Meghan Horvath peers at a 1941 4-by-5 Star Herald negative Tuesday.By Lori EhdeFlorentine Films Associate Producer Meghan Horvath spent two days in Luverne this week gathering material for the upcoming Ken Burns documentary film, "The War."It will feature Luverne as one of four cities across the United States in a story about how the war affected those communities, their soldiers and their families back at home.Horvath had encouraged Luverne residents to share photos, home movies, diaries, letters and anything else that might be helpful in portraying Luverne during World War II and in the decades leading up to it. She and Historical Society President Betty Mann set up a time Monday night at the Rock County Museum to meet with residents and review materials.This meeting drew 12 residents who had valuable memoirs to share, according to Horvath, who traveled from New York for her Luverne research. "I saw a ton of fabulous scrapbooks," Horvath said. "This has definitely been a productive trip."Among other promising materials gathered, Horvath said Linda Maras shared a priceless audio recording from her uncle to his mother. "Hi, Mom. I love you. I miss you," was a message from young the soldier overseas.Alex Frick’s mother, Edna, kept a diary from 1935 to 1980, and Alex had found an entry she had written in 1941 about the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.Frick also has love letters his father, Ray, had recorded on audio cassette for Edna when he was overseas."There are so many wonderful things," Horvath said about the materials Luverne residents have shared.She said the hardest thing to find in all of the communities featured in the upcoming film is home movies.In Luverne, Warren Herreid, George Gabrielson and Jim Herman were all able to help out in that department. Horvath said they even have footage of Luverne soldiers departing from the Omaha Depot, with teary goodbyes."Home movies were a big deal back then," she said. "People were taping home movies to send to the boys in Kodiak, and these soldiers in Kodiak taping their activities to send to their families at home."She said she found accounts in the Rock County Herald of community gatherings to view these movies at local theatres. The "Pix Theatre" was mentioned in one story.Overall, Horvath said she was impressed by the national military presence Luverne has had throughout history."Everyone has a sense of Luverne’s military role in the country," she said. "I was surprised by that because for such a small town, there are a lot of veterans here."Outside personal visits with veterans and the arranged meeting Monday with the public, Horvath spent the bulk of her visit in the Star Herald office buried in the pages of old newspapers.From those pages, she was able to cross reference information from the Star Herald negative archive.Hundreds of 4-by-5 negatives held promising images of Luverne and its people that Horvath said the film could likely use.After a long day of wrapping up loose ends Tuesday, Mann and Herreid made sure Horvath didn’t leave town without experiencing a few of its trademark qualities.For example, they had dinner the Magnolia Steak House, took a tour of Prairie Heights Bison, and came away with bison jerky to share with her friends in New York."I had never been to this part of the country, and I was surprised that I like it so much," Horvath said. "I enjoyed driving around looking at farm houses. I imagined the town to be much smaller than it was. … The houses are really gorgeous. I didn’t expect all the trees that I saw."Horvath returned to her New York office Wednesday, and she said the next step will be to organize the information and meet with film editors to determine how it will be used, what to use, and what more is still needed.She said there’s a possibility a film crew will visit Luverne next year to incorporate live footage into the movie."The War," which is set to air across the country in 2006, also includes Sacramento, Calif., Waterbury, Conn., and Mobile, Ala."The film will juxtapose and intertwine the experiences of servicemen who fought on the front lines in all theaters of the war with those of their families and neighbors back home," Horvath said."We will also track the larger military drama as it unfolds, so that we can comprehend the experiences of these ordinary people in a larger social and historical context."
