Preserving Memories ~ Disneyland in the Summer of 1955

As I've mentioned previously, I've worked on a large family history project. I've scanned photos, slides, and negatives of various sizes that I inherited from my parents and my maternal grandparents. I have also scanned photos and negatives from my own collection. I'm not finished with this scanning project yet, but I'm taking a break at the moment.

Today I want to share some digitized images that were scanned from medium format negatives that belonged to my maternal grandparents, Debs and Willis (Quillin) Webster. They are photos of a trip they took to Disneyland in the summer of 1955. I have some printed photos from this trip that have an August 1955 date stamped on them. Disneyland opened on July 17, 1955.

My mom's mother, Sarah Vasques Madeira, died when my mom was almost four years old. Her father, Debs Webster, married Willis Quillin a couple years later in 1944. Willis was the only maternal grandmother I knew. And she was a wonderful grandma to my brothers and me. Although technically she was our step-grandma, she was lovingly referred to as grandma by us. So, that's how I will refer to her in this post.

My mom, her parents, her brothers, and grandmother immigrated to the United States from Brazil in the summer of 1952. They settled in the Los Angeles area, specifically Pomona. I think it's so awesome that my mom and her family went to Disneyland three years after their immigration to the USA. And it's awesome that they went to Disneyland shortly after it opened. I wish I knew if they were there on the day it opened or not. But, even if they didn't go on opening day, they were there soon after Disneyland opened, which is very cool. My mom turned seventeen years old on July 24, 1955. I wonder if they went to Disneyland for her birthday. I'm so glad they took photos of their time there.

It's also neat to see what Disneyland looked like in the summer of 1955.

Here they are on Main Street standing in front of the Wurlitzer Music Hall. My mom is the third from the right. She's standing next to her younger brother, Edwin (second from the right). Her other brother is seventh from the right. He's standing in front of my grandma (in the plaid skirt). My mom's grandmother, Helena Rohwedder Quillin, is the sweet lady holding her purse (sixth from the right). Apparently, the Wurlitzer Music Hall closed sometime in the late 1960s. Something else is there now.

Here's another photo in front of the Wurlitzer Music Hall. My grandma (in the plaid skirt) and her mom (my great-grandmother) are standing next to the man in the baseball cap. 

And here's another photo of Main Street. My mom and some of her family were walking on the sidewalk close to the street. My mom is the one with her left arm up and a bow in her hair. Her two brothers are on her left and my grandma is on her right. It's pretty cool to see Main Street back then.

Here's my mom and her family walking along at Tomorrowland. My mom is second from the right in this photo. My grandma is on her right.

It's difficult to see my mom and her family in this photo but it's a pretty cool photo because it shows Autopia on the left. See that Richfield sign above all the people on the left? That was Autopia. I had to look up what Richfield was and learned that it sponsored Autopia back then. My mom and her family are facing away from the camera in this photo and are close to the TWA Moonliner. My mom had a bow in her hair.

Speaking of Autopia, here is a photo of my grandma in an Autopia car. She's in the light car on the left. Interestingly, there wasn't a center guide rail on the track like there is now. Wow!

Well, that's it for now. I hope you enjoyed going down memory lane with me as we visited Disneyland in the summer of 1955 with my mom and her family.

Thanks for stopping by!

Jana

© 2024 Copyright by Jana Iverson Last, All Rights Reserved