is such a good program? If I knew this I would be a very rich director!!! I think the simple home life with true to life stories, good old fashioned living. I'm fortunate enough to have an uncle in Ireland who owns a farm. When I was younger and on my holidays there, we would all have fun exploring, and learning at the same time. Television has taken an awful lot of this away from the children of today which is such a shame.

I thought I knew the order of the children but now your list has totally confused me! I always thought it John Boy, Mary Ellen, etc etc.

There was another query on why Grandma didn't appreciate Ben and Toni getting engaged because Toni was Jewish. You have to remember that this program is based from the 1930's and then it was considered wrong to marry outside your religion. This is still the case in certain countries in the '90's. This is all I'm saying on the subject and personally believe religion and politics should never be discussed on Forums! Arguments always tend to follow....

Anyway it's great to know there are so many Waltons fans out there, my mates always laugh at me when I tell them it's a great program. The Waltons is still being shown TWENTY FOUR years after it was first made. This fact speaks for itself!

I never even knew there was a museum until I found out on the Internet, and if I am ever fortunate enough to visit USA this will be on my list of things to visit.

KAREN'S COMMENT: Nice to hear from you Vince. Check out the last Digest (#28 which is really an alias for #29!!) to find out the order of the children as Earl Hamner meant them to be.

From Brenda:

Hi Everyone, Greetings from West Virginia where the temperature is 101 degrees. I have been working on updating my home page. I have a few pictures of the museum in Schuyler which I plan to put on a web page as soon as I have time. I'll let all of you know when I get it done.

To Marca: I really don't know anything about the research that went into the One-Room School Project. I went there as part of a school group studying West Virginia history. I took some pictures and decided to put them on a web page. Visiting the one-room school was an excellent 'hands-on' way for children to learn about that one aspect of history. It is also very interesting to see that little school building which is located on the campus of a modern university. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

To Arthur: I have seen your pages and really enjoyed your articles. I am fascinated by the fact that people all over the world are interested in The Waltons. One of the things I love about this mailing list is all the new friends I am meeting.

Homepage: http://webpages.marshall.edu/~irby2/brenda.htmlx

KAREN'S COMMENT: I visited your page a few weeks back Brenda, and really enjoyed it. I also appreciated the link to my page. Thank you.

From Joe:

In your last letter you mentioned the dedication ceremony of the Waltons Mountain Museum. I went to the dedication and was very surprised by the amount of people that attended. It was a beautiful sunny day in Schyler. Cars were lined up all along the main road. We parked just beyond "Ikes" store and walked to the old school house.

I can vividly remember Earl H. speaking. His voice was as enchanting as ever. Richard Thomas was not present, I recall. Many of the other cast members were there. Some spoke and others did not. The cast members seemed very much like family members attending a family reunion and we (the general public) seemed to be intruding somehow on a private moment. The same feeling you get when you watch the show.

The town of Schyler is very small. You may already have known this, but I will tell it anyway. The "home place" on TV is very different than in real life. As you look at the house Earl grew up in, it sits on a small hill and directly to the left of his house, is another house of the same era. The houses are about 50 feet apart. The main street runs along the side of the house (looking at the front of the house, the road is to the right). The school is also to the right of the home place, directly across the road. The church is down the hill and to the right, and about 200 meters away. Ike's store is behind the house about 300 meters. There are a number of homes in close proximity to the house as well. The TV version is a much more relaxed setting. However, Schyler is very much a good representation of a small American community.

KAREN'S COMMENT: How exciting to have been there. Incidentally Joe (Ike) Conley will be a the Waltons Mountain Museum on the weekend of September 27-28 according to my newsletter. During the afternoons. Perhaps some of you will visit then.

From Alison:

Leslie Winston: I also really liked Cindy. To me she is as much a Walton as anybody else.

Does anybody know if she ever appeared in anything else?

Order of the Waltons children: Many, many thanks. This is the order I thought must be correct. I'm glad I asked. I'm on holiday this week and I aim to watch a few old episodes in the afternoons so I'm going to dig out the one where Erin meets Paul. I know she says in that one where she is in the family. i.e. 4th of 7 or 5^th of 7.

I really liked the episode where Toni discovered her "Jewish" roots. My grandmother had ( she died in 1930) a Jewish background and it was something that my aunt always felt she had to cover up. Even in my own immediate family we were told not to mention it until we really knew the people we were telling. My father felt that people could be very prejudiced towards Jews (in London there had been problems in the East End). This episode really made me think about what is "Jewish". i.e. genes versus following a religion. My grandmother died when my Dad was three and she did not follow the faith. I grew up in England where there is only a very small Jewish population ( especially out of big cities), so there was absolutely no "influence" in my young life.

If I can feel this, for Toni just after the War, in a country with a larger Jewish population and having had parents who did follow the faith to some extent it must have been a much stronger desire to know about her roots and why she was classed as a "Jew" / exactly what is a Jew ....... I'm not certain if I have explained very well. On one hand your are told you are of a "race" ( or in my case partly of a race) but on the other hand other religions are not classed as a "race" in the same way.

Arthur's Updates: I love Arthur's updates Just the info a Waltons fan needs. I wish he could get the 1992 & 1995 specials onto terrestrial TV though. Satellite TV in the UK is very expensive and mostly it is rubbish. Dedicated Waltons Fan that I am I can not justify paying out all that money just to get the latest Waltons. Was there actually a series set in the 1960s, or just the 1992 and 1995 special. I love to know what happened to all the Waltons. I'm sure a new series could happen because they could, and should, include characters like Jonsey, Cindy and Toni. I liked all three of these.

KAREN'S COMMENT: Hi Alison. The latest specials have all been set during the 1960's...to date that makes three telemovie specials. The latest one, A Walton Easter, was set in 1969 with the man walking on the moon. Keep an eye open, they might just air there one day.

From Larissa:

My name is Larissa Spiker and I just joined the mailing-list. I grew up in Portsmouth, VA (which is in the southeast corner) and went to college at the University of Virginia (just left the area last year!). Charlottesville and the surrounding area is absolutely beautiful and worth the trip! I have been to the Walton's Mountain Museum and suspect that I used to see Kami Cotler in the grocery store often. Unfortunately I didn't know she was living there at the time and never got up the nerve to ask if it was her!

Jefferson County: I suspect that Jefferson County may have come from Thomas Jefferson. Our third President (of the US) was born and died at Monticello, his house on the hill that overlooks Charlottesville. Schuyler is only located a few miles south.

Earl's Accent: As for the accents, that is a honest-to-goodness "Virginia" accent. It is found mainly in people who lived near the mountains (in the east where I grew up, people have a mixture of "Virginia" and "Southern" accents. You'll find that accent mainly in people who grew up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge. In fact, one of my astronomy profs at UVa had it!

KAREN'S COMMENT: Thanks for your reply Larissa. It's good to have someone living in the area to answer questions like these. We now have a couple of members who live in the "Waltons" area.

From Arthur:

I've been reading the first 10 Digests you've so kindly put on the Web, and was intrigued by some of the comments about inconsistencies in the "time line" as well as other things. I wonder if anyone has spotted the following? ----

In The Awakening (Season 2) the ending narration is - "Mary Ellen's new found maturity was with her one day then gone the next; in time it was to come to stay. Today she lives in Richmond, Virginia, the wife of a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and the mother of two sons. We see each other when we can, and our talk is apt to return to those days during the Depression which these many years later still seem filled with wonder".

That of course went quite well as the series was first shown, but looking back, one can see that later episodes (not, at this time, written) show that Mary Ellen marries a doctor (Curtis Willard), and later a vet (Jonesy).......!!!! Interesting!

However I have to agree with a comment made in one of the earlier Digests, that things like this do not (at least for me) detract from the special quality of The Waltons. Nevertheless, has anyone else, I wonder, any other inconsistencies to share with us?

KAREN'S COMMENT: Interesting point Arthur, and one I hadn't noticed before.

From Beth:

Visiting and staying at "Waltons Mountain": Hi Steve and Tracie! Sorry I haven't written sooner in answer to your question about where to stay, etc., but I've been out of town for several days and not near a computer. I went to see my parents who live in Nelson County (where I grew up) near the Waltons Mountain Museum. While I was there my Dad and I went to the Nelson Co. tourist information building and got you some brochures and papers showing what there is to do in and around Schuyler, where you might want to stay and where you might want to eat. I have heard wonderful things about the restaurant right next to the museum and I think the prices are very reasonable too. The Lovingston Cafe has wonderful food, but it is a little pricey for seven and there is a bit of a wait because they prepare everything as you order it and the children might get bored (mine do!). If you would like me to mail the info to you, e-mail me privately and include your mailing address and I will be happy to mail them to you right away. I am sure you'll receive them before you leave and things don't get very booked up in Nelson Co. unless things have changed drastically since I lived there! Of course that doesn't include Wintergreen resort, but that would probably be expensive too. Anyway, let me know as soon as you can and I'll mail them out!

KAREN'S COMMENT: Thanks for the hints Beth.