PORT ANGELES — A mystery spanning the Olympic Peninsula has been solved, with the origin of 40-year-old homemade film reels found abandoned in Bremerton traced to a family still residing in Port Angeles.
It is exciting to have the films returned, family member Ruth Raemer, 47, of Port Angeles said last Thursday.
“A lot of those [videos] are with my older siblings,” Raemer said. “My grandfather is in there too.”
As reported last Wednesday by the Kitsap Sun, Bremerton Police Officer Jeff Schaefer was dispatched last September to a Bremerton home after the couple living there found vintage film reels — in various sizes — discarded in their bushes.
The reels contained several homemade videos with titles such as “Leaving Detroit,” and “At Farm in Michigan.”
Schaefer contacted local media to enlist the help of the public in locating the rightful owners.
Peninsula Daily News took up the case Thursday because of several references to locations within Clallam County.
Other film titles in the collection, as depicted online by the Kitsap Sun, are “Oct. 71, Moving from Renton to Port Angeles,” “Lake Crescent” and “Neah Bay.”
There also was a name and address — Harry C. Withers — on a first class mail envelope.
A search online for Withers led to a funeral notice published by the PDN on June, 28, 2005, announcing services for Agnes Lucille Frantz Brady, 89, of Joyce — Withers’ widow.
Withers, according to the funeral notice, was the father of Brady’s oldest daughter’s husband, L.E. “Rick” Withers.
A further search led to an obituary for L.E. Withers, who died Sept. 6, 2014.
L.E.’s obituary mentioned he had been married to Barbara Frantz.
And, L.E.’s obituary also listed the names of the couple’s five children: Cheryl Ronish, David Withers, Becky Pomaville, Melissa Merideth, and Ruth Raemer.
These names were telling clues. Some of the film reels included titles such as “Barb’s 35th Birthday,” “Cheryl’s 16th Birthday,” “Dave’s Football Game,” and “Nov. 71, Becky’s 6th birthday.”
Barbara Frantz, it turns out, is still alive and living in Vancouver.
However, the PDN did not contact her at her family’s request.
The next step was to get one of the surviving family members on the phone.
The first relative to respond was Sandi Frantz of Joyce, who confirmed the films did indeed belong to her family.
She referred the PDN to Raemer, who lives and works in Port Angeles, but whose name is not listed in the phone book.
Raemer said the family had not realized the videos were gone until the publication of the Kitsap Sun article.
“We had no idea they were missing,” she said.
“We don’t know how they became missing either.”
Following L.E. Withers death in 2014, “we didn’t do an estate sale but we cleaned out my parents’ home,” she said.
As such, the film reels might have been displaced during that time, she said.
How did the films end up in the bushes in Bremerton?
That remains a mystery, Raemer said.
“We are not quite sure what happened.”
Compounding the mystery, L.E. and Barb never lived in Bremerton, Sandi added.
The family was in the process Thursday of recovering the films from police, Raemer said.
Once they are retrieved, the family intends to make copies and distribute them to relatives.
“What we had wanted to do with them originally is transfer them over onto DVDs and make copies for whoever wanted copies of them, that way everybody in the family has a copy,” Raemer said.
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Reporter Chris McDaniel can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or cmcdaniel@peninsuladailynews.com.
