Hi there Waltons family members,

Finally our summer holidays are here and I have finished school for the year. I now have six weeks break which will be lovely. As you know, the boys finished school early in December, and Rod will be starting his holidays on Christmas Eve. Time to relax.

Things are looking very Christmassy over here now with decorations all over the shopping centres and many of them have choirs singing carols which is nice while you are shopping. Of course, most of the stores have carols playing over speakers too. Santa also roams around and it's nice to hear the little ones getting so excited about seeing him.

I haven't heard yet what our weather will be like on Christmas Day. It could be anything down here...we have had scorching hot, freezing cold, or absolutely pouring. It might even be all three as Melbourne is the capital city which is known around Australia as being the one to have four seasons in one day!

Just about all of my Christmas shopping has been done too, which is a relief. I had thought that I wouldn't get it all done. Christmas cards have been written and sent and others are coming in.

Really all I have to do now, is to wish each and every one of our Waltons group a very merry Christmas. I hope that you are all able to spend Christmas time with your family and have a very happy day. Who knows? Maybe the Family channel will show one of the Waltons Christmas shows, or perhaps you could go to the very beginning and watch The Homecoming, which is such a lovely Christmas movie. Although the television stations are not showing The Waltons for me, they have obliged with another of my favourite Christmas movies with Richard Thomas, "Yes Virginia, There in a Santa Claus". The other one I really like of his was "The Christmas Box". It is a lovely Christmas movie to enjoy with the family.

All the best and I'll talk to you all again soon,

Karen.

Hi, Walton Fans!

I collect videos of Betty White TV appearances, and I recently acquired a 1976 episode of the game show "Tattletales". It has Jon Walmsley and Lisa Harrison appearing together on this "couples" show. I was wondering if this off-screen romance continued, or if the onscreen romance was the only one to survive. It would be great to find out that they weren't acting when they played Jason and Toni.
Thanks,

Heather :)

KAREN'S COMMENT: Hi Heather. What a find for you. I am happy to say that Jon and Lisa did marry, and have one daughter. I'm not sure if there's more children an the last I heard they were still together. I wonder if they were together before Lisa won the role as Toni.

Karen:

To answer Lee's questions, the stain glass window was from a house in town that John and Zeb were contracted to tear down. It just happened that the house held significant importance to Grandma because it was this house that she meet Zeb (at a dance I believe).
Joe Watson

KAREN'S COMMENT: Thank you Joe, you're quite correct. What a lovely momento for Zeb to give Esther, especially since she thought that he had forgotten all about their meeting.

Hi there Karen,

Many, many thanks for all the digests. It is real service. I have Sunday mornings with the Walton's, first your digest and second the program on the TV. I too have bought "Day for Thanks" via the Internet. I used the "Internet Movie Database" and then clicked "To Purchase". That lead me to the shop which I believe was called CD World. I've also bought videos from Amazon ( www.amazon). The only problem I have ever encountered is that some British people buying videos without realise that the formats used around the World are not the same. The USA / Canada uses NTSC format, the British ( and I believe in Oz and NZ as well) and Europe ( except France) use Pal format. In the UK it is easy to get a VCR which can deal with NTSC very well (mine does) but the older and / or cheaper VCRs can not play an NTSC tape.

My brother has just emigrated to Adelaide so I've been hearing a lot about Australia recently. He keeps complaining about the heat which is strange as we are just in for our second bout of snow ! He is quite cross as he likes snow, last year we only had a little but this year looks more promising. I so hope we actually get a white Xmas. That'll teach him.

I saw a "new" episode of the Waltons last week. I don't recall it from watching the series earlier. A relative of Olivia's comes to stay. She is a little older than John-Boy and is recently married. She is called Olivia and her husband was Bob. All through this episode there are flashbacks to her wedding, courtship. It appears she was married from the Walton home.

Does anyone remember this episode ? The one with the wedding, as that also passed me by. This is the third time the whole Walton's series has been shown on British TV. The first time I was only a child but I am curious as it seems strange that I have missed both episodes three times.

Another question. The Waltons always seem keen to have visitors. If it is a female guest she gets to stay in John-Boy's room while he "bunks down" in the barn. If it is a male visitor he gets the barn. Now, I'm no geography expert but surely the barn would be too cold in the winter in Virginia ? I have a small barn on the side of my house and there is no way you could spend the night in it tonight. It would literally be freezing inside. I think that Virginia is likely to be colder than England ? They seem to have a lot of white Xmases, and I know most of the East Coast is cold but I'm not sure how far South the extremely cold winters descend to.

I so hoped that British TV was going to be very kind to me (and Arthur) and show the 1982 Walton's films again, with the latest ones set in the 1960s. However I have just scoured my TV listings magazine ( the Radio Times) for Xmas viewing and alas nothing :-((((((( I'm not sure why one of our channels won't buy these as the Sunday morning showings of the original series are popular. Doesn't make sense to me.

Anyway, have a lovely Xmas all

Best Wishes Alison

KAREN'S COMMENT: The same applies to videos in Australia Alison. I'm also lucky because ours will cope with NTSC. About the heat in Adelaide...we get Adelaide weather a day or two after them and if he's complaining now, wait until he's lived through several days of heat wave in a row. It can go on into January, February AND March sometimes.

The episode with Olivia and Bob you are referring to is "The Shivaree". They get married at the Waltons home and Bob, being from the city, becomes very annoyed by some of the "back woods" customs.

I can't suggest how the men folk survived the cold in the barn. Perhaps they snuggled the animals! One would imagine that it would have got very cold during winter. Perhaps the men only visited during summer. I mentioned some time ago that I thought it was funny that snow was shown in only a few episodes. Most of the episodes seem to show fairly mild weather.

Thank you very much for putting up a page on the Waltons. It has always been one of my favorite shows and I now very much enjoy watching it on television with my two children. I have a special interest in the show as I recall watching the premier of "The Homcoming" as a child after much anticipation. We had heard that a show about our "family" was going to be on TV. Although I am not sure of my connection to Earl Hamner, I am a Hamner, decended from the Hamners of Virginia. My Great Grandfather was born near Charlottesville as were many of his ancestors. After the Civil War he moved to Missouri.

Please keep up the good work on your web site. I enjoyed very much the information you presented. Do you have any other information about the Baldwin sisters characters ??? I thought I remembered from one episode that one of the sisters had the middle name of Wingfield. As I am also a descendant of that family I always was curious as to who the characters were really based on.

I don't know if you can watch the Family Channel in Australia or not, but they have been presenting every episode in order this fall. They are up to midway through the 2nd Season. I have taped most of the episodes for my kids and if you cannot watch it I will try to provide any missing information to you for you episode guide. Thank You again for such a wonderful site, please continue it.

Kevin Hamner Dickson

KAREN'S COMMENT: Hi Kevin, and welcome to the Waltons family. :-) I hope you don't mind that I've published your letter here. I've been rather swamped with things, and also thought it would be of interest to other members.

Fancy you having Hamners and Baldwins in you family tree. I'm not sure about the name of Wingfield, but perhaps one of our other members might know something. It would be interesting for our members to write what they do know about the Baldwin family. I think the only thing we have really commented on is all of the cousins they had.

Hi Karen:
I have been watching the reruns of the Waltons on the Family Channel on cable TV here in the states. The Family Channel is running the series in order, however, every once in awhile they throw in a newer episode and I'm needing to know two things:

1) Who is Rose, Jeffrey, and Selena? How are they related to the Waltons?
2) How is Corabeth Godsey related to John Walton?

I hope you can help me answer these questions. Thanks so much!

Happy Holidays,

Jeannine Peregrine

KAREN'S COMMENT: Hi Jeannine. In answer to your questions, Rose is the grandmother of Jeffrey and Selena. The family came to stay with the Waltons when Olivia went into the Sanitorium for treatment of TB. I'm just trying to recall the relationship between Rose and the family. Perhaps cousins? I'm not quite sure.

CoraBeth is a cousin of John Walton. She comes to visit for an episode and falls in love with Ike, and they marry.