♪♪ Hello, I’m Fritz Wetherbee and welcome to a very special edition of New Hampshire Crossroads.

We are in the city of Keene, New Hampshire today to celebrate a reunion, a reunion of family, of community, and of a movie.

The year was 1949, and the movie was called Lost Boundaries.

And 40 years ago, it was playing at the Scenic Theatre just down the street here.

Now, perhaps you've never heard of Lost Boundaries, and if so, that's a shame.

For one thing, it was set here in New Hampshire and was photographed for the most part on location around the state.

But most importantly, it was based on a real New Hampshire family, the Johnstons, who lived right here in this house on the corner of Washington and Beaver Street.

Now, Doc and Thyra Johnston were pretty much your average family.

They had four kids, a nice house.

They were pillars of the community.

But the Johnstons had a secret.

Not much of a secret by today's standards.

But things were very different in the early part of the century.

You see, when I was a little girl, to be black was almost like a no no.

So when I came along, those who were light would go and take advantage of what the white people could because, they could get by in the America That doctor and Mrs. Johnston grew up in, the fact that you came from an interracial family meant that you were considered and treated as black and being black in the era before the civil rights movement meant confronting discrimination segregation and racism.

Albert Johnston and Thyra Bauman met and were married in Chicago, where Doctor Johnston was a student at Rush Medical College.

But finding a hospital that would take a black man as an intern would prove to be no easy task for the young couple.

When he would apply for the position, well, they would always find some excuse when he told them, you know that he was a Negro.

So then he decided that what he would do is to keep on trying.

I said, no, don't keep on trying.

I said, if they don't ask you, don't tell them what your background is.

I don't think he would have gotten the job if he had said that he was black.

I don't think it would have happened.

That's the way it was with him when he tried to get a job.

When he tried to do his residency in a northern hospital and put Negro.

They wouldn't have him.

When he tried to do his residency in the South.

They wouldn't have him because he was too light skinned.

So he just stopped throwing that out altogether and ended up going from Portland, Maine, to Gorham, New Hampshire, to Keene, New Hampshire.

So the Johnstons moved to northern New England, where they lived their life as whites.

It was called passing back in those days.

Upon completion of his residency at Maine General Hospital.

Doctor Johnston set up a practice in Gorham, New Hampshire, while Mrs. Johnston began raising a growing family.

After eight years in Gorham, Doc Johnston decided to specialize in radiology, and the family eventually settled on in the city of Keene.

Relatives and friends, meanwhile, helped the Johnstons keep their secret.

They knew that we were what you call passing.

They knew that we were up here and that we hadn't told the children, so they didn't say anything to the children of my friends.

And, So I can't speak for all the people, but the people that we knew didn't seem to mind at all because they knew that, my husband was making a good living and everything, and they didn't want to do anything to upset the APPICAT?

I never figured them to be exactly black.

There's a lot of black people in Keene now.

You know, you recognize them.

Keene, as you know, to this day, is a is a lily white community.

And, it was the same then.

You never looked at them twice.

The Johnstons, because they didn't look that dark.

I think if I remember, I can remember when the kids were growing up, their features looked, you know, like Negroes, you know as we called them then.

And I think a lot of people wondered, the only black that that I know of was a man that everybody respected.

He was, his name was George Miller and he was the usher at the GLATCHES?

theatre.

And, everybody respected him greatly.

And I don't know of another black family at that time living in Keene.

When I was a kid, we used to go down to the to the square and come in and look and see it- Like if a black man was a chauffeur for a wealthy family in those days, we would go down to see him because we had never seen one before when I was a kid.

Same thing when people would- were Oriental and came through.

We would go down because it was strange to us, see?

Albert Johnston junior was the oldest of the Johnston children.

He grew up assuming that, like the rest of his friends and neighbors, he was white.

I had never known my identity.

That gave me a certain advantage and probably maybe a certain disadvantage.

In other words, let's put it this way psychologically.

When I was a little boy and I went to the Anne Larry School in Gorham, New Hampshire, and if the, if, if I raise my hand, the teacher says, what would you like to be?

I could say president of the United States, knowing that the door was open for me because I did not know that I was part black or part Indian, or part Jewish or even Catholic in those days before John F Kennedy’s time.

One would not conceive of psychologically of ever possibly being the president of the United States if he knew his minority identity in those times that was the thinking of the country then.

♪♪ America was confronting change in the early 1940s.

World War Two had started, and the armed services were desperate for doctors.

Like most, Doc Johnston wanted to do his part for the war effort.

He applied for and received a commission in the Navy Medical Corps.

But the terrible truth of racism that the Johnston family had escaped for so many years finally caught up with them.

I have the papers to show, where he was accepted in the Navy, and they assigned him to the ship that he was going to be on and everything.

And then when the gentleman from Washington came to interview him and then told- asked him if he had black- well, if he was black, well no, he didn’t say it that way.

Asked him if he had bla-colored- -this is what the- he said- Do you have colored blood in your veins?

And my husband says, well, who knows who's got what kind of blood in their vein?

And so he said, well, that's all he wanted to know.

And so he went out and he was very courteous and very nice.

Then, then- the next couple of days we get the letter that he was rejected.

And they said because he didn't meet the requirements of height and weight.

♪♪ I think what happened was when the Navy put its stamp of disapproval on Doctor Johnston by saying, you're not acceptable in our Navy.

I think then it became socially acceptable to reject this man.

That's what I think happened.

I think it I think it's a trickle down theory at its worst.

And it was a racially segregated navy.

And when they said to Doctor Johnson, we’re rescinding your commission, then it became acceptable to to have something come out in the open that then became a problem.

He was accepted.

He went down for his physical and everything, and he was accepted and so forth.

So he came back and he told the doctors at the hospital, when they’re around he says, well, he says, I'm in.

I'm going to be in the service.

And he says, I'm going to be Lieutenant Commander.

Well, when nothing happened, you know, I mean, after they've turned him down now, he had told everybody there so they knew, and he felt very embarrassed because he had to tell them that he was refused.

So that's when he decided to, what difference does it make?

I guess his feeling was quite intense at that time, and he took me aside and it emotionally struck him, apparently.

And that set off the fuse and he took me in the bathroom and he said, do you know something?

I says, what?

He says, you're colored.

I says, I am?

[laughs] It wasn't quite as theatrical as the movie would portray it, with my hands way up in the air, etc., we allowed a little bit of dramatic license there so Hollywood could do its thing.

I should have told you this years ago.

I'm part negro Howard, so is your Mother.

What do you mean?

That makes you a Negro too.

The Navy doesn't commission Negroes.

It was only by coincidence that the story of the Johnston family would make its way to the silver screen.

You see, finding out the truth about his background had not been easy on young Albert Johnston.

It would take him some time to get his life and his identity into perspective.

And after a stint in the United States Navy, where he passed as white and a trip across country visiting black relatives, Albert Johnston Jr settled down as a student at the University of New Hampshire, and it was here that he met a film producer named Louis de Rochemont It originally started, you know, when I was at the University of New Hampshire and there was, a another black male student there, named Bill Ballard.

And he took me down to Mr. De Rochemont’s house, and, and I thought, well, we were just chasing rainbows.

We went down to make a story, to give him an idea to make a story about George Washington Carver.

We thought it would be nice if they would eliminate the stereotyped conception of the black person in that time, when we went to the movies and when we were kids, we would see, housemaids, cotton pickers, jazz musicians, etc.

We never saw doctors.

We never saw lawyers or real estate people or anything like that.

So we went down there with this idea and the producer was very, very, interested in what we had to say.

And he thought that Mr. Ballard, who was with me and he was, of obvious black description, and he said, I can understand how you would be interested in it.

He said, but, Mr. Johnston, why are you interested in it?

Well, I says I'm part black, but I didn't know it until just a year or two ago, I think when, when young Albert Johnson turned around and said, this has been very interesting to me, Mr. De Rochemont, you know, I only learned two years ago that I was a Negro.

I think, de Rochemont’s socially conscious antennae went up, you know, and he said, how does that happen?

How does someone have to hide their heritage, and then even from their children?

What necessitates that?

What kind of story is here?

I mean, if, if that that happened to you or me, I don't know if I would have recognized the story out of that.

I don't know if I would have said, okay, I'll call the Reader's Digest, and then I'll call Darryl and see if 20th Century Fox is interested, then I'll call MGM.

You know, I mean, this is what he did.

Louis de Rochemont was not the kind of man to sit on a good idea.

Just a year after his conversation with young Albert Johnston, the family story had been turned into a book, an article in Reader's Digest, and was on its way to becoming a motion picture under the title of Lost Boundaries.

Unable to get studio support for such a controversial project, de Rochemont produced and financed the film himself, eventually mortgaging his house in Newington to help raise the $480,000 it would cost to make the picture.

To add a sense of realism, he filmed on location throughout the New Hampshire seacoast and put locals in many of the supporting roles.

Veteran stage actors Beatrice Pearson and Mel Ferrer were cast as Scott and Marcia Carter.

The characters, based on Doctor and Mrs. Johnston The Dean, always said there were two things a good doctor had to have, a fine medical education- Certainly got that darling.

- And a good wife.

And you certainly- ♪♪ When I wanted to play this part, my agents begged me not to do it they says they won't be able to sell me anywhere.

I said, well, that's going to be your problem, not mine.

I had a contract.

I was under contract to a studio.

I was making a lot of money.

I directed my first picture.

They wanted me to direct another one.

I took a leave of absence then came and made this picture for peanuts.

I said, I happen to believe in the picture.

If it doesn't happen, well, I’ll be proud we made it.

That’s that, to hell with it.

By and large, it was a very difficult time for, black actors.

I had great difficulty, as a matter of fact, because, I was constantly being asked to play uncle Tom roles, you know, these stereotypical, yassa- massa kind of, Stepin Fetchit type, roles.

And I wouldn't play them.

I always turned them down.

William Greaves landed the role of Arthur Cooper in the film ♪♪ And build a happy home ♪♪ ♪♪ But now my love has gone away ♪♪ ♪♪ And I'm all alone ♪♪ ♪♪ Nobody loves me now ♪♪ ♪♪ Nobody cares at all ♪♪ ♪♪ Because of you ♪♪ ♪♪ I guess I'm through with love ♪♪ [Applause] You know, I have a very tiny part in the picture.

You know?

But it's much better to have a tiny part in a very good picture.

And it is a very good picture and an important picture, than it is to star in a turkey.

Cause you know that’s- the size of the part doesn't mean anything.

I was shocked by the- when the reviews came out and I got wonderful notices, and I got better notices for a tiny little part in Lost Boundaries than I did in a lot of pictures I did later at Metro in which I was costarring in.

This picture, tied in in a way with certain feelings against, black Americans that were evident throughout the country.

I mean, there's a tremendous amount of racism in America, 40, 50 years ago.

And, this film was one of the major, groundbreaking films that began to open up this whole issue of race relations and, convert it into a, you know, public debate.

I asked Mrs. Johnston, I said, whose idea was it to allow Louis de Rochemont to, to tell the story to the Reader's Digest and subsequently make a film?

And she said it was my idea.

And that really took me by surprise.

I thought it was his idea of my- I thought that young Albert hitchhiked home and told his father, and he instantly said, yeah, you can do it.

Apparently there was a conversation between Mr. And Mrs. Johnston, an extended conversation.

Apparently, Doctor Johnston really didn't, wasn't totally in favor it was Mrs. Johnston.

And when I asked her why, she said, I think the story should be told.

We both had mixed emotions.

We didn't know how we'd be accepted back into the community.

And we thought, well, now, do you think, we would talk to each other?

Do you think that they'll put me out of the hospital?

And I said, I don't think so, honey, because once people know you and they get to like you, I don't think they take the race to consideration too much that the way we felt about it.

Of course, it was that it was the talk of the community.

The, the book had already appeared in Reader's Digest.

The synopsis of it and, in a Reader's Digest book and it really was the talk of the community.

It was, it was it was really something.

My feeling, my own feeling was that none of us who were close, who were close to the Johnsons in any way and my parents were close to the Johnsons, to, to doctor and Thyra.

Nobody thought a thing about it.

I'm sure there were elements or perhaps large elements in the community that did feel some resentment.

Nothing ever changed as far as their friends went.

The only change in their life, I think, was with the medical profession in Keene.

They were the ones that, you know, caused all the trouble.

He didn't deserve what they did.

He didn't deserve it.

They just ousted him from the hospital.

I mean, what more can you say?

They just said we don't want you here, I suppose.

I mean, we have no way of knowing what they said to him.

They never discussed it.

Probably just among themselves or to their relatives.

But, I mean, they didn't want him connected with the hospital anymore because he was black.

And so he was just ousted completely.

So he started a practice in his home.

He had a big enough home so that he took over the first floor of the house, and their living quarters were on the second floor.

Yeah.

I think the community's response was real mixed, I think of some people who embraced them as I don't care what you are, you’re our doctor, you know, and I think other people were insulted and angered by the fact that this person had hidden his racial heritage And whether they were black or not, she told me she was- they were black, but don't ever say a word about it, I says never.

And I never did.

I kept that secret with me.

Alice Andrews worked for many years as the Johnston's maid.

She remembers how some reacted when the truth came out.

Yes, they were asking why I was working for niggers, yes I did, I never told her that because I didn't want to hurt her feelings.

What did you say when they ask that?

I says I'm living with human beings.

She has heard these things.

But I have never heard them, because nobody- There is one time that we had a, a reaction.

We were playing bridge with our foursome that we generally played.

And this lady is from Kentucky and she has a real southern accent.

And, after this, the story came out in Reader's Digest before the movie was made of the other book came out.

She said, [Unintelligible] If my mother knew that I was playing bridge with a common person, she’d turn over in her grave.

And then we all laughed.

The film version of Lost Boundaries opened on June 22nd, 1949 at the Colonial Theater over in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

I was 13 years old then and living here in the state, and I remember the controversy that the film stirred up.

But the reaction here in New Hampshire would prove to be mild compared to the response from the rest of the country, Lost Boundaries next opened at the Astor Theater in New York City.

The first that I knew about that this film was really some kind of a breakthrough, was opening night at the Astor, and some of the lines that were to come out and the whole audience would go [Gasps] I mean, it was really, some of them say, you really say that?

I heard that.

I mean, it was really a shocking film in that, at that juncture, it was a-they began advertising the picture that comes right out and says it.

Well, it was received, to everybody's amazement.

The New York Times led off the critics on it and called it one of the important pictures not of the year, but of the whole question of social documents.

It won the Best Film Script award at Cannes-the Cannes Film Festival the year it came out, it got other very important awards, but the most important award is that people went to see it.

It ran for 26 weeks on Broadway, which is, half a year is an incredible life for a feature motion picture on Broadway.

And that's what this film, achieves.

And it was, wide, widely popular and, and, very important.

The question that does come through, though, when you see something like this and you know, it's based on a true story, we have to ask, what are, what do our attitudes about race come from?

What is race?

What is white?

Black?

If you have two children who are the product of an interracial marriage and one is brown and the other is very, very light with keen features, straight hair and so well, why do we say one is black and the other has to be black as well?

Why don't we say one is white, one is black.

I mean it makes the and I think Lost Boundaries in a way did do this.

It makes the audience sort of have to come to terms for at least a few minutes with what its attitudes on race are.

A lot of people say, what would you do if you had to do it all over again?

I'll tell you, the country's changed so much.

You don't have to pass for white anymore, so you don't have to do it all over again.

That was something that didn't exist in my father's time.

It was difficult.

I mean, a person of color could not go in certain places, could not stay in certain hotels, could not go to this place, that place, and so forth.

All of that is changed completely, partially by legislation, but mostly by practice of people.

Mostly because people know each other.

They get to know each other.

See what I mean?

That was the problem.

No, it was really right.

And so 40 years after Lost Boundaries first opened in Keene, the Johnston family has come home to reunite, to remember and to watch a film.

They open their lives to America and the world.

This is, an unusual type of film, and, I know that, recently we've had some nice celebrations of some other films, but, I think this one is a little bit more spectacular as it really, changed, or helped to change some of the attitudes of the way people think in America.

To me, it's, it's a reunion and reuniting of our family quite a bit, and I feel very good about it, and it makes us feel very good that so many people have taken concern and interest and, the respect for my grandfather.

I make it a point to tell everybody now, everybody I meet, or, not going overboard but when the opportunity is there, and naturally, when you're in a group where you meet somebody new, you might say, oh, so what are you, you know, you're Finnish or this or that, and I'll say, yes, and I'm part black.

And the City of Keene too, help celebrate this reunion, over 1500 people, including many of the surviving cast and crew members, packed two theaters at Keene State College last July 24th to join the Johnston family in honoring Lost Boundaries.

My students were always startled to see that a, a world famous film had been made about Keene, New Hampshire.

I mean, they all, many of the students come here from Connecticut and Massachusetts and don't associate New Hampshire with anything more important than skiing.

So it's hard for them to understand that, that the first film that was socially responsible in terms of the way it treated blacks should be made about a little town in southwestern New Hampshire is a total surprise to them.

They think that maybe such a film should be made in New York City of Chicago.

And the reality is, it's often in the small towns where such events take place.

We see this event this evening as an important reconciling and healing event.

It is my belief that no community can move into a future of vitality, unless it has dealt with the issues of its past, and especially unless it has taken time to heal the injustices of its past.

It means a great deal to me.

I really appreciate it.

I can't tell you how much.

I'm just overwhelmed with the wonderful attitude of the people.

It just goes to show you that, now, see, maybe a long time ago it wouldn't happen this way when there was so much race prejudice.

But now times have changed and I feel it.

We contribute just a wee wee bit to get elevated.

♪♪ Lost Boundaries has sadly fallen into obscurity over the years, partly because the company that owned it folded, and partly because times have changed.

But the human story that the film portrays seems relevant even today.

As for the Johnston family, well, the kids grew up.

They married, and they moved out of Keene.

In total, there are now six grandchildren and seven great grandchildren spread throughout New England and the West Coast.

Doctor and Mrs. Johnston left Keene in 1967, moved to Hawaii, where Doctor Johnston continued to practice part time in his field of radiology.

Doctor Johnston died in 1988.

It was his wish to be brought home to Keene to be buried, and so he was.

In an article in the August 1952 issue of Ebony magazine, Doctor Johnston was asked to comment on the people of Keene, and he wrote they are strong and unyielding, like the granite foothills surrounding our little city.

They respect human rights and are willing to give a man a break regardless of his color.

Maybe the world outside feels that we live here like flowers in a florist’s hothouse, but this is not the truth.

We are a part of Keene, part of the pulse and soul of this city, part of its future.

And in a way, its past.

Thank you for joining us.

As we traveled home to Keene, For New Hampshire Crossroads, I'm Fritz Wetherbee.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪