I was talking about family with my brother Daniel a while ago and the conversation, as it often does, steered to memories of our time in Pine River and, more importantly, the experiences we had growing up with our father. When someone dies, there are bound to be questions left unanswered, wounds unbandaged, and regrets left plaguing. As we grow closer to the age our father died, those questions become more proactive as we both seek to understand genes expressing themselves reverberating with past experiences.
I can’t speak for my brother, but there are times when a memory or feeling tiptoes in from recesses within that I have never encountered. Those moments cause me to pause and discern if they are a warning from beyond or just last night’s dinner. The truth is somewhere in the middle, and to ignore either would be a mistake, so I turn my attention to the echoes of nucleic acid ordering itself into the thing I call myself and listen to the accounts they try to tell.
The Marlow History
The Marlow Theatre opened August 21, 1934, and accoring to Film Daily, it was previously called Memorial Hall. The Brainerd Daily Dispatch edition August 29, 1974, noted the theatre was originally constructed by Everett (Pop) Evans in 1919.
The Daily Dispatch also reported in 1965 John Rohr, our Grandfather, first operated the Marlow Theatre in 1934 in a partnership with Homer Fraser and bought out his interest two years later. In addition to the theater, by 1935 John was traveling to nearby communities with a truck and equipment to show drive-in movies. On the opening of the Gem Theatre in Hill City on November 23, 1938, it was reported Mr. Rohr now had three theatres in operation, which included the Marlow Theatre and the Remer Show Theatre at Hill City. On May16, 1940, Mr. Rohr had purchased the Marlow Theatre building from Major H.C. Skinner.
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/64983
As the photograph below shows, in the early-1940’s the Marlow Theatre was remodeled with new streamline art deco styling. The movie shown on the marquee was the 1943 release “So Proudly we Hail” starring Claudette Colbert. Before and after photographs can be seen on the Heritage Group North Facebook page.
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/64983
The theatre was operated continuously except for a 22 month stretch while Mr. Rohr was in the service. On January 13, 1945, Rohr was the subject of a Boxoffice magazine article in which he noted at that time he was in charge of an air base theatre and a writer for the camp newspaper and reading Boxoffice was helpful in keeping in touch with the business upon his discharge.
Fire
On November 1, 1965, the Daily Dispatch reported the Marlow Theatre was badly damaged by fire this morning. Mr. Rohr, who had an apartment with his wife above the theatre, reported the fire started in a laundromat on the ground floor. Damages included the screen, sound system, 75 per-cent of the seating, draperies and apartment. On April 15, 1966, Mr. Rohr, with help from his sons, Tom and Mike, reopened the renovated theatre with John Wayne in “The Sons Of Katie Elder”.
Heritage Group North notes after being sold by Mr. Rohr in 1979, the Marlow Theatre was demolished by fire in 1980 while showing “The Muppet Movie”. A dramatic color night-time photograph of the fire is on their Facebook page.
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/64983
I believe my dad is standing outside the theater in the photograph above. He used to tell us stories about working for his dad as a child, and they may border on child abuse today. This is not to say my grandfather was abusive, especially considering the attitude toward children of the day. I recalled dad telling us, usually when complaining about some project we did not want to do, that he used to carry film cans to the projection booth in his early teens. Feature-length films weighed in at 60-80 pounds, and he would bring them up and down flights of stairs into the projection booth above the auditorium. He was carrying his body weight as a child, ruining his back and knees, which he had to suffer for the remainder of his life.
The Projection Booth
The projection booth was the most dangerous place in the theater, especially in the early days of celluloid nitrate film, where a fire was always possible. Until the late sixties, the light for the projector had to be created using carbon arc lamps, essentially an arc welder behind the projector making light via electricity, jumping a gap at the end of carbon electrodes. One of my dad’s jobs in the theater was to run those projectors, which meant maintaining the arc lamp and switching film reels. The job was hot, noisy, and dangerous and, according to dad, never optional.
The combination of the explosive film and arc lamp could create uncontrollable fires in the booth. Theater fires were a real thing, and to protect the people below, all openings in the booth required metal doors that could automatically slam shut in the event of a fire. The design would contain the fire in the booth allowing the audience time to escape. The room was essentially an oven, with fire-retardant materials such as asbestos and steel sealing off heat and smoke from the rest of the theater. Fun fact, once a celluloid nitrate film starts burning, it is challenging to extinguish, so the most prudent solution would be to let it burn itself out.
Isolation
Talking with my brother about the theater, I imagined my father, in his early teens, removed from his peers below, isolated and set apart above the only glimpse out framed by guillotine shuttered windows that could seal your fate at any moment. Was he aware of the risk? Was he conscience of the separation between himself and his youth? Was he afraid? My intuition tells me, yes, and even though I will never know the answer, I think about Tommy often. I think about the boy who became the man, the husband, the father and finished a gravestone, as we all will.
Death
Ten years ago in October, my dad left the confines of the body called Tom Rohr and the experiences that formed him. I would like to know more about his time in the projection booth and how those experiences created the man that though flawed, always lived life to the fullest. There could be no doubt that once he was set free from the confines his father placed on him, he never looked back. Looking at the picture below, I can’t help but feel that as dad watched the theater as it burned to the ground, he had mixed emotions. His childhood home and his last physical connection to Pine River were gone, but so were all those years of being trapped in the projection booth with the looming threat of destruction.
The danger of that place was confirmed, the eventuality was actual, but in the end, the projection booth, like the films that traveled through it, was just a fantasy. Fire would eventually consume the Marlow Theater and all the stories it contained, just as it will every place. The past will fade, the memories forgotten, and we can only stand and watch. There is no value in fighting the fire of time; we are ill-equipped to do so as humans set to hurry on a spinning rock. Stand and watch in the face of danger, it is the only thing we can do and the highest calling we can attain. Be present, be mindful, be respectful of the threat, and respond if able, and if unable, accept.