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The
Waltons First
Episode: Thursday 14 September 1972 / 8.00pm The family was headed by lumber mill owning John Walton and his wife Olivia, they had seven children, eldest John Boy (who wanted to be a writer), Mary-Ellen, Jim-Bob, Jason, Erin, Ben and Elizabeth. Also living with them were John's parent's Zeb and Esther. Other regulars included shop owners Ike and Corabeth Godsey, Sheriff Ep Bridges and the Baldwin Sisters. The show had a very warm heart and was pure family viewing. The stories were related through the eyes of John Boy Walton (who did go on to become a novelist and journalist, even publishing his own newspaper, The Blue Ridge Chronicle). Some key moments throughout the show included Mary Ellen's wedding, Grandma Walton suffering a stroke; The death in April 1978 of Grandpa Walton; Olivia contracting TB in 1978 and spending time in a sanatorium (mainly so that Michael Learned could spend less time on the show). Around this time (with the second world war now affecting life for the Walton family) Olivia's cousin Rose arrived to help take care of house. The Walton Boys were all also now involved in the war. There were also plenty of births, deaths and marriages during the show's run. The end of the series proper saw John selling his lumber mills to his son Ben and moving with Olivia to Arizona to help combat her TB. Since then there have been occasional TV Movie revivals continuing the story. The show was based in part on Hamner's own life and also had its genesis in a 1963 Henry Fonda movie called Spencer's Mountain.
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