Earl Hamner’s children in an episode of The Waltons

[Brenda]

I am Facebook friends with one of Earl Hamner’s nephews, Audrey’s son. Awhile back he posted that he and his wife have recently started watching The Waltons on Freevee.  They are watching the episodes in order, and were on Season 1 watching the episode “The Fire” when he noticed his cousins, Scott and Caroline Hamner, sitting in the classroom with the other students.  Scott and Caroline are Earl Hamner’s own children.  I knew they appeared in “The Homecoming” but I don’t remember ever hearing they were extras on any other episode of The Waltons.  I was watching “The Fire” last night, and when the scene with the class of students was shown, I tried to locate them. I didn’t get a picture until towards the end of the episode after the school had burned down and Miss Hunter was teaching in Ike’s pool room.  I have circled who I believe are Scott and Caroline in this photo.  Scott would have been about 16 and Caroline would have been about 14 when this episode was filmed. 

[Easton]

^ I wondered why we didn't know this before, but it turns out that we did. I found Judy's video about The Fire and watched it. It turns out you were right in the two you chose. The video should start at the proper time (if I did it correctly). If I didn't, fast-forward to 2:45.

[Easton]

I remembered something this morning that prompted me to do a little research on Scott and Caroline. Both have IMDb pages, but neither have a credit listing for The Fire. Scott, however, is credited to have appeared in The Homecoming: A Christmas Story. He was in the Missionary Lady scene but was uncredited in the movie.

Now, the thing I remembered was that Scott wrote The Revel, the final episode of The Waltons. He also wrote 2 other episodes, both in the final season: The Hotrod and The Threshold.

Scott was born in 1956 so he was 14-15 (depending upon when it was filmed) in The Homecoming and 16-17 in The Fire. He wasn't yet 25 years old when he wrote his Waltons episode. He continued writing for a number of soap operas, both daytime and prime time, including 1,416 episode of The Young and the Restless.

Caroline is 2 years younger than Scott and her uncredited role in The Fire appears to be her only on-screen appearance. She later continued in television in a production capacity.

[nedandres]

Thanks for letting us know. I had no idea.