Christensen Family Archive

Many years ago grandma left me a massive pile of family home movies in the form of 8mm and super 8mm film. These were shot by her and grandpa dating back to the beginning of their marriage. This pile of film sat in my closet and, then in a safe, for the better part of a decade as scanning services are incredibly cost prohibitive. During those years every visit with grandma she would tell family stories, her memory recall and attention to detail were captivating to me. As grandma aged I wanted to make sure these stories were available for anyone in the family that might enjoy them as much as I do. I began to record these conversations in a voice memo app, and then I set about filming several formal interviews with her. We did three separate interviews totaling 4 hours and 40 minutes or so.

In the last couple of years I purchased an 8mm film digitizer and over the course of many months I scanned, (spliced back together in many cases), and uploaded the entirety of the 8mm and super8mm film collection to the internet. The footage is an incredible family document and was virtually inaccessible until now. There is no audio with these films.

In addition to this video archive I have scanned all of grandma’s slide film. I will be uploading this here in some capacity at some point.

I started the process of scanning grandma’s printed still images, the archive of which is the most massive portion of this family collection. I sat with her and recorded her going through every photo in 2 of the many photo albums. Unfortunately this is where the project stalled, her memory and energy were fading at this point and it was hard work for her. I took these two albums home to scan with her permission, however less than a month later she said "I need my photo album back.” I think this was near the beginning of her memory decline. I returned the books and have paused that portion of my digitizing efforts. I have a flatbed scanner and I hope to borrow these books and upload these images, however this is currently incredibly time consuming.

I have also scanned Jeannette’s 8mm home movies and posted them as well.

The last portion of this amorphous project are all of the home movies and images that I have taken over the years. I included one of these videos below, as it’s currently one of the most interesting. Many of the videos i took over the years are of the diving in the backyard. I will continue to slowly update and evolve this site and endeavor.

This family archive is currently on youtube and all videos are set to “unlisted” (private but sharable). YouTube makes this choice nearly impossible to navigate so I made this page on my website to allow for easier access. As of this first iteration it is clunky but available. There was, and is currently no clear end product for this endeavor. Perhaps someday I will make a formal project with all of this media, but until that day I want to make all of this raw footage available to the family. I love grandma, the family, and these stories. I hope you enjoy them as well.

The Grandma Interviews

Below are interviews conducted with Grandma. These are the unedited raw interviews, there are spaces of black in some of the videos, this is where I had to change cards or re-roll the camera. It was better to let grandma continue uninterrupted rather than stoping down.

In addition I found some video i recorded in 2010 around Grandma’s 80th birthday, the audio quality isn’t great but I found the informal story time fascinating so I put all the clips together. If I had had more clarity at the time i would have recorded all of it, unfortunately this is all I did at the time.

Lastly I have some raw footage of Grandma’s normal morning routine as of 2021. Mostly her bike ride with very poor audio.

here is a link to the Playlist

Grandma Interview - 04/06/2021

Interview with Dolores Christensen conducted by Karen and Tom Reikers and Cooper James on 04/06/2021 This is the string out interview with grandma, no editing has been done, the black spaces in the footage are when i had to change cards and it's best not to stop grandma when she's in story mode. Home

Part 1 of an interview with Grandma at the Cabin. This interview is focused on the Cabin itself. Interview conducted on 7/3/2019 with Ben Christensen and Cooper James The camera that this was recorded on was only capable of recording a limited duration before it cuts off, i then had to re roll the camera, this is what the black spaces in the video are. audio was recorded separately and thus is continuous.

Grandma Cabin Interview Part 2

Part 2 of an interview with Grandma at the Cabin. This interview focuses less on the cabin and more on Grandmas life story. Interview conducted on 7/5/2019 with Ben Christensen and Cooper James The camera that this was recorded on was only capable of recording a limited duration before it cuts off, i then had to re roll the camera, this is what the black spaces in the video are. audio was recorded separately and thus is continuous.

Story time - 07182010

In 2010, before her 80th birthday, the family gathered. I started to capture some of the family around the table as grandma told stories. The audio is mostly understandable. I wish I had had the forethought to capture all of it but this is the extent of what I recorded that day. There is interesting information about her and grandpa in this impromptu story time, I've watched it several times and figured some of the family might get a kick out of whats in there.

Bike Ride with Grandma

04/06/2021 grandmas typical bike route with Karen and Tom

Part 1 of an interview with Grandma at the Cabin. This interview is focused on the Cabin itself. Interview conducted on 7/3/2019 with Ben Christensen and Cooper James The camera that this was recorded on was only capable of recording a limited durat

Large 8mm Reels

Below are scans of the family 8mm and super 8mm films. These reels where compiled by Grandpa Harvey Christensen. They are in the order that he compiled them in, which seems to be largely in order of year earliest to latest. Accompanying these reels are descriptions that he wrote for each spool, I am still uploading these cards, nit all are up yet.

Here’s a link to this Playlist on YouTube, there the descriptions are more readily available

Sadly, there is no sound for any of these reels.

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Short 8mm Reels

These all the short reels that Grandpa didn’t splice together into larger spools. This seems to be because they are largely clips of diving and gymnastics, however there are other short moments buried in between. Here’s a link to the unlisted playlist on youtube

Again sadly none of these have sound

Thralls Home Movies

At Danny’s wedding Jannette gave me her 8mm home movies to scan, heres the YouTube Link

Name

First Name

Last Name

Subject

Message

If anyone in the family has 8mm film they want me to scan i would be happy to do so. I wish I could offer scanning stills, tapes other services but this one is the easiest and all i have the band-with for currently.