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Rare footage offers ‘moving’ glimpse of Stratton-Porter

ROME CITY, Ind. (AP) – A home movie discovered in California is offering a rare glimpse of Indiana author and naturalist Gene Stratton-Porter.

Dave Fox manages the Gene Stratton-Porter State Historic Site near Rome City. He tells The News-Sentinel that descendants of the author found the short film showing Stratton-Porter checking on construction of a fountain at her home on Santa Catalina Island in California. It also depicts her in her backyard with family members and taking a boat ride to select rocks for the fountain.

Fox says the footage was shot in the early 1920s by Stratton-Porter’s nephew-in-law.

Stratton-Porter was born near Wabash and gained fame for nature studies and novels written while she and her husband lived in a cabin in Geneva near the Limberlost Swamp.

She died in 1924.