McKinley

The group of players who took part in the Hollywood Production of *Snickerty Nick*.

*Announcing the MUSIC for*
# Snickerty Nick
BY JULIA ELLSWORTH FORD

THE MUSIC for *Snickerty Nick* was written by Charles Arthur Ridgway and used for the first time in the Hollywood production. There are sixteen delightful numbers, including an overture, songs, and dances, written for the piano and bound in durable, strong paper binding, size 7"x12". A sample page of one of the songs is printed on the reverse side of this announcement. This music is suitable for general school and home use other than with the play. The dance numbers are being used successfully by many dance schools and instructors. To receive copies of this music write directly to the publisher or to the author, JULIA ELLSWORTH FORD, Rye, New York. Price $1.00.

Suttonhouse : Publishers

523 H. W. HELLMAN BUILDING, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

VINEYARD GAZETTE,

MARTHA'S VINEYARD, MASS., FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1937

She's Probably the Leading Contemporary of
This Rapidly Moving Time, Even at Age of 76

The Vineyard is being visited this week by a woman who is probably the leading contemporary of this rapidly moving time in which things move so rapidly that most persons find themselves occupying a fixed point with the stream of life flowing past them. Julia Ellsworth Ford owns to the age of 76, but she remains in no fixed position. She is actively going ahead in the van of several causes to which she is devoted, and it is remarked by those about her that she is as much a contemporary of her young grandchildren as she is of the world of her own years.

Mrs. Ford is stopping at the Harborside Inn in Edgartown. Recently she has been in Hollywood, not sitting on the sidelines, but producing pictures on her own account—talking pictures in color for children. It is her belief that children should have motion pictures of a different sort than those they usually get to see, and she would like to see Saturday a recognized children's day at the movies with something like her own Snickerty Nick and the Giant taking the place of King Kong or Night Must Fall.

To Show Movies Here

Although this is a vacation for her, and although she has to keep picnic appointments with a charming granddaughter, she has brought along two of her new movies and is to show them at the Island schools. These are entirely free, and she has projector and screen for the purpose. Her chauffeur is also electrician and manager, so that a show can go on at short notice. She is obviously impatient with delay and likes to have things done rather than merely talked about.

At Hollywood Mrs. Ford is her own producer, paying all the costs of her pictures, writing and editing them, and even directing them herself. Once she left a production in the hands of a commercial producer, and when she saw the result she said, "Why did you leave out my moral?" "I didn't know there was a moral," replied the producer. "You have answered my question," said Mrs. Ford, with a significant glint in her eye.

It is not that her pictures are overloaded with morals, but they have to meet certain standards which she has long been advocating for literature and motion pictures for children. She

feels that proper mental fare for children and adolescents is vital. Not preachy things, but good stories which will stimulate the healthy side of the youthful imaginations.

She has established the Julia Ellsworth Ford Foundation which carries on an annual contest for children's literature. The prizes are $2,000 and $1,000. This year the first prize award has gone to My Brother Was Mozart by Benson Wheeler and Claire Lee Purdy, and second award to The Stage Struck Seal by James Hull. The two books will be published this fall by Henry Holt.

Widow of Famous Man

Mrs. Ford is the widow of Simeon Ford, famous host of a famous New York hotel of a generation ago, and one of the best known wits of his day. Years ago her home was a meeting place for many remarkable people—William Butler Yeats, Isadora Duncan, Ellen Terry, Lord and Lady Dunsany, Percy Mackaye and others. But if these names seem to belong to a long ago past, Mrs. Ford remains much in the present.

She is white of hair and obviously unabashed by her years, but there is an intransigence in her eyes and it rather looks as if she and her granddaughter are spiritually akin. This is the essence of being contemporary in a world which quickly gets by most people.

At the present time, Mrs. Ford is the only person producing pictures in color for children, and films with sound. Thus she has the satisfaction of being a pioneer, and her energetic manner leaves no doubt that this is a satisfaction.

Mrs. Ford is also keenly interested in the cause and cure of hay fever, and she has devoted time and money to this field. She is vigorously in favor of combatting ragweed, although her visit to the Island happened to fall after the completion of the annual ragweed drive here. Had she been here in August she would doubtless have raised a banner for the cause which has such good chances for success here.

"Grandma!" sounds the young voice of her granddaughter, and Mrs. Ford is bound for some pleasant place in the Island countryside to be contemporary in a different way, with the young of her family as controls.