New photo of Jack and Dorothy and Spongbergs

My friend, Pam Davis, loaned me this photo of Jack (front right), Dorothy (center back), Connie and Art Spongberg (back left), Barney and Ethel Noyes (at right, inbetween Dorothy and Jack), and Gordon and Melissa Funk (front left).  The photo is labeled, "Homecoming Party after WWII, Beverly Hills Hotel."  

Pam's parents are Ethel and Barney Noyes (in the photo), one of whom was related in some way to Dorothy, and they were also long-time friends of the Spongbergs.  On a side note, Pam's husband, Craig, worked for dad at Coke.  

I just loved this photo and thought the Thomasville group would enjoy it as well.  You can click on it to enlarge.

graduations (assorted)

Emily here, reporting from our great Federal City, Washington DC.

So I'm not sure if everyone has heard, but I'm going to be joining Jacqui Kemp at American University this Fall. She has two years left, and my program (MA, Public History) is two years, so this is letting everyone know now that not one but two members of the extended Kemp family will be graduating May of 2010 in DC.  Also, Amanda Donahue will be graduating from the University of San Francisco in 2010 as well!  

It will be a busy, busy month -- make your plans now-- though I ask that your priorities be the undergraduate graduations! 

In the closer future (approx. 2 weeks), sister Claire & cousins Thomas & Patrick Donahue are all graduating this year, Claire from the Rhode Island School of Design, Thomas from University High, headed to Orange Coast College, and Patrick from Chapman University.  That's just on the Tom Kemp side.  Branching out, we've got Jennifer Nolan graduating from Holy Child, headed for Wake Forest (I think).  Phew!

It has become clear that because of this, perhaps, I might possibly be a grown-up, as I am officially in complete shock that everyone is already graduating.  Wasn't I just in college two seconds ago?  (Answer: Not really, no.)

Congrats to all of our graduates this year -- I'm so excited for you!  

p.s. congrats to Andy Kemp too, who's graduating from 5th grade and off to jr. high! :) 

Jack's been opining again....

Jack wrote a great article for the Wall St. Journal on April 17th.  Here's the link.

Click here for link to "Obama and Economic Opportunity."

Final Four

Well the UCLA, North Carolina matchup we were all hoping for never happened on the basketball court, but Pat, Thomas, and Terry got to meet up with Lee for a great 2 hour lunch filled with laughs. The final game was unbelievable and lucky Thomas got the trip of a lifetime.

Jack becomes an institution...

I'm not sure I quite realized what's been going on at Pepperdine, but Jon just sent me the link to the new Jack F. Kemp Institute for Political Economy at the Pepperdine School of Public Policy. (That's JFKIPEPSPP for those of you with a fondness for acronyms....) I'm thrilled to hear about it, and am looking forward to hearing more, but for now, I'll post the link so you can explore it on your own. Congratulations, Jack! (click on photo to enlarge)

Click here for link to Jack F. Kemp Institute for Political Economy at Pepperdine University.

fun with ice cream

after a long delay, I finally have posted some new photos and a fun video on our blog.

easter at the kemps!

So it was a veritable mini-family reunion, as we had representatives of 3 / 4 of the branches of the Kemp clan at Jimmy & Susan Kemp's house this past Sunday for Easter.  Jacqui Kemp, Claire & I headed over to dinner with Jimmy, Susan, the 4 boys, Jack & Joanne.  

It was wonderful!  We got a tour of the playroom (which, incidentally, we are all jealous of), played with some Lego and Brio, and headed outside, armed with bubbles, mini basketballs, and some baseball equipment.

Here's Jacqui & Tommy:

Here's Claire pitching to the intrepid batsman...action shot!

Meanwhile, Susan showed Marco & Jonah how to make resurrection rolls -- marshmallows (Jesus) dipped in butter (anointing oil) then cinnamon-sugar (spices) then wrapped in roll-dough (tomb), which, when baked, the marshmallow disappears!   It was fun to watch, and the rolls disappeared just as quickly as the marshmallows!

Dinner itself was delicious too, and after-dinner consisted of watching Tommy look incredibly pleased with himself while he sat on the couch, and Jacqui's announcement that she was interning at the DNC!  

Shock, horror! -- only kidding, of course.  It sounds fantastic!  We're excited too, since she's seeing everything from the inside during an election year.   

All in all, lots of fun, especially since we had 2 Hummels for the price of 1 -- Claire being in town for her spring break! 

Hope everyone else had a lovely Easter & hope to see you soon!

give us a half-hour in your town...

So Mom and I are in San Francisco for the (extended) week-end. I have a wedding (not mine, don't worry) to attend, and since I would be in the same state, Mom decided to drive up. Hooray!

Since we are in the city where the lovely Amanda resides, we were set to visit her. Of course, this is the day she is leaving, and had a half-hour between her last class and catching a bus to the airport... In the spirit of Tom Kemp, who, I believe would make an effort to visit one were he in the same time zone, we attempted some kind of rendezvous. Again: half-hour.

After managing 2 separate bus routes, we were slightly waylaid by a man on the street who saw us admiring a Victorian home and invited us to come inside and look at the renovation he had recently completed (no, really). After almost making an offer, we got a phone call from Amanda and managed to meet up on campus!

Not to be deterred, we decided to milk all the time that we had, and proceeded to walk her to the bus stop, and realized that it was the same route we needed to get back to our hotel! A mildly harrowing bus ride followed (see below!) but resulted in us reaching our destination, which was occasion for the photograph to the right.


We then sent her on her way -- and retreated to the hotel: success!

Earlier, too, we had stopped at the monument to Cervantes in Golden Gate Park, which we thought was a fitting tribute to Gramps. Here's me with my arm around Sancho Panza & Don Quixote.

To dream the impossible dream...

Judith wins the Rob Hummel Christmas Collection award!

Judith Nolan has officially won the "Rob Hummel Christmas Collection Award," given annually to whoever listens to all or part of the Rob Hummel Christmas Collection for the longest period of time.  Since Judith is still listening as of March 4th, she is the clear champ.  I'm not sure what the prize is.  I'll leave that up to Rob.  Maybe it's first dibs on Volume 8...

Congratulations, Judith!  

From New York City to Santa Monica....

Jake Boritt came to Santa Monica to do some work on the dvd of "From Budapest to Gettysburg" so some of us gathered at El Cholo in Santa Monica for some mighty yummy enchiladas.  We got to hear updates on the film's progress and Jake got to hear suggestions for raising more funding and for getting into the Academy race.  We also learned about Jon's new job and what it's like working in a sea of Democrats.  Maddie worked on her ballet sticker book, and Thomas slept, while Gina and I got caught up.  Next time we'll make sure Matt Kemp has the correct schedule of events - we missed you, Matt!  

This was our first time meeting Thomas and he is perfection...  See for yourself.

(click on photos to enlarge.)

Lovebirds...

Rob has been editing the old 16 mm home movies we found in dad's attic, trying to figure out what goes before or after what.  Not an easy task!  I'm going through and printing out some stills, so that I can begin the process of putting names to faces.  There are so many wonderful moments in it all, but some of my favorites are of Paul and Frances as newly in love.  I'm putting three movie stills up on the Thomasville blog so you all can enjoy them as we have!   Notice that Paul doesn't have a wedding ring on.  We think we see that Frances may have an engagement ring on.  That would date the movie footage to around 1926, which is definitely some of the earliest 16 mm home movies ever shot, since that's just a year or two after Kodak first started making that type of film available to the consumer.  Wow!

Christmas in Laguna 2007

The Tom Kemp Sr kids and grandkids were (miraculously!) all together on a gorgeous Christmas day. Had a rousing game of Apples to Apples, a wonderful dinner, and enjoyed opening presents in the shade of our new artificial Christmas tree. Does it get any better than that? (Click on photo to enlarge.)

PRK Sr. Album B now available for your viewing pleasure

A future Congressman and HUD Secretary?

This is the last of the three PRK Sr photo albums has been scanned and uploaded.  It's a short one and seems to take place in the mid-30's or so.  It includes ice cream cones, puppies, Mickey Mouse balloons, helmets, neighborhood kids with a toy rifle, and a rather severe unidentifiable woman (at least to me) with a fur collared coat.  The baby in the stroller, chair, and crib is Jack.  Some of these you've seen before, but some you haven't.  Enjoy!  (And don't forget to see the final scans from Album AA mentioned my post from yesterday.) 

Click here for the link to PRK Sr Album B.

More photos from the PRK Sr album AA

I've added about 100 photos to the PRK Sr photo album AA.  They're in the same order as in the album, and they are definitely pre-Frances (i.e. there are plenty of PRK Sr girlfriends).  Lots of people I don't recognize so I'd love to know if anyone can identify some of these folks.  But, again, the photos are really fun.  I think that's PRK Sr dressed as a chinaman with his girlfriend...  My favorite is Elva in the car with the grandkids sitting on the running board.   

The new photos start about halfway through the AA album.  You can see that I've started to take out the sepia tones in the later photos, as I think it makes them easier to see.

Click here to link to PRK Sr. Album AA.

A new PRK Sr. album!

I've begun to scan another Paul R. Kemp Sr. album. It appears to be older than the previous album. I'm not sure who everyone is, but there are some amazing photos. I would love it if anyone wants to add comments to the individual pictures (within Picasa Web Albums). I've included all the photos in order. I think it starts off with lots of shots of one of his girlfriends. And it ends with some truly wonderful pictures of PRK Sr. in his Navy uniform goofing around with his friends. With plenty of great clothes and hats in between. I love seeing Elva with sunglasses! At least three of the photos are studio photos in front of a background. See if you can figure out which are "fake" (one is pretty obvious!).

Here's the link to the new photos: Click here for PRK Sr. Album "AA" only

Ready for comments!

In order to help document the who, what, where, why of the scanned photos, it would be great if any of you would like to add comments. You need a (free) Picasa Web account which is easy to sign up for by providing a login email address and password. Then when you're looking at a photo, click in the "Add a comment" box and... well... add a comment. The comments can't be edited, but you can delete yours and re-do it if you need to change something. Paul has already begun adding his comments. Thanks, Paul! I will add more scanned photos as soon as I get back from Providence and Alexandria. -Anne

Paul R. Kemp Sr. Photo Album - now complete

The entire Paul R Kemp Sr Photo Album "A" is now scanned and uploaded. There are 165 photos in that album. The photos I added today will be at the end (since I want to keep them in the right order). There are two more albums that will be scanned later.

Here's the link: Click here for PRK Sr. Album "A" only

Hope it's clear that there are now THREE DIFFERENT PHOTO LINKS, so be sure to follow them all. The first, "Kemp Family Photo Scans," is the eclectic batch of loose photos that were all in one box in dad's attic, a box which I'm sure hadn't been opened in 30 years. In that group, new photos are added at the beginning. The second is the "Camp Radford" photos. And the third is "Paul R Kemp Sr Album A" which is only photos from one album. All three links are listed in the left sidebar.

Paul R. Kemp Sr. Photo Album - Part One

Today's treat is Part One of the Paul R. Kemp Sr. Photo Album "A." The photos are from a photo album of the late 1910's and early 1920's and show him as a young man driving, camping, swimming, picnicing with friends, including old girlfriends, I think. It starts off with a road trip with a friend. Some of the photos will be only of PRK Sr.'s friends. But many of them are of him. You'll love the clothes, the cars, the situations. Whoever figures out what the tent city is for, wins a prize. (I think it might have to do with the construction of California Hwy 1.) I've scanned all the photos in order, so you'll get the full flavor of his album. It's truly amazing and I guarantee you'll be surprised. (Note: This is a separate link than the Kemp Family Photo Scan link.)

Here's the link: Click here for PRK Sr. Album "A" only
(Note from 8/18/07 - this link now shows the entire completed album, not just the first part. It is the same as the link above.)

Today's Photos

Here's the latest batch. More of kids with hats (Paula's favorite), a photo of Elva being interviewed by a very enthusiastic man (anyone know what that was for?), and teepees! Enjoy. And don't forget to follow the Camp Radford link in yesterday's post.

Here's the link: Click here for Latest Kemp Family Photo Scans

Camp Radford Photos

I've loaded up four photos of Camp Radford. They're dated 1941, 1942, and two different times in August 1944.

Just follow the CAMP RADFORD photo link (at end of this post) and then click on the first photo. When it enlarges, you'll see a little magnifying glass above it (mine is above right). Click on it and the photo will be large enough to look for familiar faces. It takes a while for it to resolve. Then your cursor will look like a hand (or arrows) and if you hold down your mouse button and move it, you'll be able to slide around the photo easily. To go to the next photo, you can click on the right arrow above the photo.

Here's the link: Click here for Camp Radford Photos only