The Waltons was a television series about the lives of a family who lived in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. John and Olivia Walton, the parents, lived with their seven children on Walton's Mountain. Their home was also shared by John's parents. John and his father, Zeb, together ran a lumber mill from the home. When the series began the people of Waltons Mountain were finding life very hard going during the Great Depression. As the series continued the viewers saw how World War 2 affected the people in the small, close-knit community.
Everything was seen through the eyes of the eldest son, John-Boy, who aspires to be a novelist. Through him we are able to see the saga of the family as they grow up, go to school, become employed, fall in love, get married and begin their own families. We see the struggles and joys of the relationships between the family members as they each cope in their own way with the challenges which life has to offer them.
The series began screening on 14 September 1972 and finished on the 20th August 1981 and was screened on a Thursday night on CBS from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. As a series The Waltons was given little chance to succeed in 1972, when it was scheduled opposite the very popular The Flip Wilson Show. However it attracted several Emmy awards as well as some good reviews and a large enough audience to keep it on the air, particularly as it finished 20th in its first season. The second season saw it finish ahead of The Flip Wilson Show, forcing it off the air, and its popularity remained fairly steady throughout the 1970's.
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Visit the Walton's Mountain Museum On-Line.
The real museum is located in Schuyler, in the Piedmont area of Virginia. Schuyler is a small mountain village of 400 people in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
The Walton's Mountain Museum, established in 1992, is located in the old Schuyler Elementary School across the street from the boyhood home of Earl Hamner.
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