05202015Wed
Last updateFri, 15 May 2015 4pm

Lake Chapala Society seeks expert help on 60th anniversary documentary video

The Lake Chapala Society  (LCS) is seeking a volunteer filmmaker to finish work on a documentary to be shown at the society’s 60th anniversary party in November. 

So far, 21 lakesiders have been interviewed on video for the project that has the working title, “An Oral History of the Pioneers of Lakeside and LCS.”

“Next we need a volunteer filmmaker to turn these, and future interviews, into a documentary so we can view the film at the party and then release it on YouTube,” says Harriet Hart, volunteer coordinator of the project.

According to those involved in the project, the interviews already in the can are fascinating and feature some of area’s expat pioneers, as well as members of the Mexican community. Some of those interviewed had a close connection to Neil James, one of the area’s most well-known philanthropists, who died in 1994 just three months shy of her 100th birthday, and after 49 years in Ajijic,

Also on tape are interviews with artists who participated in the early days of the LCS Children’s Art Program.  More fascinating insight has come from Marcella Crump, a widow who came to lakeside with six children to build a new life. 

A common theme running through many of the interviews is how more dependent on each other people were 20, 30 and 40 years ago, says Hart. 

In those days expats lived in a community with a shortage of telephones, organized social activities, supermarkets, imported goods, modern health care or adequate roads.

Nonetheless, some of those early expats agree that lakeside was a wonderful place to raise children. 

LCS says its goal is to capture the stories of the area’s foreign pioneers while they are still able to communicate their stories.