1948 Wallingford, Connecticut

Meg Nighswander

1943

Wallingford Connecticut

Interviewed on February 9th, 2021

by Sara Armstrong

The first movie I really remember was The Wizard of Oz. It was during Christmas vacation in 1948, so I must have been five … no, five and a half years old. My family did movies a lot. I had an aunt who was ten years younger than my mother. She’d take us sometimes. But most of the time, I went with the neighbor kids, Kay and her younger brother, I forget his name. Kay was probably nine or ten and her brother was around six, just older than me. I got a quarter every weekend that I spent on movies.

Wallingford was a small town. The theater was on the main street, just four blocks away. We were just off the main street where everything was. It was the Wilkinson Theater. It was owned by Mr. Wilkinson and the ticket-taker was his mother, Mrs. Wilkinson. She was a very scary woman. There was no need for ushers because none of the children dared make a fuss. Mrs. Wilkinson might not know your name, but it’s a small town, so she’ll find you.

There was no concession stand inside the theater. There might have been popcorn, but I don’t like popcorn that much so I wouldn’t have noticed. There was definitely no soda – Mrs. Wilkinson would never allow something so messy in the theater. We bought candy from the drugstore nearby with the nickel or dime we had extra after buying the tickets. We snuck it in or brought it in. I can’t remember if we were allowed to have outside food.

The Wizard of Oz totally traumatized me! I had just gotten a puppy for Christmas so I was worried for Toto the whole time. I barely remember anything about the movie. My whole focus was on the dog. Near the end of the movie, they get in the balloon and Toto jumps out and Dorothy follows him. And back in Kansas before, Margaret Hamilton wanted Dorothy to get rid of the dog because it nipped at her while she was riding her bike. That really scared me. I didn’t want to lose my puppy! So I made Kay and her brother leave the theater to walk me home. Kay was furious that she didn’t get to see the end of the movie. I did eventually watch the whole movie.

I saw a lot of movies before that but The Wizard of Oz really stood out to me. It was so different from the usual Saturday cowboy movies or cartoons. I watched a lot of Lone Rangers, but nothing stood out about those.

It’s funny, [my son] Jon wouldn’t watch The Wizard of Oz either. I don’t know why. He also had this set of records when he was younger that included a record of songs from the movie but he wouldn’t listen to that either! Only that record, he listened to the other ones. I guess I passed my fear onto him.