Duehren Film
James A. & Gertrude Louise Fetter Burns Family
Ed and Hilda Duerhen occasionally visited the Burns Family on 1449 Studer Ave., Columbus, Ohio. During one of these visits, Ed Duehren filmed a 2 minute and 32 second segment of 8mm, black and white film which includes all the ten Burns children: Louise (Veronica) , Francis, James, Laurene, Leo, John, Rosaire (Alicia), Kathleen, Eileen, Camilla and the parents, James and Gertrude. Two women in dark suits also appear in the film. One is presumably Hilda Duehren and the other is unidentified.
Given the slant of the shadows, the full foliage, screens on the windows and Camilla's gamboling walk, the occasion was probably late in the day toward the end of summer 1939. Since the children's clothing, especially John's and Leo's, was not in disarray, there was possibly a late afternoon event, maybe a Christening (Rosaire's?). The ping-pong table was probably removed from the side of the house where there would have been a shadow at this time of day, to an uncharacteristic position in the front yard to take advantage of the later afternoon sunlight out of the southwest. The filming was a planned event.
If anyone has further information or conjecture, kindly click here to send an e-mail to John Burns.
Alicia (Rosaire) relates that the Duehrens gave the film to her Mother, Gertrude Burns, sometime in the 1970's, and Gertrude gave it to Alicia since Hilda Duehren was her Godmother.
The film has been transferred to a digital format and as a DVD is 170MB. A copy has been distributed to the members of the James A. Burns family. If someone is interested in a hard copy just click here to send an e-mail to John Burns. This is much too large for the Internet but is available below in formats compatible with the Internet, but of course, do not have an image as clear as the DVD.
1) This is the simnplest configuration. A1.4 MB, wmv file type, it should open up in the Windows Media Player or others similar software by clicking on the first option. The same file is has been zipped so that it can be downloaded and installed on your computer to be viewed without connecting to the Internet:
2) This is a 4.6 MB, asf file type and it should open up in the Windows Media Player or others similar software by clicking on the first option. The same file has been zipped so that it can be downloaded and installed on your computer to be viewed without connecting to the Internet:
3) This is a screensaver that will continually play the film. It is a 28 MB download which will install itself after it is downloaded: