Garmon Winckler Family Films and Audio

CONSERVATION & CAPTURE

Grant year: 2019 Al Larvick North Dakota Grant

Grant recipient: Joel Winckler

Primary makers: Garmon Winckler 

Original format: 8mm film, color, silent; magnetic reel-to-reel audio and mini audio cassette tapes

Length/feet or running time: Approximately 500ft of 8mm film, 10 reel-to-reel and mini audio cassette tapes

Circa: 1961-1973

Lab: The MediaPreserve

Digital capture format: Films in High Definition, 1080x1920, aspect ratio 4:3, pillarboxed; Audio at 48kHz, 24bit

Status:  Conservation and digital capture complete

Online Access: Coming soon

Creative Commons License: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 

Grantee

Joel Winckler is one of three children born to Garmon and Janice Winckler. He grew up in Mandan, North Dakota and graduated from Mandan High School. He earned a BA in Sociology from Asbury University in Kentucky and then a Master of Divinity degree from Asbury Theological Seminary, also in Kentucky.

Joel was ordained an elder in The United Methodist Church and has served as the pastor to several churches across North Dakota and South Dakota over the past twenty-seven years. Starting July 1, 2020 he will be the Northwest District Superintendent of The Dakotas Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church overseeing churches and clergy in most of North Dakota.

Joel has always had an interest in history especially his Winckler and Broeckel family history. The 8mm films and reel to reel audio tapes came into his care several years ago after they’d become almost forgotten in the family home attic. He enjoys keeping the story alive of how his German from Russia family persevered despite persecution in Russia, homesteaded farms in the Dakotas in the 1870s and 1880s and flourished into the 21st century.

Filmmaker

Garmon Winckler is the youngest of ten children born in 1939 near Bluegrass, North Dakota to German-speaking parents whose families had immigrated to North Dakota from German colonies in what was South Russia, now Ukraine, between 1872 and 1910. Garmon and his siblings were only allowed to speak German in his family home as his father forbid any English being spoken there. Despite this strict requirement, the family was full of fun and laughter.

Garmon enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1959 where he served for three years including tours in South Korea along the demilitarized zone and in West Germany during the Berlin Crisis. While in the Army he purchased a Crown 8-T3 8mm camera and a reel to reel tape recorder. He still owns the camera and recorder.

Upon returning to civilian life he captured various family events on these devices from the early 1960’s through the 1970’s. Garmon was a plumber for fifty five years.  He retired in 2017 at age 77 having owned his own plumbing and heating business for the last thirty-five years.

Garmon married Janice Broeckel in 1965 and had twin sons, Joel and Jeff, and daughter Theresa. Garmon shot most of the footage but also allowed Janice and other family members to get behind the camera as there are scenes of him goofing around at family gatherings and digging in a sewer line with a Bantam backhoe on his brother Reuben’s farm.

The Collection

“Many of the films in this collection are that of family vacations, which were primarily recorded in two of North Dakota's prime destinations at the time: Medora and the International Peace Garden. These two regions were common destinations for low-to-middle income families from North Dakota during this period. The International Peace Garden and Medora were in their developmental stages at the time of this footage and are quite different than they are now.

Other reels depict a camping trip with my grandparents, travels to my aunt and uncle's ranch in the Bitterroot Valley of Western Montana, family gatherings, Christmas and birthday parties in Mandan, North Dakota, Glen Ullin, North Dakota and rural Denhoff, North Dakota. The collection also includes my parents' wedding day in Mandan, North Dakota 1965. Fashion of the day is well represented. 

All of the individuals depicted in the footage were either living in North Dakota or were originally from North Dakota. Our families were traditional Germans from Russia only one generation removed from their North Dakota homesteading parents. German was still commonly heard at these family gatherings. My Grandma Winckler is in the footage and she was an ethnic German born in South Russia (now Ukraine). She immigrated to the Glen Ullin, North Dakota area in 1910 at age 10 with her family. Germans from Russia family life was close knit with many family activities to keep the bonds tight.” ~ Joel Winckler