HolidayPaperturn - Flipbook - Page 35
T
he haunting scene in black and white, of a desperate man
on an ice-bitten bridge who is questioning the worth of his
existence on Christmas Eve, draws millions of viewers back each
year to the fictitious town of Bedford Falls, where they watch
hometown hero, George Bailey, discover that he actually had a
wonderful life. Director Frank Capra set his 1946 holiday drama,
now considered one of the greatest films of all time, in upstate
New York, but George Bailey9s Christmas Eve odyssey actually
started seven years before the movie9s premier, on an iron truss
bridge, in a small town in Hunterdon County, New Jersey.
Philip Van Doren Stern was born in his father9s home state of
Pennsylvania in 1900, but his mother, Anne Van Doren, was a native of Washington, New Jersey, and her ancestors were early settlers of Pleasant Valley. It may have been Anne9s roots that led
the family to Jersey City, where Stern spent his childhood and adolescence before graduating from Rutgers University in 1924.
