VHS

Bezanson Family
Home Movies 1959-1963
Memorial Day Parade & Flag at 15:47

VHS tape containing telecine box transfers of the Bezanson family's home movies, shot on film between 1959 and 1963.

The first set of shots include the family getting into their red 1958 AMC Ambassador or Nash Rambler station wagon, the Clinton River beside Yates Cider Mill in Rochester Hills, a playground, hiking, and fishing.

The next segment begins with a trip across the Mackinac Bridge, and features wood chopping, fishing, hiking, a lake-side cabin, and a bear in wooded areas presumably in the Upper Peninsula.

The following portion includes shots of flowers in a garden, and the reflecting pool at Cranbrook. A brief segment containing footage of traffic on a river, including a freighter, and a tugboat follows. More shots of flowers, and hiking through the woods beside a lake occur next.

Afterward are several shots of a memorial parade along Woodward Avenue. Clowns, tanks, marching soldiers, and the unfurling of the second of Hudson's giant flags along the side of the department store. The flag features 50 stars.

The next portion of the recording features a graduation procession outside of a private school. A priest, and boys and girls in robes and mortarboard caps march outside of an unidentified school. The girls wear yellow robes, while the boys wear blue. A brief shot also shows a boy wearing a robe and being given a watch by a woman in a back, before cutting back to the procession.

Several short pans across a gathering of people in a backyard follow. Afterward are shots of Greenfield Village, including flowers, a horse-drawn wagon, geese, the Farris Windmill, and the steamboat SUWANEE in Suwanee Lagoon.

The next segment includes footage of fall leaves and path beside a field, a woman feeding a cow milk and boy holding a raccoon, and the raccoon and a cat playing. Afterward are aerial shots of a suburban area, fields, the Detroit River, and Belle Isle.

The final portions contain footage of a baby bathing in a basin outside, playing on the lawn, posing with pumpkins and a tiny broom for Halloween, and receving a first birthday cake.

The film is silent except for the sound of the projector, and occasional brief comments from the projector operator. Because of the method of transfer, the movie only takes up a small part of the screen, at the far end of the telecine box.

The video is on a Fuji T-120 tape with a Fuji label containing typed and handwritten text on the side, and a mailing label for Mrs. Helen A. Bezanson affixed to the top. A note included with the tape reads, "The 1960 Memorial Day Parade & Flag Unfurling, approx. 4 min. long at 15:47 time. Probably stopped at that point on tape now."