Tag: Doris Stein

Days 40 through 43 of my grandmother’s 1936 trip through Europe. (Previously: Introduction, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10.)

Saturday, Aug. 1st [1936], Orleans

Left Tours this morning for Orleans where we arrived about noon. After getting settled in our rooms and having lunch we started out to see the city. This is the city that Joan d’Arc saved from the British and so it has many statues and church built in her honor. First we saw the statue in the market place which is supposed to be the finest one built to her memory. From here we went to the Joan d’Arc museum which houses many thousands of pictures of her and the war implements and flags used in her time. This museum is housed in what used to be the home of Agnes Sorel the most beautiful woman of France. From here we just wandered about the city and visited a church and then went back to the hotel. Walked after dinner & wrote letters.

Doris mentioned Agnes Sorel in the previous entry too, she seems to have liked her. The statue she looked at in the market is probably this one, by Denis Foyatier. Also on this day, the opening ceremony of the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, sometimes called the Nazi Olympics due to Hitler’s successful employment of the Games as a grand piece of pro-Germany propaganda. From the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Most newspaper accounts echoed the New York Times report that the Games put Germans ‘back in the fold of nations,’ and even made them ‘more human again.'” Three years later, of course, Hitler invaded Poland. (It occurs to me we’ve seen a pale imitation of this same strategy quite recently, with Vladimir Putin invading Crimea right after accruing international goodwill for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.)

Sunday, Aug. 2 [1936], Biarrritz

Left Orleans after breakfast and after a short ride to Les Aubrais changed trains and started on our long journey to Biarritz. As there were no seats in the second class compartments we had a 1st class on all to ourselves. We walked thru the third class cars which are simply terrible. I would certainly hate to have to ride any distance in them. The seats are just straight wood benches. The car was just loaded with people standing in the aisles and sitting and lying all around, eating, smoking, and hollering. Just like steerage on a boat. We spent the day, knitting, eating (as we had brought our lunch along this time just economizing for a change. Not that we don’t know how to. Our money certainly is low.) talking and sleeping. We arrived in Biarritz about 7 and were certainly glad to find a man, who spoke English, meeting us. We’re staying at a very lovely hotel run by people who can understand us. That is the grandest part. We were quite thrilled to find that our mail had been sent from Paris. It just made the day and night. After a very late supper we wrote awhile and ten went to bed very tired after the long train ride.

Les Aubrais is the train station in Orleans. While Grandma was congratulating herself on knowing how to economize, in Berlin, Hitler was personally congratulating Olympic medalists until Cornelius Johnson, an African American, won gold in the high jump. The consensus response from the Olympic committee was that Hitler–who had almost inspired a boycott of the Olympics by initially forbidding participation by Jewish athletes–should congratulate all medallists, or none of them. He chose the latter option.

Monday, Aug. 3 [1936], Biarritz

Got up this morning about 9:30 after the most terrible night I’ve ever spent. We got in bed last night all set for a good night’s rest but were soon convinced that this was just not to be. The flies and mosquitos were simply terrible. After about 2 hrs. Bert & I finally switched on the light to find ourselves just one mass of bites. Our faces and arms were so swollen we hardly recognized one another. For 2 hours after that we did nothing but kill the damn things and tried to sleep the rest of the morning (4-6) with light on swatting anything that came near us. It was terrible. This morning after breakfast we walked around the city, which is very lovely and very clean. The cleanest place we’ve hit in France probably because of so many tourists. We did a little shopping and after lunch Marie and I walked about and looked at the beaches and beautiful coastal life. About 4 we all went down to the beach for a swim in spite of the unsettled weather & showers. It was a frothy beach nestled in among the rocks with a lovely view of the reefs just a short distance out in the sea. After dinner we went to a movie. The original English version of “The Ghost Goes West” with French subtitles. It surely was a treat to be able to relax and understand the picture. We acted like regular nuts clapping when the American flag was shown in the news reels. Real true Americans, that’s us. Went back to the hotel and talked but not before we made sure the room was sprayed with fly tox and the windows shut tight.

The Ghost Goes West was a British supernatural comedy in which some rich Americans buy a Scottish castle and move it to Florida, only to discover they’ve brought along its resident ghost as well. In the Olympics, Jesse Owens won his first of four gold medals on this day, tying the world record for the 100-meter dash.

Tuesday, Aug. 4 [1936], Biarritz

Slept late this morning as our pals the mosquitos didn’t disturb us. After a busy morning washing & mending Jo & I went walking to see the aquarium which wasn’t open as it was almost one o’clock. All places in France, department stores included, close their doors between 12-2 for lunch. Business or no business those Frenchmen must eat. After the lunch the sun came out so we went down to the beach again where we spent a few hours lying in the sand and swimming. We have had so little sun since we’ve been traveling that it’s a real treat. Had an early dinner and then did our packing and to bed early as we have to leave at 7:30 in the morning.

Not a hugely eventful day in my grandmother’s life, but the day Jesse Owens won gold in the long jump, an event in which he’d already set a world record the year before that would stand for 25 years.

Days 38 and 39 of Doris Stein’s trip around Europe in 1936. (Previously: Introduction, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9.)

Thursday, July 30 [1936], Quimper – Tours

Walked around the town this A.M. saw some of the pottery and interesting spots but the place was so dirty and smelled so that we couldn’t enjoy it. We left at 2:30 after a terrible commotion at the station trying to fine out train. No one there spoke English and we had an awful time, just got on as the train was pulling out. Our guide from the trip thru Normandy was on the train still as dirty as ever. He kept us company for a while and just before he got off he took a large bottle of “Evening in Paris” perfume from his pocked and rubbed it all over his dirty hands. (Typically French). Long train ride uneventful till we changed at [illegible] then met some American fellows who talked with us a few hours. Gee! it was grand for a change. Changed trains again at St. Pierre de Corps, arrived at Tours completely exhausted and we so pleased to find the hotel man waiting for us. He was so pleasant and helpful we felt better immediately. Lovely Hotel with English speaking people. Late supper, bed almost immediately afterwards.

After the last entry my mother reminded me of a moment from 56 years later in Doris’s life. I was ten years old, with my parents and grandmother at a fancy restaurant in Rome, where Grandma was displeased that the menu was in Italian. My mother was able to translate for her, but Grandma continued to insist there should have been an English version, tut-tutting about the ways of foreigners until finally my mother ended the conversation with, “Mom, we’re the foreigners!” So, with regard to her feelings about non-English speakers at least, my grandmother remained quite consistent.

Friday July 31 [1936], Tours – Chateau Country

Up at 7:30 and after breakfast in our room we started off on a sight seeing tour of the chateaus of the surrounding country. The first one we visited was Loches Castle. It is a very intersting place but a bit weird because of some of its horrible dungeons and implements of torture. Its church is very beautiful and has four pyramid spires the only ones of their kind in a church in the world. The castle is built completely of chalk with no foundation at all. Agnes Sorel’s body is buried here. Our next stop was the Chateau of Chenonceau. An interesting place because of the beautiful tree lined walk of about 3 blocks that leads up to it and the lovely formal gardens around it. the Chateau itself is completely surrounded by water and not particularly beautiful inside.

From here we went went to Amboise a chateau built in the top of a hill it has now been bought by the house of Orleans and is used as a home for old servants. There is a beautiful little chapel here “St. Hubert” in which the body of Leonardo Da Vinci is buried. From the gardens here you can see the whole country side and up and down the river. Had supper back at the hotel and spent the evening writing as usual and to bed early.

Doris’s spelling in this entry had serious issues, which were harder than usual to figure out because Googling possible place names near “Tours” quickly becomes an exercise in frustration. Without the descriptions of things like famous graves, I’m not sure I would have been able to decipher them. The châteaux she visited: Loches, Chenonceau, d’Amboise. I was not previously familiar with Agnès Sorel, but it seems she had great influence with King Charles VII, was the first officially recognized royal mistress, and started a fashion for going about court bare-breasted. She’s the model for this contemporary painting by Jean Fouquet, The Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels.

It’s been a few years, but I’m reviving this project at my mother’s request. These are days 35 and 36 of my grandmother’s journal recording her trip through Europe in 1936. For these entries she’s in Brittany. Here are the previous parts: Introduction, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8.

Tuesday. St. Malo – Dinard July 28 [1936]

Slept quite late this morning as we knew there was no hurry as our next stop was just across the river. Repacked our suit cases & shipped on back to Paris then walked about the town, passed the fish market & vegetable markets until the odors got so bad we just had to go back to the hotel. After lunch we left by boat for Dinard. Upon arriving we couldn’t find any one to meet us until we were just about at the hotel. We were so burned up we sat down and wrote to Paris & told just what we thought of their offices. Dinard turned out to be a most delightful little bathing resort with a beautiful beach & loads of interesting shops. If the money hadn’t been so low I’m sure we would have bought things there. We spent a delightful evening walking along the beach & then went up to our rooms & discussed the great contrast between St. Malo and Dinard. The two cities are so close together & yet so different.

Not a lot to note here. Though on that same day, Doris’s hometown newspaper the Chicago Tribune published an interview with Francisco Franco synopsized on Wikipedia thusly: “[H]e claimed that his government was neither monarchist nor fascist, but ‘Nationalist Spanish’, and that he had launched the rebellion to save Spain from communism. When asked what form his government would take, Franco replied it would be a ‘military dictatorship’ with a plebiscite later on ‘for the nation to decide what it wanted.'”

Wednesday, July 29 [1936], Dinard – Quimper

Left Dinard about 8A.M. and after a bit of griping between ourselves about the tip we had to pay for the wine and jam, went to the bus station from where our trip was to start. There were to be just the four of us and a lovely elderly English couple, who were very lovely to us all day. We traveled thru some beautiful hilly country (Brittany) dotted with small farms and chestnut trees. Our first stop was to the little town of St. Brieuc where we went thru the open market. Where they were selling fish; live chickens and rabbits; butter, cheese, and all sorts of clothing. Each person has their own little stall covered with an awning. We saw many of the women dressed in black skirts, black velvet blouses and little lace caps that just perch on the tops of their heads. This is the native costume of Brittany. the little caps differ in different section of the country. Our next stop was Le Huelgoat where we had lunch at a very lovely way side inn. After lunch we went thru a beautiful grotto, climbed down way under the rocks and watched the water rushing by thru little crevasses in the rocks lower down. Along the way we saw many women washing their clothes along the river banks and using flat stones as wash boards and scrubbing buckets to get the clothes clean and then they throw them over the hedges and on the grass to dry. Stopped at an old church “Chapel of Hunboat” which had an old calvary in the court yard and a lepers porch. Our bus had a flat tire in a little God forsaken town called Loqueffret, which has about 100 inhabitants. I should call it God forsaken because it has a very old church which we visited. We climbed up to the chapel clock which was running perfectly but never did succeed in finding the face. Our next stop was Plaeyben [sic] where we visited another church. This was interesting because of the Arch of Triumph in the court yard which had a very beautiful Friezes around it and the tomb for bones which was just to the right of the church. At about five we stopped at a little inn and had tea and crepes (small thin pancackes) as our English companions just had to have their afternoon tea. From here we went to a very colorful fishing village Duarnenez where they pack sardines. As we got there the fishing vessels were just coming in and it was a lovely sight. The boats with huge blue and green nets hanging over the sides and the men all dressed in brilliant orange, red, blue and salmon colored suits. With the silvery sardines lying all around the docks it was as colorful a picture as any artist could paint. We arrived in Quimper and after a terrible fight with the bus driver over a tip which we refused to pay we went down to dinner to find the dining room rather a smelly place and with the windows facing a perfectly lovely looking mens comfort station. These dirty Frenchmen. Our hotel was the nearest thing to a prison that I’ve ever been in. The corridor walls were all stone, the floors cement & just a window every few feet so that it was dark and damp all the time. The rooms were clean and we had a bath but you just had a feeling that all of the white paint had been put on over dirt. It’s a miserable feeling. After dinner we walked about the city and then went upstairs and wrote for a while.

It’s “These dirty Frenchmen” which really stands out, but I’m also amused by my grandmother’s defining “crepe” and constant haggling over tips. I’m reminded that at the very start of the journal there’s a list of proper tips for different services on her cruise ship. Here’s a picture (source) of some traditional Brittany costume, including a variety of the lace headdresses, just as Grandma described.

Days 32 through 34 of my grandmother’s 1936 trip to Europe, covering a portion of her travels through Normandy. (Previously: Introduction, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7.)

Paris to Rouen Sat. July 25 [1936]

At 9:30 this morning we said our farewells to Kay & Charlotte & the Nicholsons and started on our way to Rouen.  It’s surprising how bad we all felt leaving the party that we had really known such a short time.  We arrived in Rouen about noon & after hurry around [sic] for a porter found the train only stopped about 2 minutes; so with the help of a couple of Frenchmen we threw our baggage out of the windows of the train & went scurrying around for the man from the hotel who was to meet us.  To our dismay there was none & so we managed in our very bad French to get a cab & get to our destination which proved to be a very dismal place.  Our rooms were on the 4th floor to which we had to walk as there were no lifts.  After lunch we started out to see the town.  We visited the Cathedral where some man kindly offered to guide us thru & then charged us 90¢ a piece.  This is the town where Joan d’Arc was burned.  Rain drove us back to the hotel but after dinner we started out again to see the Palace of Justice, the famous clock & a statue of Joan d’Arc.  Our method of sightseeing was quite rare.  Marie with the travel book reading about the things, Bert with a map of the city to see that we were looking at the right things, Jo with a French-English dictionary & me looking the part of a typical tourist with my mouth wide open just gaping.  Next to the Select Theatre to see the “Gay Divorcee” with French dialogue.  The theatre was smelly & crowded & we couldn’t make out head or tail of the picture so during the intermission we left unable to stay another minute.  How we longed for a good old fashion American movie.

For an older but more comprehensive view of Rouen, Project Gutenberg has an 1840 text Rouen: Its History and Monuments by Théodore Licquet.  And of course there’s the Wikipedia page for the modern view.  The Gay Divorcee starred Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, their second on-screen pairing, and was nominated for Best Picture.

Ruen to Caen, Sunday, July 26, 1936

We started out at about 8:30 A.M. by motor coach for Caen, after quite a mix up at the station about our luggage a part of which they finally had to ship ahead to St. Malo.  Our first stop was Jumièges, the ruins of an old abbey, with just the walls of the 3 churches which composed it.  Very interesting sight which would have been much more so if we had been able to understand the French guides.  The man who was with us was supposed to translate but he did a very poor job.  Our next stop was the Abbey of St. Wandrille where we heard the Sunday morning services and then were shown around the outdoor restaurant at Caudebec-en-Caux where we dined with a woman from California who later in the day became our interpreter.   Deauville for a afternoon tea which cost us 10 francs (70¢).  We were all very disappointed in the place after all we had heard about it.  It looked just like Oak Street Beach.  At dinner time we arrived at Caen where we were to spend the night.  After dinner we had our usual walk around the town and then to bed early.

Places: Jumièges, Abbey of St. Wandrille (Fontenelle Abbey), Caudebec-en-Caux, Deauville, and Caen.  And, for comparison, Oak Street Beach, which I believe was visible from the window of my grandmother’s apartment in Chicago when I knew her. UPDATE: I was wrong, this was not the beach visible from her window.  That was a Yacht Club.  Why have I heard of Oak Street Beach?

Caen – St. Malo, July 27, Mon. [1936]

Left Caen about 8 en route for Bayeux where the famous tapestry of Matilda is.  We walked about the town saw the cathedral and then spent about an hour looking at the tapestry.  We didn’t stay until the guide finished lecturing as we couldn’t understand a word & decided the air would do us much more good.  From here we traveled for about 3 hours seeing some of the very beautiful country of Normandy, had lunch in Granville and then on to Mont St. Michel the high spot of the day.  On our way there we passed thru Le Havre & saw the Normandie docked there.  About a half hour before we reached Mont St. Michel we saw it in the distance, a very beautiful sight.  Upon arriving we were told to follow the little crooked street, lined with souvenir shops and restaurants, until we reached the church.  We kept walking and climbing & steps until we reached the top simply exhausted.  Here we were conducted thru and saw the rooms used by the monks in the early days & later during the Revolution used as prisons.  The whole church was built by the monks who carried each piece of stone from the nearby quarries up to the top of the mount.  It is a beautiful piece of gothic structure.  After 2 hours of wandering around we again started on our way passing thru many small towns until we reached our destination St. Malo.  This is an old 11th century town completely surrounded by walls from the old fort.  It is a terribly dirty place with streets so narrow by walking down the middle you can almost touch the buildings on either side.  After dinner we went out into the square where they were showing movies.  We sat at a sidewalk cafe for a while had a drink & then went up to bed just before the movie was over.  The hotel was rather miserable but clean.

Bayeux (and its tapestry), Granville, Mont St. Michel, Le Havre, St. Malo.  Le Havre was the home port of the S.S. Normandie, which at the time was the largest passenger ship in the world.  Four years after my grandmother saw it the ship was seized by the U.S. for use in WWII after the fall of France and renamed the USS Lafayette, but it never saw service as it caught fire in New York harbor while being converted into a troopship and capsized.  The Wikipedia article has some amazing photographs.  My favorite is this one, of the capsized ship still in the harbor:

Days 28 through 31 of my grandmother’s 1936 trip to Europe, covering her time spent in Paris. (Previously: Introduction, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6.)

Paris, Tuesday July 21, 1936

We left Brussels this morning at eight for a short train ride to Paris.  Our first view of Paris was the Eiffel Tower which we saw while we were still some miles out.  After we were settled in our hotel we started on a sight seeing tour of the city.  Our first stop was Madeline church which is quite unusual because instead of being built in the shape of a cross it was built in a square.  It was originally a victory hall.  From here we passed the Opera House, the Place de la Concorde, the Bois de Bologne, the Louvre and some of the famous streets.  We stopped to visit Notre Dame Cathedral which certainly is a beautiful place.  The rose windows and the famous alter where so many of the kings have prayed for victory were very interesting to us all.  Our next stop was Napoleon’s tomb.  It is a perfectly beautiful place.  The light is all a pale blue which comes from the plain blue stain glass windows.  To look at the tomb you go to a railing and look over the side and below is this huge marble coffin that rises about 20ft from the ground.  It is from this tomb that John Paul Jones’s is copied.  In a little chapel just to the side of the coffin are placed his hat and sword.  From here we drove around to where the Trocadero used to be and on this sight they are now building the buildings for the fair of 1937.  Then over to the left bank to get a glance at the book and picture stalls and then back to the hotel for dinner.  This evening we started out for the Cafe de la Paix and after going in the wrong direction for some time we finally were aided by a kind Englishman and arrived there a little bit soaked but anxious to see all the sights that pass by there.

All the really famous stuff of Paris is, of course, still there, and can be easily researched.  Plugging proper nouns into Google, the most interesting new thing I learned was that restaurant,Cafe de la Paix, was designed by Charles Garnier.

Paris, Wednesday July 22nd [1936]

Spent most of the morning getting my hair washed and a manicure then to the American Express office for some money and I again felt ready to conquer the world.  This afternoon we went to Versailles, which is a very beautiful place surrounded by lovely artificial gardens, beautiful statues and fountains.  The palace itself is very ornately decorated inside & although there is no furniture left at all one gets a grand idea of the luxury and grandeur that the kings of France lived in.  We saw the famous mirrored galleries where the Versailles treaty was signed and the room from which Marie Antoinette escaped during the Revolution.  This evening we went on a tour of the night clubs of Paris.  We left our hotel about nine and went to Montmartre where we got a beautiful view of the city of Paris with all of its lights.  Montmartre itself was very interesting with old houses and many outdoor cafes.  From here we went to an African mosque where we had after dinner coffee, then to an Apache cafe which was most interesting.  Here we had wine and watched the street bums dancing.  Our next stop was the Bal Tabarin where we had champagne and watched a very good real French nude floor show.  Some of the Annapolis boys were there and so we had an opportunity to dance.  Although this wasn’t much of a thrill as the floors were just as crowded as those at home.  Home at 2 A.M. & finally to bed about 3.

“Have you transcribed any more of grandma’s journal?” my mother asks me.  “I haven’t seen anything new go up on your website in a while.”

“A little more,” I say.

“What is she up to next?”

“Well, in the last one I transcribed, grandma went to a nudie show and danced with some Navy boys.”

“….”

Paris, Thursday July 23rd 1936

After an early breakfast we went shopping in the Galeries Lafayette one of the large department stores of Paris.  It was anything but an impressive place and we found the prices terrifically high.  From here we took a cab to the Louvre and then as it was too early to go in on one of the tours we walked up and down the Rue de Rivoli and finally ended up at Rumplemeyers for lunch.  We were really in search of a cheap restaurant but as we had heard so much about this place decided to go in regardless & we paid plenty to.  Afterwards we went thru the Louvre & then back to the hotel just about ready to die we were so tired.  This evening Jo & Kay & Charlotte decided to go to see the town & the did by ending up in a place some taxi driver took them.  They got a bill for over 200 francs ($20) for drinks; but as they didn’t have the money they talked the proprietors into a much lower price.

Paris Friday July 24th [1936]

We left for Fontainebleau at 10:00 an interesting drive thru the poorer districts of Paris.  It was really lots of fun seeing the children running around the streets all dressed in aprons, boys and girls alike & the people carrying loaves of bread unwrapped under their arms.  The forest near the hotel is supposed to be the most beautiful in France & from what we’ve seen I agree with the critics.  It has the appearance of a beautiful piece of green lace.  The castle itself is furnished just as it was during the times of Frances 2 and Napoleon.  It is very ornate but has beautiful tapestries, hangings, pictures & exquisite pieces of Stone China.  By using your imagination you can really see the type of people that occupied this place.  We started back in the same old bus which broke down half way home.  We were transferred to another and arrived just a few minutes later than we had expected.  This noon we had a terrible lunch of what we decided afterwards was horse meat.  Out first & I hope last.  After an evening of packin we started out about 11 o’clock for Mont Parnasse the artists’ quarter of Paris.  Sylvia Sopolitz a new acquaintance who spoke French very well took charge of the party.  We rode 5 metros before we reached our destination champagne at the “Dome” amidst artists, tourists, Arabs selling furs and other vendors.  Pastry and coffee at the “Cupole” a nearby cafe.  Then home 7 in a cab having first bargained with the cab driver for a fare we were willing to pay.

My best guess, from minimal research, is that the “Dome” refers to Le Dome Cafe. 

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.