From the age of ten, I wished on every wishbone and load of hay for a trip to Egypt and Africa, never dreaming at that early age that they were one and the same. I had visions of me on a camels’ back plodding across the Sahara Desert to explore the pyramids and sailing down the Congo River duplicating what I thought was Frank Buck’s trek across Africa.
I was no doubt inspired by Frank Buck’s “Bring ‘em Back Alive” films of the old-fashioned movies. By the time I was twenty and through college, my history and geography were sorted out and up to date, but the hope of getting there fading. My remotest dreams of a honeymoon in those distant parts had vanished with my getting engaged to an army private. There had always been the hope that I would fall in love with a rich man and find myself on a safari in the darkest Africa. Fate had something else in store for me.
At the age of twenty and a half, I married a medical student just discharged from the Army. After a week-long honeymoon, we plunged into rigorous postwar living the fall of ’46, he to school again and I to work. After six frugal years of study and one baby in diapers and another on the way, I must say our finances were at a low ebb and many moons had passed since even a thought of moonlight over Cairo entered my head. Life continued in a humdrum pattern of diapers, bottles, etc. until one spring day a letter came telling my husband that he had been accepted as a staff member of the Rockefeller Foundation and would he please proceed to New York on July 1st. It came as rather a shock as his hopes had been dashed a year earlier upon applying for a nearly life-long dream due to his youth and experience.
It was with mixed feeling that I heard the news. We would be out of financial straits in three more months of exorbitant payments on our house, our car was nearly paid for and our new baby was six months old. The grass was growing, and our living room had hopes of getting a rug and chair to fill the void it had suffered for nine months. The only bit of furniture we had in there was a secondhand couch and coffee table. But I had had high hopes. Bob had spent every Saturday for the last two months building a patio and making a floor of redwood rounds. The ivy and ferns were beginning to grow, and we had just paid out $100 to join the community swimming pool which wasn’t refundable. Our life was finally beginning to take shape after years of apartments, medical books, instruments, babies and budgets. But there was no hesitation on the part of my spouse. It was a chance to do something he’d wanted to do ever since he could remember, medical research!
Two months later we sold our home (at a loss) and sold the car. The moving van came and packed up what furniture we had. I wept and we boarded the plane for New York.
Some people like New York. I had visited there once before and found it exciting, fabulous even. But I am a Texan and I just spent a year in Walnut Creek, a lovely suburb of Berkeley. Our house had a half-acre garden with a huge oak tree on it. I like to breath good clean air. I like to walk barefooted on freshly cut grass, and I’m provincial enough to like to hang the washing in the sun to dry. I got claustrophobia for the first time in my life when we moved to Manhattan to live. After the excitement of moving into our E. 86th Street apartment house and unpacking and finding loved possessions died down, the feeling came over me. How could I live in such a place? Oh, the apartment was very nice: clean, large and comfortable. It had a glamorous entrance with an awning and four doormen. Those four doormen and the dry-cleaning man, who came once a week, were the only people I talked to for the first month.
with daughters Jan and Peggy (1953)
Even the elevator was self-operating! Bob discovered a dear little park on the East River (Carl Schurz Park) for the children to play and for us to walk in, and I practically lived there until the weather got too cold, but I never got over the doggy smells. In due time of course, we made friends and adjusted ourselves to city dwelling. To look back upon our short time in the greatest of all cities, I try to remember our visits to the United Nations, Empire State Building and attending theatres and concerts. I’d still like to go back to visit but never to live again. But how can I forget that tar and concrete city? Much as I hated to admit it though, New Yorkers are charming people and the surrounding country is beautiful.
However, we were not there long enough to get our roots very deep when word came that we would soon be going to Africa. I couldn’t believe it! Was it really true?
Back came the visions of Cairo, jungles, wild elephants. Then came the second shock wave. How could I drag two defenseless children halfway around the world to live like pioneer missionaries? It’s all very well when you read of other people doing so, but it was again with mixed feelings that I packed up our remaining possessions. Naturally, when we learned we were going to Africa, out came the geography books again. It was a bit disappointing when I learned that we were going to Johannesburg which was 6,000 miles away from Cairo and about 3,000 miles away from the Congo. But at least it was on the continent and a lot nearer the South Pole than I ever dreamed.
I couldn’t believe Johannesburg was as civilized as the books said, so I stocked up on nylon stockings and powdered milk and waved a happy, but dubious farewell to the Statue of Liberty wondering if I really would see it again. By the time we reached Alexandria travel had lost a lot of its glamour for me! Honestly, we were exhausted and were only halfway to Johannesburg. We foolishly chose to come by ship and had storms all the way across the Atlantic and Mediterranean. I, who prided myself on never having gotten motion sick anywhere, including all the Ferris wheels, merry go round and loop-the-loops in numerous amusement park as I grew up, was violently seasick with Jan and Peggy. Who says babies don’t get seasick? I could have kissed the soil in Egypt if so many night-gowned Arabs hadn’t been running around all the tourists. We finally got through customs thanks to a friend of a friend of a friend in an oil company and headed immediately to exotic Cairo, completely exhausted.
We arrived about 1 a.m. and the sight of the pyramids under a full moon was one I’ll never forget. We drove on to our host’s home which was a lovely two-story house. They gave us their room so we could be near our children in the adjoining room and shortly after fell into an exhausted slumber. I faintly awoke to the unfamiliar sounds of a strange house, rolled over to touch my husband’s head just to assure myself I was awake when I felt something furry. It didn’t feel human at all! My dazed eyes opened and then I screamed (I don’t usually scream.). I had never before seen a mongoose. That mongoose gave us a merry chase the whole week we were there, stealing our slippers, grabbing at our toes and scaring the daylights out of us, but what a clown he was. Crawling inside our sleeves and pants legs to sleep, scurrying all over, breaking eggs by throwing them between his hind legs.
But, let’s get on to the sightseeing. Ages before we left New York, we got all the brochures we could find on Egypt. It would have taken a six-month tour to have seen all the things we would have liked, not to mention a small fortune, too. Already we’d had a taste of sightseeing with two small children at our stops in Barcelona, Marseilles, and Naples. Luckily, we were wise enough to hire a private car at each of those places, but it meant an awful lot of adjustments for us; baby food from the ship, bottles of sterile water and a thousand other considerations. Jan had a blanket she had to carry everywhere for consolation. Two moves in one year didn’t help matters any. Centuries old castles don’t seem nearly as romantic as they should seem when one is hauling around a tired three-year-old and a sleepy hungry baby.
In Barcelona we finally went to a hotel and rented the room for the day just to put the children to bed for a nap. Then we hired a maid to come sit with them while they slept, and we went out to sightsee. Of course, we had forgotten the Spanish siesta which lasted the whole afternoon. By the time the shops opened again, it was time to go back to the ship. In Marseilles we went for a drive in the country, having had enough city sightseeing with children. It started drizzling before we left the city limits. We were unable to take any pictures but did enjoy the little fishing villages we passed, ate native food at an ordinary little seaman’s restaurant and all in all enjoyed our French dinner and unorthodox trip. We didn’t see another tourist the whole way!
Naples was a bit better, but again instead of taking the usual cook’s tour via bus, we hired our own car, terribly expensive but the only way we could survive, and carry necessary bottles and diapers, etc. We honked our way around Amalfi Drive and ate in the hotel that the other ship tourists weren’t and held hands swearing to come back here when the children were grown for our second honeymoon. The children ate fresh raisins, wrapped in grape leaves and spaghetti, enjoying it every bit as much as we did. The Italians are terribly kind to children. Much more tolerant than the British who seem to put theirs to bed every night after 4:30 p.m. tea and wonder why every American child who happens to be travelling with parents isn’t also put to bed while the sun is up. Anyway, back to Amalfi, we spent far too much time admiring the view, buying wooden inlaid pictures, visiting other tourist attractions, and got to the boat, after a frightful trip back to Naples, just fifteen minutes before sailing time.
But on to Cairo! You should have just seen us riding those camels, the whole family! Their names were Canada Dry and Ginger Ale. What a thrill though for me after all these years, but could I explore the secret depths of even one of the three or climb to the top for that matter. No, who could drag small children to those places? Why not hire someone to look after the children. Do you have any idea how some children react to strange babysitters, even if they haven’t just been jerked from the only home they knew to a ship that docks every few days and dragged around boring after boring mile? Well, most don’t like it. They hung onto us like bees to honey.
However, after the pyramids, we had had it. Our hostess Ellen knew it too, and kindly offered to stay at home herself and look after the little dears. The children were as relieved as we were, so we rushed through the Cairo Museum, the marketplace, and various mosques. This is no travel log, but if you are interested, write to the Egyptian Tourist or visit your local travel agent. But don’t take the children. That’s when you have to start buying boiled water, keep them from sucking their thumbs, and watch out for every imaginable thing from trachoma bearing flies to dirty toilets. Not that one doesn’t have to watch out anyway, but with children, it’s just a thousand times worse. And they’ll be bored to tears anyway if they are a month under eighteen.
We made a fast visit to Damascus, or rather I did, to spend a week with my sister who had been there with her oil business husband for several years. When I kissed Bob goodbye in my fawn colored gaberdine suit, I wondered if I’d ever see him again. The plane looked like something out of 1917 war surplus. I couldn’t let the children eat a thing on the plane, and I ate very little. I had been warned by my doctor husband who had been warned by our doctor host. By the time we got there, I looked like I had been through the mill. My hat was askew, my skirt wet (there was just no room to change Peggy’s diapers and both had been airsick). We landed in Beirut to be met by my sister to be driven one hundred miles over the mountains to Damascus. Well, it was just wonderful seeing her, but she insisted on showing me the sights of Beirut before we set off for the ancient city, as we might not have had the time on my way back to Cairo. When we arrived, I was too tired to speak but did dig into the green salad which she assured me was safe for she treated it before it came to the table. Needless to say, at 5 a.m. the next morning we were all queuing up for the lavatry. In actuality, her cook had cooked the greens since she was away and apparently forgot to wash the floating radishes!
Revisions and additions made by Edith after she had her third child, Walter.
“I could write a book about our bathroom experiences alone!” I exclaimed to a friend. It was very much on my mind for we had just returned home from South Africa by way of Brussels and London. Peggy, who at the time was five years old, caused us no end of trouble on that trip. I’ll never forget the time in London, we had just a few days there, when I discovered I needed something at Marks and Spencer. That is a store very much like our ten cent stores. I didn’t want to take the children, but my husband, after ten days of sightseeing with them, said he would keep one-year old Walter if I took Jan and Peggy with me. I wouldn’t have minded at all, except we had just three hours before we were due to catch the boat train to South Hampton, and I desperately needed to do some last-minute shopping. But you know how husbands are! On an economical spree, I decided to ride the bus which ran in front of our hotel. The desk clerk said it went to Piccadilly Circus which is where I wanted to go. But he didn’t say which side of the street to catch it. I didn’t ask either for I thought I knew. After all, I had been there on the subway and knew the direction. For obvious reasons I preferred to ride the bus in preference to the underground with two children. Those London subways are terrifying.
The escalators going down to the trains look about three stories high. Well, after a good long wait, in actuality about ten minutes, but seeming like thirty, the bus came. We got on, paid our fair to the conductor. I decided to ask the conductor to tell me when to get off. She looked at me with that calm British reserve and told me I was on the wrong bus, going in the wrong direction. So, we had to get off and cross the street and que up again. After another long wait, the bus came and one by one the passengers got on, but the doors shut just as we were about to board. Then I learned that London buses do not have ‘standing room only’ when all the seats are filled, the doors are shut. Imagine my chagrin, the minutes by this point had ticked up to forty minutes. In frantic search, I hailed a cab. It’s very easy in London, for they just make U-turns in the street if necessary and come to one’s assistance.
By the time we arrived at Marks and Spencer an hour had passed. Bob had warned me to be back at the hotel by exactly 3 o’clock. I had left at 1:00 p.m. A whole hour spent in transportation, and I knew I had to rush. One can imagine the frustration. Two children tagging along or rather dragging along. Just as I was about to transact a purchase, Peggy began tugging at my arm. I discovered out of the corner of my eye that she was doing a desperate dance which meant only one thing. “Where’s the bathroom?” At the blank stare, I remembered the British call it “Lavatry.” She told me there was none in that particular store. “No lavatry?” I repeated. “Then where can I find one.” After elaborating directions, I found a public one underground. I was dubious about taking them there remembering certain public lavatories in America and elsewhere. But this was no time to be choosy. When we got there my fears were groundless. There was a spotless restroom with a stern looking attendant with a change belt around her waist. We joined a long que, all the while Peggy cavorting about in desperate animation. Finally, we were next. We paid a fee each for lavatory, towel and soap and we were next. As we went in the attendant called, “Mind you don’t slam the door girle.” As I was about to prevent that happening, Peggy slammed it for all she was worth. She thought that the woman said, “Shut the door, girle.” As soon as she had done so, I also realized we were locked in. Try as I would, I couldn’t open the door. When the girls saw the plight we were in, they set up loud wails, but with all the noise in the que outside no one heard. Finally, I stood on the toilet seat and stretched my hand over the space at the top waving my handkerchief frantically, hoping to be see. Eventually, my SOS was spotted, and the door unlocked. “I told you to mind the lock, Girle,” was our reprimand from the attendant looking like something out of Blithe Spirit.
By the time we got back up to our Marks and Spencer, I looked at my watch and discovered the time to be 2:40 p.m. That left just twenty-five minutes to get back to my wrathful husband trying to check out of the hotel with bag and baggage and Walter. We did get back just after Big Ben struck the hour of 3 and all made haste to the railroad station. Without my ever having made my purchase at Marks and Spencer. “Never mind, darling,” said my patient husband, "Get it on the Queen Mary.” Well, I did try, but needless to say, shopping on the Queen Mary is like shopping at Bergdorf Goodman’s and then some. For the rest of the trip, no matter where, Peggy and Jan flatly refused to allow any door to be shut behind them, which was a bit awkward sometimes.
Then, there was the time in Belem, at the mouth of the Amazon in Brazil where we were spending a few days in route home. It wasn’t the cleanest city I’d ever visited, though charming in a hot humid way. It was terribly exciting to visit, however, and as usual we were seeing as much as we possibly could in our few days there. Again, came the desperate signal. At that particular moment I was sitting in the car waiting for Bob and our hosts to return from a visit to the marketplace.
That is another story in itself. We had come back to the car, Jan, Peggy and I, after seeing about half of the market visiting the meat market where buzzards sat on the boards and at every opportunity swoop down for a tasty morsel. The streets (paths) so littered with rubbish one really had to watch his step. Once coming out of one little shop, a bird excreted just over my head, a big bird, too. Well, despite my wonderful tourist spirit, I had led my little ones back to the sanitary sanctuary of the car, when, as I said, I saw Peggy again squirming. We’ve since tested her for diabetes and histitis, but her trouble only seems to come from an excess of soda pop and milkshakes. I quickly opened the door. She was only three then and concealed her (or so I thought) while she carried on. Quite honestly there was no other place for her to go. But all of a sudden, I heard a police whistle and suddenly there was a uniformed policeman bearing down on us and what a lecture we had in Portuguese! About this time, my spouse and hosts arrived, and we sheepishly had to explain that we had been dirtying the street of Belem. I now carry a potty wherever we go and even at their ages!
Which reminds me of another story. When Peggy was being expected, we decided Jan was not large enough to give up her crib, so we went shopping for a new one for the new baby. Jan was nearly two and had just learned to use her own little potty. We were so proud of her that we bragged on her all the time. While Bob and I were examining the good and bad features of all the baby beds (We later bought a second hand one for half the price of those.) we suddenly saw about twelve sales ladies converging on a small shape against the wall. We looked just in time to get a glimpse of our Jan lifting her dress to sit on one of the twenty beautiful new potty chairs all on elaborate display. She really didn’t ever know what was wrong with that, but it took another month of training to get her to use her old one at home again.
I think one of the reasons I prefer to travel by ship is because every time we fly, we no sooner have the seat belts fastened or the try of food before us, than one of the three have ‘to go’ that minute and no time for arguing! And did you ever try to change a baby’s diaper (a disposable one, of course) on an airplane, and discover it wasn’t what you thought it was and could the stewardess please hold the baby on the seat while you go to get a wet towel, etc.?? On our first trip overseas, we bought twenty-four dozen disposable diapers. These were delivered directly to the ship. Really, that cardboard crate holding them all just about filled one corner of our stateroom. We left a trail of nearly 10,000 miles of diapers and still got to Johannesburg with two dozen to spare. I certainly enjoyed washing cloth diapers and letting them flap in the breeze after that.
It was our last day in London. We had been in England for a week. The days had been packed with the usual sightseeing. We had done it all, Buckingham Palace, 10 Downing Street, Hyde Park and Tower of London. We had even been lucky enough to pass the Archbishop of Canterbury on the street. As if that were not enough for an ordinary American family to do, we found out that near our hotel, the Queen of England would be reviewing her troops in Hyde Park. We took our three children along, plus raincoats just in case and joined the waiting crowd. Sure enough, the whole royal family arrived. We extricated Walter from his stroller and took turns standing in it to gain the extra foot needed to see over the crowd. And, of course, we held the children up one by one to see the Queen. Smart Londoners had the foresight to spend a few pence on a cardboard periscope. The two girls felt the Queen belonged to them, as they had spent several formative years living in South Africa which was then still part of the British Commonwealth, and at school they had been singing ‘God Save the Queen'. For weeks before the trip, they had asked if we would see the Queen while they were in London. We said we doubted it, but they were sure they would and never lost faith.
As we were running back to the hotel, the review broke up in a long downpour. Blonde six-year-old Peggy said breathlessly, “You know Daddy, first I love God, then the Queen and then Mommy.” We plan to get her to listen to stories of the American Revolution, so she would understand why we don’t sing about the Queen in America, but rather, “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”.
While in South Africa planning for our home leave to the United States, I realized that the children had outgrown most of their summer clothes and would need more shorts, slacks, blouses, etc. South Africa is cold in June and the shops had nothing but winter clothes. My husband assured me that London would probably be cool anyhow and while there I could shop for the children.
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The following are notes written by Edith handwritten at the bottom of this story. She considers her aspirations, goals and dreams as a writer.
I hope to be able to make a career for myself, and at the same....
I hope to be able to draw from my life overseas enough anecdotes and interesting experiences.
I hope to be able to write well enough to sell my stories. I think I have something to write about with my....
I have always had a desire to write but have never pursued it seriously enough. I hope to become disciplined enough to make writing a career even though it has to come second to my home and family. I have a wealth of experiences from living abroad for nine and a half years and would like to get some of these down on paper, related in a saleable way. I think with guidance and criticism, I can do this.
The public often looks at a successful freelance writer has a career that is glamourous and romantic.
Many people think that a professional writer’s career is more glamourous and romantic than most professions.