Author: Eugene Fischer

Days 26 and 27 of my grandmother’s 1936 trip to Europe, covering her time in the Netherlands and Brussels. (Previously: Introduction, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.)

Hague
July 19, 1936 Sun.

Landed this morning at 6 and went to our hotel (Du Passage) for breakfast.  Then started on a sight seeing tour in a very uncomfortable bus with a very uninteresting guide.  We passed some of the famous tulip fields; the dykes and windmills.  We went thru Amsterdam and then on to a cheese factory where we had cheese and butter milk.  We arrived at Volendam about noon and took a boat from here to the Isle of Marken, which is a very old place where the people still wear the old fashioned costumes.  Both the small boys and the girls wear skirts and capes and the only way to distinguish them is by a little decoration the boys wear on their capes.  We couldn’t stay very long as it started to rain and coming back we got soaked.  As I got off of the boat my hat blew in the Zuiderzee and my what a pitiful sight it was when some youngster handed it back to me.  On our way back we stopped at an Inn where Charlotte & Marie & Jo order chocolate sodas which turned out to be terrible looking & tasting things which cost 50¢ a piece.  This evening after dinner Jo, Marie & I went walking and found the men on the streets to be unusually familiar.  We could have had any one we wanted just for a smile.  In Amsterdam we stopped at the Reichsmuseum and saw some very famous Rembrandt paintings.  Saw the people standing in the streets peeling & eating [els?] just as we peel bananas.

I love this.  Oh, the slutty Dutch, with their uncomfortable buses and crappy chocolate sodas and androgynous children.  Some places: Volendam, Zuiderzee, Reichsmuseum.  I have no idea what it is that people were peeling and eating like bananas. Any ideas?  UPDATE: they were eating eels.

Monday, July 20, 1936

Left Holland about 10 for Brussels.  Had lunch on the train arriving at about 2 P.M.  Were taken to our Hotel (Splendid) and then on a tour of the city.  Saw the market place; St Gudule church; the famous Manneken Fountain; and unknown soldier’s tomb.  Then we went shopping in a few of the lace stores and glove shops.  Found prices unusually low.  The franc is only 3 cents here.  In the evening Kay & Marie & I went shopping again then stopped at a sidewalk cafe and had something to drink (Vermouth Cassis.)

In St. Gudule Church there is a beautiful wooden carved pulpit showing Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden.

I’ve seen the Manneken Pis fountain on a family trip to Brussels when I was young.  My parents bought me a tiny brass replica of it with a squeeze bulb to make it squirt water.

Days 18 through 25 of my grandmother’s 1936 trip to Europe, covering the rest of her time in London and her trip to Stratford on Avon.  (Previously: Introduction, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.)

[London]
Saturday Eve, July 11 [1936]

Our trains got in this afternoon about 3:45 and by the time we had reached the hotel we just had enough time to get cleaned up and ready to go to theatre, where we saw “Pride and Prejudice.”  It was an excellent show very well acted.  After theatre as we were formal we went to the Savoy for supper.  There were the 5 of us & Marion Gaylord & her mother.  (People we met on this last week’s tour.)  The meal was only fair; the place beautiful; the floor show awful & the price quite high but all in all we decided that if we hadn’t gone we never would have been satisfied.  Live & learn!

This show of Pride and Prejudice seems to have been at the St. James theater, and starred Celia Johnson.  There’s a picture of the program at the link.

[London]
Saturday, July 12 [1936]

We decided that this morning we weren’t going to miss the changing of the guards as we did last Sun. so we were there at 9:45 & stood waiting until the eventful moment which was 10:30.  It was a very interesting and colorful picture, all of the guards dressed alike & marching so perfectly that they looked like wooden soldiers.  It sort of made you want to touch one to see if he was real.  From here we went back to the hotel where we parted for the afternoon.  Bert, Charlotte & Marie going to the conference & Jo & I going to Madame Tussauds wax museum.  This is a wonderful place & intensely interesting.  Their wax figures are all life size, with real clothes & robes.  Most all of the famous characters from the Crusades down to our present day kings, sportsmen, & political figures are represented here.  This evening we wet to “The Three Nuns” for dinner & then home & to bed early because we were just worn out.

The conference is presumably some kind of social worker’s conference.  Doris once told me in conversation that she was fortunate to go on this trip, which she took with “a group of social workers from the University of Chicago.”  I haven’t been able to find out any information on “The Three Nuns.”  UPDATE: Cait points out in the comments that it is probably “The Three Tuns.”

[London]
Monday, July 13 [1936]

This was our first shopping day in London and we certainly took advantage of it.  We started out by seeing some of Bert & Marie’s movies which turned out just grand; then we started looking for different stores that we had heard of and on the way got ideas for some of the gifts we wanted to take home.  The most important part of my shopping was two Wedgewood vases I bought for mother; which are beautiful things (in my estimation).  We spent the whole afternoon wandering up & down Bond street looking and going into all of the beautiful stores that we have heard & read about for so many years.  My favorite among these was Yardley’s I think because I have always liked their products so much & have looked forward to seeing this store in London.  This evening we had dinner at a little Turkish restaurant on Shaftsbury street called “Demos.”  We had a very good dinner which was concluded with Turkish cigarettes and Turkish coffee.  (Marie & cigarettes)  Then home and wrote a while & to bed.

Home movies did, in fact, exist in 1936 for people who could afford the camera and projector.  8mm home movie film first hit the market in 1932, and processing by Kodak was included in the price of the film.  These are presumably the films that were dropped off for developing on July 6th.  (Incidentally, my parents have confirmed for me that my family’s connection to Eastman Kodak was through George Eastman.  Apparently he and Doris’s father were best friends.)

London
Tues. July 14 [1936]

For the first time in quite a few days I slept a bit late this morning (9:00) then Joan & I met the girls at Selfridges and we had lunch at the soda fountain and had real sodas.  This afternoon we finished up our shopping and came back to the hotel.  This evening Bert & Charlotte, Marie & Kay went to the conference reception and Jo & I stayed home.

I hadn’t heard of Selfridges, but their website seems to be that of a company that is very much alive and kicking.

London
Wed. July 15, 1936

We left the hotel at a this morning for a trip through Stratford on Avon and Oxford.  Our first stop was Oxford where we were told all about the U’, and were shown the different colleges.  Oxford consists of 26 different colleges, 6,000 students and a faculty of over 3,000.  Each college consists of its own dorm, chapel, quadrangle, and dining hall.  We visited Oriole College which is typical of all.  Exams of all colleges are given in one central building and all degrees are given in the Sheldonian Memorial Theatre.  On our way to Stratford we passed thru villages of Cotswold cottages.  In Stratford we passed a memorial statue of Shakespeare which has the four statues of comedy, tragedy, poetry, and art surrounding it.  We stopped at the home in which Shakespeare was born, went thru the gardens and then on to Anne Hathaway’s cottage, which is very picturesque, then the Trinity church where Shakespeare and his family were buried.  There we read the famous epitaph of his which curses the man that moves his bones.  From here we went on to Warwick Castle which is a beautiful place still occupied by the Earl of Warwick (24 years old) and his family.  It is an immense place filled with many historic paintings and statues and surrounded with beautiful gardens.  Our last stop was Banbury where we bought tarts.  We had supper in our room this evening.  Sandwiches, tea, etc.

Except for Oxford, I’ve been to all the places she mentions in this entry.  There was no Earl living in Warwick castle when I was there.  It was sold to, yes, Tussauds in 1978 for management as a tourist attraction.

Thurs London July 16, 1936

To Hyde Park this morning to see the King (Edward VIII) present his colors to his guards.  We couldn’t get seats near the ceremony so we went near Buckingham Palace where we found seats on a very sharp iron railing along the street where the king was to march after the ceremony.  We waited here for 2 hours, making friends with the Bobbies who afterwards helped us out by not letting anyone stand in front of us.  The kids got quite a kick out of my offering to save the Bobbie’s place while he went to lunch.  We finally did see the king, all his brothers, Queen Mary and the Princess and the procession of Royal Guards.  It was a very picturesque sight and very colorful.  This was the first time in 15 years that this ceremony had taken place.  We had lunch at Selfridges and shopped the rest of the afternoon.  Shopped at the American Express on the way home and found that Emily had registered that morning.  Called her and she met us this evening at the Trocadero where we had dinner.  Quite a nice place, very good food.

London
Fri, July 17, 1936

Up at 5 A.M. to go to Covent Gardens to the flower market which was just about closed when we arrived.  We had breakfast at 6:30 and then decided to walk about London.  Some one had the idea that we go to Rotten Row and see some of the rotten riders.  We did but it was too early even for the horses.  Then we found a comfortable bench in Hyde Park and sat down for a few minutes, Marie going to sleep & Bert & Kay & I talking.  After 10 minutes of this we were nearly nutty waiting for time to pass so finally decided to go back in the hotel.  At about 10 we started for the Caledonian market.  We took the underground and got on four wrong trains, and were so mixed up we thought we would never get there.  It took us 3/4 of an hour to get to the place which was a regular 10 minute ride.  We went thru the market stopping at all of the stalls and examining everything.  Finally Bert bought a copper plaque which weighed about 8 lbs and we each bought sugar shakers and cheap suitcases.  We were quite a sight coming home with four suitcases; completely exhausted; and filthy dirty.  This evening we went to Simpsons for dinner and then to theatre to see “Call it a Day.”  When we got home we certainly did “call it a day.”  I can’t ever remember being so worn out.

Call It A Day was apparently made into a movie in 1937.  Some sort of light comedy about a family fraught with ill-conceived love affairs, with a redemptive ending.  More interesting: this was the day that the Spanish civil war started.

English Channel
Sat, July 18 [1936]

We went on a sight seeing tour of London stopping at the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament & St. Paul’s Cathedral.  This tour tied up our picture of London because for a while week before we had just been getting around by ourselves.  This evening we sailed from Horwich for Rotterdam.  So far the trip is quite rough.

Goodbye England.  When we next catch up with Doris she will be on the continent.

Days 12 through 18 of my grandmother’s 1936 trip to Europe, covering time spent traveling in and around London and Torquay.  (Previously: Introduction, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.)

London
Sunday, July 5 [1936]

We started out about 10 this morning to see the changing of the guards but realized it was too late for this so went to services at Westminster Abbey instead.  From here we walked back to the hotel, passing the houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace and the business center of London.  It was very confusing to us to see traffic completely reversed from the way it is at home, that is all cars going down the left side of the street.  The “Bobbies” are very impressive looking persons with their high hats and chin straps & their high white cuffs which aid them in directing traffic.  There are 300 different bus routes here in London.  It costs .04 fare to ride on them.  For dinner this noon we went to “Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese” which is a most interesting old place on Fleet Street.  You enter it by going down a long passageway into a little open court.  The first floor is divided into 3 parts, the front a bar than a small restaurant & to the side of this a little “light lunch” room.  The place was last rebuilt in 1600, has a wood floor covered with sawdust & old tables.  The walls are wood paneled.  The drinking mugs of famous people are left in a case here & the favorite seats of such people as Sam Johnson & Charles Dickens are marked with plaques.  The food was very good.  From here we asked our way to the Westminster Bridge where we took a boat up the Thames to Kew Gardens.  A trip of about 1 1/2 hrs.  This was a very lovely place, beautifully landscaped with gorgeous flowers & many different types of trees and shrubs.  Late in the afternoon we had tea in the Gardens of a little tea shop.  They served us strawberries with luscious thick cream and tea, cookies & little finger sandwiches.  We left for home about 7:30 and arriving here about 9 and spent the rest of the evening packing for our trip tomorrow.

I’m not actually sure what a “.04 fare” means, as this was prior to the decimalization of British currency.  If anyone has a clear idea of what my grandmother might have meant by that, please comment.

The Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese pub is still there, still on Fleet Street.  Doris rather flagrantly misspelled this one, it took me a while to figure out what she was talking about.

The Kew Gardens are, today, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Monday, July 6th [1936]

We were up quite early this morning as we were told the train was leaving at nine & then later on we were told that it wasn’t to leave till noon; so we spent most of the morning at Eastman Kodak store where we took some films to be developed.  Our train left at noon for Torquay where Mr. Glasyer our guide for the week met us.  We arrived about 3:45 in the afternoon & spent the rest of the day just resting up.

I don’t know if there were other options for getting film developed besides the Eastman Kodak store, but even if there were Doris would certainly not have used them, as her family had a strong connection to the company, I think through Eastman.

Following this entry there are several days where, instead of writing a journal, she pasted in the itinerary of the trips she took from Torquay.

Days 10 and 11 of my grandmother’s 1936 trip to Europe, covering the time she spent in Scotland.  The combination of my grandmother’s handwriting being difficult, her spelling being frequently eccentric, and my own unfamiliarity with the proper nouns made these entries hard to transcribe.  I think I managed to figure out all the places she went.  I suspect that this is a problem that will persist for the rest of the journal.  (Previously: Introduction, Part 1, Part 2.)

Edinburgh
Friday, July 3 [1936]

At about 9 o’clock after the immigration officials O.K.ed our passports we were put on the tender and taken ashore to Greenock.  Here the custom inspectors went thru our luggage, and then we were allowed to start on our way by train to Glasgow where we transferred our luggage and ourselves to to a private bus (40 in our party).  Then we started on our ride to Edinburgh.  At 1:30 we stopped at Balloch Inn which is on Loch Lomond.  Here we had luncheon, which wasn’t very good and then took a boat ride all around the lake.  It was just lovely and is surrounded with rolling hills.  From here we continued by bus thru the Trossachs which is simply gorgeous country full of hills or what I would call mountains covered with bright green & greenish yellow grass and fern and dotted with grey spots of scraggly rock edges; and lovely delicate patches of heather which in spots made complete patches of orchid color.  And among all of this lovely color we could see spots of pure white which we found to be mountain goats, on closer inspection.  Our next stop was for just a few minutes to get a glimpse of Loch Katrine, which was a very quiet secluded spot surrounded by hills & woods.  From here we went quite fast thru many small villages and some very lovely country.  (As we had had only 3 hours of sleep last night & having been on the go continually since 6 this morning I slept during part of this.)  Our next stop was in Linlithgow where the Castle of Mary Queen of Scots is.  This is supposed to be the place she lived in during her reign.  From here we continued on to Edinburgh.  We were assigned to a small sized ball room for the night at least it seemed that way to us after our small cabin on the boat.  This evening Bert & I went for a walk along the business streets.  It was quite amusing to notice the unattractive window displays and to look at the prices of things and try to translate them into U.S. pricing.  I believe the people attracted our attention more than the other things because of their dress.  They seem to have no style to them.  Their clothes just hang and have no color or cut and their shoes just don’t fit.  We walked along for a while just looking at people’s feet & we could pick out every tourist just by shoes and stockings.  After this walk we went back & went to bed at about 11 o’clock and it was still broad day light.  The land of the midnight sun!

I get kind of a kick out of Doris’s reflections on style here.  In those sentences I can see a bit of the grandmother I actually knew, who devoted a lot of mental energy to issues of social propriety.  More information on the places she visited: Greenock, Glasgow, Balloch Inn (might be the same place, might not), Loch Lomond, the Trossachs, Loch Katrine, Linlithgow, Edinburgh.

Saturday, July 4th [1936]

We were up bright and early this morning and started on quite an extensive sight seeing tour at 9:30.  Our guide was quite a humorous fellow (English in no.) and his only worry was that we wouldn’t see all of Edinburgh before we left.  But I’m sure that didn’t happen because by the time we reached the train at 1:30 we were simply exhausted.

Our first stop on this train was the home of John Knox which was a very interesting place with very small rooms which had beautifully carved paneled walls and very low doors thru which we walked quite stooped.  This was done as a sort of defense measure for in the olden days they would stop the speed of the enemy.  We were told of the origin of burning the candle at both ends & of the saying dead as a door nail.  From here we went to Holyrood Palace, which was the palace of Mary Queen of Scots.  We were taken thru the private rooms once occupied by Queen Mary, the room of Charles Darnley thru the large banquet halls and thru the court rooms now used by the king when he is residing there.  The most interesting of these rooms was the presentations hall which is quite beautiful in its simplicity.  It is quite large with no chairs except a throne on a slightly raised platform & on the floor a beautiful oriental rug.  There are some beautiful oil paintings here of all the important royalty.  The most beautiful I think is a fairly new painting of the Present Queen Mary.  In front of the palace is a guard in kilts that patrols up and back in front of the entrance.  From here we went to St. Giles Cathedral which was the parish of John Knox.  It was quite a beautiful place with a very interesting history.  It has been the church of 4 different religions.  From here we were taken to the Supreme Court building where we saw a beautiful stained glass window depicting the king and all of the courtiers  We were very fortunate to find the courts were not in session this gave us an opportunity to see the barristers and advocates in their morning suits and long black robes and wigs.  We then were shown the center spot of Edinburgh which is marked by a large heart in the center of the street.  Our next stop was Edinburgh Castle which is on a high hill over looking Princess street which is said to be the most beautiful street in the world.  This castle was once a fortress but is now war memorial.  Where the chapel once was now stands a building dedicated to the dead war heroes.

Before going to the station we stopped at the park just below the castle and saw the large floral clock.  At 1:30 our train left for London where we arrived at 10 P.M. and went directly to the Kingsley hotel.  Bertha & I have a room (105) together just over looking the the city.  This was a very tiring day but a very happy one for us all.

There’s too much in here for me to go through and link to all of it.  There are some things that jumped out at me while reading that I want to note though.  Doris’s trip to the U.K. happened to fall during the less than one year reign of King Edward VIII, who ascended the throne on 21 January 1936 and would go on to abdicate it on December 10 so he could marry his American mistress, Wallis Simpson.  The “present Queen Mary” my grandmother admires a painting of seems likely to be the King’s mother, Mary Von Teck.  I was sure I was reading a “heart in the center of the street” wrong, but a search reveals that Edinburgh does in fact have a cobblestone heart near St. Giles Cathedral.

Picture from the RampantScotland website

The text at the website where I found the picture tells a fairly different story of the heart than the one my grandmother relates.  Rather than being the center of Edinburgh, it was the location of a building where tolls were collected and, later, prisoners executed.  It was apparently for a time customary for passersby to spit upon the heart.

Days 6 through 9 of my grandmother’s 1936 cruise.  Previously: Introduction, Part 1.

S.S Duchess of Atholl
Monday, June 29th [1936]

This is the first bad day we have had since we’ve been abroad.  The weather has been cold and foggy with quite a ghastly green choppy ocean.  No one looks particularly chipper today and many are slumped in their deck chairs looking rather pale and sad.  There were 150 people absent from dinner this evening but none of us were among this number.  We’ve gotten along grand all day and haven’t missed a meal.  I guess we can just take it.  This evening Charlotte won $13.50 in a keno game.  Movie “Every Nite At 8.” Then to bed after sandwiches upstairs.  Lost another hour.

Every Night at Eight is a 1935 movie in which three young women get fired from an industrial job and try to find success as a singing trio.

S.S. Duchess of Atholl
Tuesday, June 30th [1936]

Today was again very grey and cold although the water was so calm we almost felt as though the ship were standing still.  Wrote thank you letters for a while this morning and played bridge this afternoon.  This evening was the masquerade.  Very few people dressed up. We wore formals and felt very appropriately dressed.  We played bridge in the lounge and then took a few “turns” about the deck before going to bed. Set the clock back an hour again.

A bit of historical context here.  On the same day my grandmother was attending a masquerade on a ship, in the United States a book called Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell was hitting store shelves.

S.S. Duchess of Atholl
Wednesday, July 1 [1936]

For the first time since I’ve been aboard ship I slept till almost noon.  Gee!  It was a grand sensation for a change.  I wrote letters most of the morning.  I don’t think I’ll ever finish really.  Such is the life of a vacationist.  Late this afternoon we went and had some of our American money changed in to English money.  We sat for an hour with that money trying to figure out how much it equaled in our money.  I can see now where we’ll probably be jipt [sic] royally all over.  This evening we played keno and I won $4.  Then down to the movie to see the “Bengal Lancer” then a walk about the deck and so — “Good night”!  Set clock back again.

This entry has me thinking about my grandmother’s character and historical context in some new ways.  “Jipt” is clearly a corruption of “gypped,” meaning “cheated” and a corruption of “gypsy”.  My grandmother’s handwriting is difficult, and it took me a while to read this one.  When I managed it, I wondered about racism.  It isn’t obvious to me, given the spelling, that Doris knew the origin of the word she was using, but she surely would have been aware that “jew” is used by antisemites to mean the same thing.  Perhaps that would have made her less likely to express herself that way, had she realized?  Even if she wouldn’t have used that term the question of racism, and how much it was a part of my grandmother’s character in her 20s, remains.  The last set of entries seemed to indicate that she bought into stereotyped gender roles.  Perhaps her thoughts on race will come out once she gets to Europe.  (When I knew her, sixty years later, she never said or did anything that seemed overtly racist.  But a civil rights movement had happened in the interim.)

Regarding the issue of antisemitism, I find it necessary to continually remind myself when thinking about race and religion in this journal that these events are from a pre-holocaust world.  I’m not sure I have a strong understanding of what a Jewish identity is that doesn’t somehow have an echo of in-living-memory genocide.

The Lives of a Bengal Lancer was another 1935 movie.  Likely fitting right in with my seventy-five-years-later theme of racism, this one is about British soldiers on a frontier in India defending against ruthless natives.  The Wikipedia article about the movie claims that it may have been Adolf Hitler’s favorite movie, though other sources say that his favorite was King Kong.

S.S. Duchess of Atholl
Thursday, July 2nd [1936]

Today we spent most of our time frantically writing letters of thank you’s because we know that after we get off the boat tomorrow we’d never write them.  Late this afternoon there was a terrible fog.  It was so thick the boat was practically at a stand still and you couldn’t see more than 3 feet of water anywhere around the boat.  At about five o’clock we sighted land for the first time the bonnie hills of Scotland & hills of good old Ireland and believe me it was grand to see a good piece of terra-firma.  This eve before our farewell dinner we had cocktails with the Nicholson.  About seven o’clock we went on deck just as our boat was entering the Clyde river.  On both sides were the rolling hills of Scotland, the most majestic spectacle, with the sun sinking just behind and their color the most gorgeous shades of green, just velvety looking.  Along the coast were little fishing villages & scattered in the hills among the trees were occasional old castles.  It was about 12 o’clock before it actually got dark tonight and just now (2 A.M.) we could see a streak of day light behind the hills toward the west.  A beautiful night.  (Change our clocks I think for the last time.)

See the Wikipedia article on the River Clyde for lots of interesting pictures of what these views look like today.

The first five days of my grandmother’s 1936 cruise abroad.  I’m correcting minor spelling/writing errors, unless I think they are interesting.  (For background information, read the introduction.)

Michigan Central Train
June 24, ’36

After a glorious send off by the Froehlichs, Newmans and my folks we left the 12th street station at 10:30 A.M. on the Michigan Central railroad bound for Montreal.  Mr. Judson, representative of the Sanger tours, joined Joan, Bertha and me and we quickly found a drawing room where we spend the remainder of the day playing bridge and drinking.  At 4 o’clock Charlotte and Marie got on at Detroit and we had quite a hilarious evening; which ended about 10:30 when we all went to bed completely exhausted from the excitement of the day and the days before.

Sanger Tours, incidentally, seems to still exist.

Montreal Canada
June 25, ’36

We arrived in Montreal this morning at 1:00 and went to the Windsor Hotel where we registered for rooms and left our luggage.  Then down to the coffee shop for breakfast to which Mr. Judson again treated.  Then as all loyal members of our sex we remembered a bit of last minute shopping that we had to do; so we hiked ourselves off to the best stores in town among which as my old standby the V and X.  At eleven we started on a two and a half hour bus ride around the city which proved to be very interesting.  We went thru the campus of McGill University; thru the French and English sections of the town and thru the beautiful residential districts.  We stopped at the Notre Dame church, which is quite an old cathedral but very beautiful.  We then went thru the Shrine of Brother Andre which is a large church on the top of a hill.  It is still in the process of being built and when completed will be the highest point in the city.  This afternoon after a hurried lunch at “Childs” we took a horse & carriage ride up to the top of Mount Royal.  Before dinner we went to a cocktail party in Mr. Judson’s room.  Mr. & Mrs. Nicholson & Mr. Eagles and our gang were there.  This evening we spent very quietly in our room.

My grandmother’s old standby store, the V and X, was also called “the five and ten” or “the five and dime.”  It was a variety store where everything cost five or ten cents.  The “Shrine of Brother Andre” is now known as St. Josephs Oratory.

S.S. Duchess of Atholl
June 26, ’36

We were up at the crack of dawn (6:30) in order to get down to the boat and make our final arrangements.  Then Bert and I did some final shopping for crazy gifts for [Rory?] Judson.  The boat sailed at eleven thirty amidst quite a lot of excitement.  The five of us were nearly crazy we were so thrilled.  After sailing we went down and got our mail and opened the flowers some of the girls got.  We had cocktails with Mr. Judson, Mr. Buck & Mr. Nicholson & Miss Ray Fauss  up in 1st class lounge then luncheon which was quite hilarious.  In the afternoon we wrote letters and at 8 P.M. bid farewell to Ray & Mr. Buck then settled down to a quiet evening.

It is kind of illegible who the “crazy gifts” are for.  I’m guessing that Mr. Judson had a son named Rory.

S.S. Duchess of Atholl
Saturday, June 27, ’36

We were still in the St. Lawrence River.  The day has been beautiful and we were all up early and out in our deck chairs right after breakfast.  Our chairs are situated on the port side near the stern of the boat; right along side of the rail.  Behind us is a set up for “Quoits” and then a double row of chairs; then a deck Tennis court and the same set up of chairs on the other side.  At 11 the deck steward served bouillon and crackers then we relaxed and napped until luncheon at 1:30.  Again around the deck until Muster drill at 3:45 P.M.  It was just grand sitting and watching the deep blue water with an occasional view of the coast of the Province of Quebec.  At 5 o’clock there was Horse racing on the cabin deck at which I lost 50¢ and if I hadn’t had a bath at 5:30 probably would have lost more.  Dinner at 7:30 a nice English waiter with absolutely no sense of humor.  After dinner we went on deck to watch the sunset which was indescribable it was so gorgeous.  A keno game in the lounge at which Bert won $5.  Then down to the first class dinner room to see “Ruggles of Red Gap” and then to bed.

Lots of stuff in this one.  I wasn’t familiar with quoits, but it seems to be a ring tossing game similar to horseshoes.  The horse racing on the ship was done with wooden cutouts of horses, with their progress determined by rolling dice.  Ruggles of Red Gap was a 1935 film based on a bestselling novel by Harry Leon Wilson.  It was a comedy about an English valet who finds himself in the American west and has to assimilate.

S.S. Duchess of Atholl
Sunday, June 28th [1936]

At a slight tap on the door at 8:30 and with a very English accent Miss Battens our stewardess awakened us to another glorious day.  As soon as breakfast was over we went on deck where we were kept busy all morning watching the patches of snow and the lonely shrubbery on the coasts of Newfoundland on our right and Labrador on our left.  It is hardly possible to describe the gorgeous billowy clouds and the deep blue of the water that met our eyes as we passed thru the Straits of Belle Isle in to the beautiful Atlantic.  These straits are also called the path of ice bergs.  To the right and to the left we saw some dozen and a half bergs snow white and very majestic against the deep blue sky.  We passed one berg at a distance of 4 miles and were told that it was only about 1/12 above water.  I can’t put into words what a glorious sight an a thrill this all was.  At 12:45 P.M. we passed Belle Isle and entered the Atlantic.  As we sat in our deck chairs watching the calm blue water we just marveled at the tranquility of it all.

Luncheon at 1:30 and a quiet afternoon.  After dinner a concert in the lounge, then a stroll on the deck neath the Atlantic star stroon [sic] sky and then to bed.  The first bit of humor from an English officer was when Bert asked him how deep the water was and he answered “Oh ’tis not verry dip — only about three miles.”  Clock set back 1 hr.

From Wikipedia, the strait my grandmother sailed through.

Belle Isle is the unlabeled island just past the mouth of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

My parents recently reorganized their library, and while they were doing so they discovered my maternal grandmother’s diary from a trip abroad she took in 1936, at the age of 22.  I knew my grandmother as Doris Stein, but when she took this trip she was Doris C. Kaufmann.  She wrote as much in the front of the book.

Name: Doris C. Kaufmann
Home Address: 1131 E. 50th St. Chicago, IL
Starting Point: Montreal
Name of Ship: S. S. Duchess of Atholl
En route for: England, Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Switzerland.

I’ve decided I’m going to transcribe the journal as I read it, and post it here.  It will, for me, be a fairly fascinating look into my family history, and I think it will more generally be an interesting glimpse into the high society of Chicago in the pre-World War II era.  My grandmother’s family was what my mother calls, “very comfortable.”  Her father, Charles Kaufmann, was the inventor of the telescoping camera and owner of Kaufmann and Fabrey, the largest commercial photography company in Chicago.  So for those thinking about authorial voice, this series will be the reflections of an upper class Jewish young woman heading out on her “grand tour” of Europe.

Before I start posting the contents, though, I want to talk a little about her journal as an artifact.  It’s a leather bound volume with an attached pencil. It was printed specifically to be a cruise diary, with color pages to identify not just the flags of foreign countries, but also the iconography of the various cruise lines of the day.

Flags of the world’s countries and cruise lines. (Click to enlarge.)

Tucked between the pages are clippings and other errata of her trip, including a postcard of her ship and a map of the world.

The Duchess of Atholl. (Click to enlarge)

World Map. (Click to enlarge)

Finally, sandwiching the primary portion of the book which has pages titled “My Trip — Day by Day,” there are pages for personal memoranda, the recording of addresses and ship’s logs, tables of exchange rates and international posting costs, and other such things.  My favorite bit of content from these pages relates to tipping.  There are several paragraphs printed in the “Information for Travelers” section about how tipping practice is a debated topic.  My grandmother seems to have sought advice on this subject from someone, perhaps her father, and written a table for her own reference showing how much money she plans to give to the various persons on the ship.

Tips on Board Ships. (click to enlarge)

Much more about this book to come.  I will try to provide historical context as I relate my grandmother’s experiences.  For example, I recall her telling me once that she was on a trip to Europe when the Spanish Civil War started.  This has to be that trip, so I will try to note what world events are going on as my grandmother jaunts about the Atlantic.