1939, St. Albans, WV

William (Bill) Lemon
Born 1932
St. Albans, West Virginia
Interviewed on January 29, 2025
By Nathalie Lemon


What is the first movie that you remember seeing?
It was The Wizard of Oz in 1939 or 1940. Well, it was 1940 because we were living in West Virginia.

How old were you when you saw The Wizard of Oz?
I was 7 years old if it was 1940.

What do you remember about the movie?
I’ve seen it since but don’t remember a ton about it though. There were individuals. They were sort of an animated movie with the Lion and the Tin Man. I guess it was… oh some time ago when they had a rerun of it. I said, “Oh I seemed to remember I’ve seen it before.” We didn’t go to the movie theaters very often when I was a youngster, but it was at a movie theater in St. Albans, West Virginia.

What did you think of the character(s), actor(s), story?
It was the characters and the whole story, of course, my mind was refreshed when I seen it later, but well it was the whole thing… I don’t know how they characterized it, but I would characterize it as a children’s fairy tale.

How did you get to the theater/venue?
I walked to the theater. We always walked back then.

Was there a concession? Did you have a favorite candy?
Oh, there probably was, but I don’t remember any of that.

Do you remember the name of the theater? Were there ushers?
It doesn’t exist anymore. I don’t recall ushers. It was in a theater, and it had the regular theater seats.

Do you remember who went with you?
I can’t remember. I would’ve had to have gone with an older member of the family, but I can’t remember that either. It was a big event to go to a movie, but that was 85 years ago. I wasn’t with my parents. I’m sure it was an older brother or sister. I would not have gone alone.

Dad said that you had not seen a television until you got into the army?
Yes, the first TV that I saw was when I was inducted into the army. TV hadn’t arrived to Covington (VA) or Roanoke (VA). It was 1952, and there was a TV set in the day room when I was inducted into the army, and then I never saw television after that, and then it kind of expanded everywhere else in 1954. Larger cities had television outside of Covington (VA) and Lexington (VA).

When you lived in Covington, did you ever go to the movies there?
When I was growing up, I would probably go to the movies quite a few Saturday mornings. It was mostly old cowboy movies in the middle to late 40s. It was at a theater because I lived in Covington at this point. I only lived in West Virginia for a year and a half, but it was just a regular movie theater there. I haven’t been in one recently, but the one there had a center seating section and one on the right and one on the left. The seats were probably some shade of red as they all are. The screen and stage were right in the middle.

Bill Lemon is my paternal grandfather.