Kemp Home Movies 1926 to 1940

Frank - Oscar - Monroe - Clare - Genevieve - Caroline - Willard - Paul - Imogene - Mimi - Jack

The O.P.Kemp family was a big one!  And one of my goals has been to track down the living descendants of O.P. and Elva's eleven children and find some way to connect us all together.  Paul and I have heard from Lauragene Swenson and her son, Eric Swenson.  Lauragene is Imogene's daughter.  Eric is interested in family history and his office is close to my house, so we're going to get together and talk about all things genealogical.  Also, Paul and I have been in contact with Dennis Schwartz who has put together, with the help of genealogically-zealous friends, a lot of research on the family line.  Dennis is the son of Bob Schwartz who was the son of Genevieve Kemp.

We're also in touch with Dan Kemp who is the son of Jim and Grace Kemp.  Jim was Oscar's son.  Dan lives in Huntington Beach.

I also found (thank you, facebook!) the great-granddaughter of Caroline.  Her name is Jennifer McPhail Roloff and she lives near Portland, OR.  Her grandfather was Kemp McPhail, the older brother of Doug McPhail (from "Babes in Arms").

And I'm going to be talking with Pat Boone (daughter of Willard, if you remember) to get some of the names and addresses she has for Monroe's descendants.

I sent a link to the old home movies of the O.P.Kemp family to all of the above, plus Lorri Clarke and Carolyn Shepardson, and since I couldn't stop watching it over and over again myself, I thought that you all would enjoy seeing it again too.  What a treasure!!!

[NOTE: you can click on the "arrows" button next to the "vimeo" name at the bottom to make the image full screen.]

Happy New Year and much love and joy to all Kemps everywhere....  -Anne

Kemp Family 16mm Archival Home Movies From 1925 to 1940s from Robert Hummel on Vimeo.

He plays the violin...

Uncle Paul, upon watching video of Maddie Kemp's violin practice, recounted his own experiences with playing the violin.  Paul Jr.'s love of the violin and of classical music, inspired all three of his brothers in their life-long love of music. 

Maddie and friends in concert (Maddie - center)

Here is Paul Jr.'s email, to which I've added some photos and background info as well.


From Paul Jr.:

Jon, 
That is really cute!  Now Maddie and I have the violin in common. She doesn't realize her great uncle is a virtuoso :-)

Paul Jr. - budding virtuoso

It's a tough instrument and the only way you can make nice music with it is with practice...... and more practice.  And that's where most kids turn off through boredom or fun distractions. My mom had trouble getting me to practice but I loved playing.

I had three teachers in the '30's. My second teacher was a pro lady way up in Laurel Canyon. Her name was Eunice Boyd and she was pretty well known for her musical events all around So. Cal.

How Mom and Dad ever could afford the lessons from her during the Great Depression I'll never understand.

We had to climb about 60 or 70 steps up this steep front stairway and into this dark menacing spooky old house with a big coat of armor standing in the corner of the living room. To a 6 or 7 year old kid it was really old and dusty and spooky in there.  And of course she verbally beat me up something fierce. She was one tough cookie.

We played in several different venues around So. Cal. and my proud parents would drive me miles and miles to Redlands, etc. where we played Eine Kleine Nacht Musik and Symphonie Espagnol, etc. Please don't be too impressed because I never played anything but 3rd or 4th violin, the simpler parts.

But I became infatuated with our beautiful solo violinist Eloise Roessler whose career I followed for quite a while. Gosh, was she pretty to my very young eyes.

From the Long Beach Pacific Union Recorder - November 1938

I changed to another teacher in the late 30's and the only thing of note there was that I became buddies with another pupil of his named Herbie Flam who became a world famous tennis player.

He and I got along great and played in a couple of concerts together and then went our separate ways, he to Beverly Hills High and me to Hollywood High.

And out of this, like with you, came a life-long attachment to classical music and opera that was one of the really huge gifts my parents gave me.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some background on Herbie Flam:  

Between 1951 and 1957, Herb Flam was ranked in the World's Top Ten four times.

His highest position was #5 in the world in 1957 (World Tennis Magazine). 

Flam was listed in the United States' Top Ten from 1948 to 1958 (except 1953-54, when he served in the U.S. Navy). 

He was ranked #2 in the U.S. in 1950 (behind Jack Kramer), 1956 and 1958 (behind Pancho Gonzales).  

Herbie Flam - Davis Cup 1951 - Life Magazine

An interesting tid-bit about Eloise Roessler from the October 13, 1938 Mar-Ken Journal:

"Eloise Roessler was given the most beautiful Stradivarius violin in the world recently by Countess de Zaruba.  It is valued at forty-thousand dollars.  The violin has been in the Countess' family for over two hundred years, and is in perfect condition.  It was made in 1723 at the height of Stradivarius' career.  There are very few left in the world today... The Countess met Eloise and learned of the hours she had spent in practice, and that she was devoting her life to the playing of the violin.  Therefore she knew that Eloise would appreciate it more than any other in the United States.  Eloise goes to Mills College every summer with her teacher, Eunice Boyd.  Madame Boyd has taught Eloise for ten years now, and is going to take her to New York in June for concerts."

Frances Pope Kemp Sentinel article - January 23, 1954

Rob was surfing the internet and googled Frances Pope Kemp.  He found a link to a Christian Science Sentinel article she wrote, published in 1954.

I don't remember reading it before, but she writes about a lovely healing she had, and how she drew inspiration from a passage in Isaiah.

To read it, you can click on the link below.

Enjoy!

CLICK HERE for a link to the article.

TPK circa early 1950's

Here are some great photos of dad, taken in the early 50's.  The first four photos were taken by Paul Jr. with his new Argus C3 camera he received for his 21st birthday.  Several of the photos were taken by mom.  I love these...

TPK second from right

TPK second from right

Campaign 1996!

After the election of '96, I made an album for my dad of some of the photos I'd taken, along with some obscure topical inside jokes that I've mostly long since forgotten.  I have the original photos in storage, but I scanned the album.  The photo quality is not great and my photo editing skills even less so, but it's still great to see what an amazing experience that was.

The simplest way to see them is to click on the first photo below and it will take you to a new window.  If you then click on the photo in the new window, it will move to the next one.

[If you want to be able to zoom on an individual photo, you can go to the picasa site directly.  There you can click on the photo, then click on the magnifying glass, then on the + sign (sorry it's not as simple as I'd like...).   Click here to go to the picasa site.]


Enjoy!!!  Click on the photo below to start... and then continue to click on the enlarged photos to continue.  Click on the black border to return.