1942 Sayville New York

Grace Shaw

Born 1936

Sayville, New York

Interviewed February 6, 2026

By Alex Greene

Note: This interview with my grandmother has been lightly edited for clarity and structure. 

The first movie I remember seeing is hard to say for sure. I was born at the end of 1936, and my memories from when I was very young are not always clear. I think Dumbo may have been the first movie I ever saw, but the movie I remember most clearly from my childhood is Bambi. That one stayed with me. I would have been about six years old when I saw it, which would place it around 1942, in Sayville, New York.

When I was little, there was no television in our house, and really none in anyone else’s either. Movies were a wonderful thing because they were something special. If you wanted entertainment at home, you read books or listened to the radio. There were children’s programs and cowboy shows on the radio, and that’s how we spent a lot of time. Going to the movies meant going into town and sitting in a theater with other families, watching something much bigger than anything you could experience at home.

What I remember most about Bambi is how clear the story felt to me, especially emotionally. I remember Bambi as a small fawn waking up in the woods, in a little thicket, and meeting his friends. There was Thumper the rabbit, who was his best friend, and Flower the skunk. There may have been other characters, but those are the ones I remember most. A lot of the movie, in my mind, was about Bambi and his mother walking together in the woods.

The part that really stayed with me was when Bambi’s mother was killed. The hunters came into the forest, and suddenly she was gone. That was incredibly upsetting. All of us children, we were crying in the theatre! It was so shocking to us that a movie would do that—that the main character’s mother would be killed. I don’t think we expected something like that at all. Later in the movie, when Bambi had grown and there was a large deer with antlers, who was supposed to be his father, I remember him telling Bambi that he had to be brave. That scene made a strong impression on me.

I probably went to the movie with my mother, and possibly with other children from our street. Sayville was a small town then, and going to the movies felt like a shared experience. The theater was on Railroad Avenue, in the same general location as the theater in town today. I don’t remember the name of it, and I don’t remember many details about the inside. It was just a theater—rows of seats, aisles, and a screen. I think it was later replaced in the 1950s.

I don’t remember having any candy at that movie. Concessions were very simple in those days. If we had money in later years, we might buy a candy bar, but there wasn’t popcorn and soda the way there is now. Moviegoing was much more straightforward.

After I saw Bambi, my mother bought me the book. Books were very important in our house. My mother read constantly and listened to radio dramas, and we had more books than anyone else I knew. She also bought science books, and when I started learning about the planets in school, she would point out constellations in the night sky to me. 

Looking back, seeing Bambi in the theater was a powerful experience. It was sad and beautiful to see. It’s one of the first times I remember feeling such a strong emotional response to a story, and that’s why it stayed with me all these years.

Other reflections about movies in this time period, aside from Bambi

I also remember seeing Snow White, though I think that may have been at a re-release. As I got older, going to the movies became more of a regular activity, especially on Saturday nights with friends. Before the main feature, there were often newsreels, and during the war (WWII) we would see footage related to what was happening overseas.

Movies were a real distraction during wartime. Many people had relatives fighting in Europe, and although my father wasn’t overseas, he worked in aircraft manufacturing on Long Island, which was very much part of the war effort. Musicals and lighthearted films helped people escape for a little while.

One memory that stands out clearly is from the late 1940s, when there was a lot of snow on the ground. My father and I walked into town one evening to see a movie, something about an Antarctic exploration mission (The Secret Land). We walked several blocks through the snow after dinner, just the two of us, to see it.

Movies from that time felt much more innocent. We saw Shirley Temple films, musicals, and stories that were meant to be appropriate for children. Looking back now, I can see that some movies—and even what we were taught in school—presented simplified or untrue versions of the world, especially when it came to race or the war. But at the time, the movies felt magical, and they were an important part of growing up.

Relationship:

She is my paternal grandmother!