Jennie (nee Jerome) and drive-in movies have in common?
Well, nothing except that a previous owner of my copy
of Vol. 1 of Jennie, The Life of Lady Randolph Churchill
, by Ralph G. Martin, used the ticket stubs below as a bookmark.
Not that I was looking for "Jennie" that day last fall in my favorite
used book store. Vols 1 and 2 simply caught my eye in the Biography
section, but once home didn't catch it again until a few weeks ago.
I suspect the clerks are fans of Forgotten Bookmarks,
as I frequently find forgotten "treasures" in books from
the public library, but had never found any from the used
bookstore. So it was red-letter day indeed when I turned
a page in "Jennie" and the Fife Drive-in stubs fell out!
Who knows how long they'd been in there.
The Fife Drive-in Theater was located at 1601 Goldau Road E, Fife,
Pierce Co, WA. It opened in 1950, but I couldn't find when it closed.
In 2000 the population of Fife, near Tacoma, was (only?) 4,784,
so I'm guessing the drive-in went dark many years before that.
However, the June 30th, 1956 issue of Boxoffice magazine -
"The pulse of the motion picture industry" - revealed that
Russ Kinsey, manager of the Tokay Theatre in Raymond WA
for the past two years, had left to become manager of the Fife.
Elsewhere I learned Mr. Kinsey replaced 24-year-old Rockne
Roxstrom, who would die in 1967 at the age of 35.
Have a great day!
2 comments:
what an interesting post! I love old books and have found some interesting bookmarks now and then including little notes or letters received by the original owners.
Marie @ Lemondrop ViNtAge
Happy Chinese New Year giveaway
I worked at the Fife Drive-In theatre in the late 70s. It was the greatest job a high school student could have. Most of the time I was there, Don "Wahoo" Williamson was the manager. His wife was the daughter of Jack Dallas, a regional manager or some such.
Dan Hunter
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