Seventy years ago, the way to get news with moving images was by watching a newsreel at your neighborhood theater.

And these days, we take TV and the Internet for granted for their ability to bring world or local news to our desktops in an instant.

But back in the late 1930s, when YouTube was not yet even the stuff of science fiction, grocer and amateur cinematographer Nelson Stoudt was ahead of his time, capturing the news of his neighborhood in Montgomeryville with his movie camera.

Stoudt photographed everything from car wrecks at Five Points intersection (somewhat busy even back then) and barn fires, to school graduations and weddings.

He turned these images into silent newsreels, each 15 to 30 minutes in length, complete with titles and homemade graphics. They were made between 1935 and 1939.

Sometimes he took moving portraits of local dignitaries, like members of the election board working at the Montgomery Township Consolidated School (now a fabric outlet on Bethlehem Pike), or a Pennsylvania State Police officer modeling a new uniform in front of Nelson's grocery store, which stood at the northeast corner of Five Points.

Other clips depict farmers harvesting hay where the Water Tower Square shopping center now stands, houses under construction, an antique car race in Souderton, and images of a five-legged cow owned by Montgomeryville farmer Morris Walters.

A copy of the films came to the Lansdale Historical Society from Harriet (Heckler) Fridey, who was a neighbor who grew up in a farmhouse on Upper State Road, and now resides at the Dock Woods community in Towamencin.

Harriet's extended family owned much of the farmland in that area, and she remembers Stoudt filming her wedding at Montgomery Square Methodist Church, which was recently demolished to make way for a bank.

"He was a news cameraman, that's what he was," Harriet said.

She is not sure if or how the movies were shown.

"After he died, his wife (Vega Carlson Stoudt) wanted to keep all that information so she put that news on to video," she said.

We will be bringing you more of these newsreels in upcoming weeks here at TheReporterOnline.com and right here in the Remember When blog.