Matthews & Barnes Family: Everyday Life in NJ & Travels around North America

CONSERVATION & CAPTURE

Grant year: 2024

Grant category: Al Larvick National Grant

Grant recipient: Joyce Barnes

Collection title: Matthews & Barnes Family: Everyday Life in NJ & Travels Around North America

Primary maker(s):  Leslie E. Matthews, Emmett George Barnes

Original format: 8mm black and white, color, silent; 1/4” reel-to-reel audio

Circa: 1940-1973

Collection size: Approximately 56 reels of film; 36 reel-to-reel audio, 22 audio cassettes

Grant support: Cleaning and repair and digital capture of approximately 2000ft of the overall film and audio collection

Digital capture format: 8mm film scanned at 2k resolution; 1/4” reel-to-reel digitized at 94kHZ, 24bit.

Lab: Preserve South

Status:  Conservation and digitization yet to commence

Online Access: Coming soon

Creative Commons License: TBD

GRANTEE

Joyce Leslie Barnes: In February 1965 I was born to Audrey (Matthews) and Emmett G. Barnes at the Air Force base hospital in Amarillo, Texas, where my father was stationed. Soon afterwards we moved back to my parents’ home state of New Jersey. Inspired and influenced by family and friends while growing up in the suburbs of Morris County, I developed a deep appreciation of movies and TV, photography, rock music, hiking, traveling, birding, and swimming outdoors. My greatest joy comes from venturing out to see “that bird” or “that band,” but there’s no greater bliss than jumping into ocean waves, and for that I’ll be forever grateful for our family trips to the Jersey Shore, some of which are hopefully captured in our film reels.

As a child I was especially close with my maternal grandfather, Leslie Matthews. When I was little, I would introduce him as “my friend Grandpa” to his delight. He was curious about everything, and he loved sharing his knowledge about art, food, other cultures and places with me, and he was the one who taught me how to use chopsticks. I remember he and my grandmother, Alice, talking about their travels and friends, but I don’t recall if they ever showed their 8mm films to us. By the time my sister Lorraine and I were old enough to sit still, the 35mm slide show was the medium of choice. Our parents took us to many of the same places described on the labels of my grandfather’s films – Williamsburg, Virginia, National Parks across the country, many places in Maine – and I developed a love for them all and an appreciation of the outdoors and nature. In later years, my grandfather’s memory faded, and he eventually succumbed to Alzheimer’s Disease. Of all the people and places I am curious to see in these films, I am most interested in reconnecting with my old friend Grandpa and his vision of the world.

My father died following a short battle with an aggressive cancer in 2019. As we cleaned out his home – the house my sister and I had grown up in – we compiled a sizable collection of film reels, audio tapes, slides, and printed photos. We quickly realized the emotional and cultural value of the collection, and we were eager to see our family history in film. But due to the age and degraded quality of the films, a project to preserve and digitize the collection on our own seemed overwhelming. My family is grateful to ALCF for funding the digitization of a portion of our collection.

I have worked as a technical editor and user experience writer for educational software companies, copy editor for independent authors, ethnographic researcher, computer systems manager, non-profit canvasser, museum intern, bank teller, and burger flipper. I hold a Masters degree with a focus in Technology in Education from Harvard University, Graduate School of Education, and a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from Rutgers University, Douglass College. I live in Boston’s Hyde Park neighborhood in Massachusetts with my husband, Darron Burke, who just happens to be an audio engineer and archivist.

FILMMAKERS

Emmett G. Barnes (1940–2019) was born in Paterson, New Jersey to Sophie and Emmett E. Barnes in 1940. He lived in Hawthorne, New Jersey, where he met Audrey Matthews in grammar school. Emmett and Audrey both attended Hawthorne High School and graduated in 1958. He went on to earn a Bachelor of Science degree from Stevens Institute of Technology in 1962, and she studied Art at Cooper Union in New York City.

Following ROTC training, Emmett served in the US Air Force. After Emmett and Audrey wed in 1962, they moved to Lakeside, Montana near the Kalispell, Montana Air Force base where Emmett was stationed. This was more than a work assignment. It was also their honeymoon, a romantic great adventure through the Western states. Emmett was a fan of gadgets, technology, and cameras in particular, so he filmed and photographed every step of the way as he and Audrey ventured out for their many sightseeing and camping excursions.

In 1964 Emmett was reassigned and moved with Audrey to the Air Force base in Amarillo, Texas, where Joyce was born in 1965. Soon afterward the family moved back to New Jersey. They lived for a time in Dover, New Jersey, but eventually made Mendham, New Jersey their permanent home. Their second child, Lorraine, was born in nearby Morristown in 1969. Emmett filmed and photographed every birthday party and holiday, but the travels didn’t stop. They packed up the Volkswagen and took the girls to many of their favorite destinations around the US and Canada.

Emmett spent most of his 50-year career with the US Government at Picatinny Arsenal in Dover, New Jersey, where he excelled as a Physicist and specialized in Radiography and X-ray technologies applied to military munitions and safety. To the delight of his family, his work occasionally included X-raying interesting historical artifacts: a Colonial cannon, an ancient Chinese vase, a dinosaur egg. After retiring, he continued to travel the US and Europe with his camera always at the ready.

Leslie E. Matthews (1908-1989) was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1908. He lived in Hawthorne, New Jersey from 1950 until 1986, when he moved to Mendham, New Jersey for the remainder of his life.

Leslie worked for Curtiss-Wright Corp. in Caldwell, New Jersey for over 40 years and was a foreman when he retired in 1973. In 1927 he and another Curtiss Wright employee balanced the propeller on the Spirit of St. Louis prior to Charles A. Lindbergh's historic flight across the Atlantic.

In his spare time, Leslie developed a talent for stained glass art. He was prolific, and his creations decorated the windows of his Hawthorne home and the Barnes home in Mendham. He made dozens of items – lamp shades, clocks, characters from children’s books, crosses, and a number for every birthday for both of his granddaughters.

Leslie was a devoted member of the Episcopal Church, but he was spiritually curious, and visited many churches during his travels, regardless of denomination.

COLLECTION

Matthews and Barnes Family: Everyday Life in NJ and Travels around North America, 1940-1973

Complete collection details:

• Film reels: 56 (8mm)

• Audio reel-to-reel (1/4"): 36

• Audio cassettes: 22

• 35mm slides: Hundreds

• Photo prints (late 19th century to 2018): Hundreds

Four decades of American life are depicted in our films. Hopefully these personal films will add to the understanding of everyday life for historians, documentarians, and students, both as snapshots in time and also changing alongside historical events and cultural shifts. For example, what was it like to take an automobile vacation during wartime in the 1940s? How did travel change from the 1940s to the 1960s – the roadside attractions, motels, roads, clothing styles?

My family lived most of their lives in the historic, middle-class communities of Hawthorne and Mendham, New Jersey. Our films document the institutions in these towns over the decades: the parks, schools, roadways, houses, historic buildings, shopping areas. For example, many of my parents’ family photos for events like weddings and graduations were posed in Hawthorne’s Goffle Brook Park, which was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted.

The films document important family events over several generations from the 1940s to the 1970s: weddings, birthdays, holidays, graduations, parades, and vacations. Descriptions (some difficult to decipher) are handwritten directly on the film boxes or on the back of blank time slips for Curtiss-Wright, where Leslie Matthews worked. The family visited locations close to home in New Jersey (Bronx Zoo, parades in New York City, Botanical Gardens, Bear Mountain) and far away in other states and Canada (Montreal, Montana, Virginia, and Maine).

The subjects of the Matthews films most certainly include Joyce’s mother (Audrey), her parents (Leslie and Alice), possibly Joyce’s great-grandparents, as well as family friends and possibly Leslie’s co-workers from Curtiss-Wright. The Barnes films include Joyce and her immediate family (parents Audrey and Emmett G., sister Lorraine) and likely Emmett G. and his immediate family (parents Sophie and Emmett E., sisters Patricia and Carolyn) and extended family. The Barnes and Matthews grandparents all lived in Hawthorne, New Jersey for most of their lives. "There are many other family and friends who likely appear in these films, such as Audrey’s grandparents (Matthews and Stone), the Convery family, and “Sky,” a good friend of Leslie's whose farm near Kingston, New York, the family visited often."

Audio: A subset of the audio cassettes (created 1970-2001) are transfers from the reel-to-reel audio tapes also included in this collection. Emmett G. Barnes completed these transfers in the 1990s following Audrey’s death in 1992. These audiocassettes are in great condition for playback on a standard tape deck. Most of these mark family events and children singing, but many were “audio letters” sent back and forth in the early 1960s between Audrey and Emmett and their parents in New Jersey while Emmett was stationed at Air Force bases in Kalispell, Montana and Amarillo, Texas. The remaining cassettes are likely original cassette recordings of holidays, children’s musical performances, but also events like the Apollo 11 Moon landing in 1969.