I've inherited several home movies from my grandparents, Leslie and Meg Leavitt, which I had digitized some years ago. I've just uploaded them to YouTube.
The first is from 1933 (!) and includes scenes from a baseball game at the Dormans' house in Shemlan; Leavitt family scenes with my mother Marga Peters and her sister Helen (Hayin) Campbell, along with brothers Howard and Dan Leavitt; playing on a paddle board in Beirut; the Leavitt family at their summer house in Brummana (before their house in Ainab was built). I can recognize members of the Leavitt family but not anyone else.
The second is from 1947, when Dan and Lois Leavitt visited Lebanon (I believe this was their first visit after getting married in the States). Included here are views of the coast and Beirut, as well as surrounding countryside, from Ainab; much-anticipated (by this blog community) scenes of tennis games; Lois Leavitt riding on a donkey; another baseball game at Shemlan; and a big family dinner; and finally Marga and Hayin flying back to the States.
I don't believe my grandfather took all of the movies, as he appears in many of the scenes, but I have no idea who else did, and I'm not sure how he came to possess these movies.
-Steve Peters
Princeton, NJ
stevepeters1@hotmail.com
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a note from Alice Nicolson (June 3, 2022)
a.taxonomy@gmail.com
what a treat to see these movies! The early one gives the feeling of those baseball games at the Dormans’ in Chemlan, though before my time. The 1947 film was really great - my brother Crif, having just graduated from Mr. Hermon, was home for the summer, playing tennis with other “kids” home from school or college. I remember how thrilling and romantic it was to have the first young married couple among the children of the hilltop returning. In addition to the Leavitt girls and boys, I spotted Dottie Kerr playing tennis, and I think Mac batting at the baseball game. There was a brief visit to Beit Crawford to visit Archie, who had broken his pelvis in a car accident and was in a body cast and hospital bed for a while, but sitting in a chair in the film. Also at the tennis court were my West cousins, Dorothy and perhaps Bill, plus daughter Liz and son Allen. Particularly wonderful for me was glimpses of Hughie Dodd and an unforgettable shot of the three little pigs, Hugh, Doug and me, and a later one of Doug and me. I think that may have been the last summer the Dodds were at Ainab. Also, as Lois is riding the donkey, a glimpse of Hehni, our wonderful grocery deliverer, who went ofer to Souk el Gharb most mornings to buy our food orders and bring them up to the hilltop on his donkey. He lived in Ainab and once took some of us down in the early morning to watch his mother make flatbread on the dome-like metal sajj over a fire of pine needles and twigs, He was an assistant at the AUB pharmacy, I believe, and spoke very good english and was very kind and patient with us kids. (There was also a milkman, who had a larger donkey - or was it a mule? - and would come up with metal cans of fresh milk which had to be boiled before use so was not very tasty, but made wonderful leban.)
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