AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL, PART 5 January 29, 2004 February 15, 1952. When we awoke and looked out the window of our Flagstaff, Arizona, motel, we were astounded. Everything was covered with about six inches of the snow that had fallen overnight. AND it was zero degrees outside!! How could that happen in such a desert area? Obviously by the time we started eastwardly again, the Flagstaff snowplows had been called into service, the temperature had risen considerably and we were on our way again. At least in my Trip Journal I didn't report any difficulty. We crossed the Painted Desert and I was surprised that there wasn't all that much color to it. Of course it was still winter. After passing through Winslow, Arizona, we knew that we were on the southern edge of the Petrified Forest. We stopped at Chambers, Arizona, at a roadside stand where a piece of petrified wood was purchased for brother Johnny. We saw many Navajo Indian huts called hogans. They were round and built of mud and sticks or logs. All of the Indians were quite dark-skinned. Shortly after was crossed the Arizona border into New Mexico, we stopped for lunch outside of Gallup, New Mexico. We were fascinated by the Indians around there who we eventually realized were of the Chimayo tribe. We did a bit more shopping and Mother bought a pretty blue and gray hand woven wool Chimayo blanket for $37.75. Johnny bought himself a tomahawk and I'm certain that we gawked at the old Indian woman who came in with an Indian blanket around her shoulders. We were told that she was ninety-four years old! We continued on through Albuquerque and stopped for the night in Tucumcari, New Mexico, at the Blue Swallow Motel. Note: I've recently found out via the Internet that the Blue Swallow Motel is still in operation now in the year 2004! After eating supper, we settled down and went to bed. We were all so tired. February 16, 1952. We allowed ourselves to sleep in until the late hour of 8:00 and shortly after we got back on the road we crossed into Texas at around 9:30. Once again the scenery changed drastically. Ahead of us were flat plains with nothing but wheat fields! We also knew that we were in Texas because all of the men were wearing Levis and Stetson hats and cowboy boots! We stopped at Amarillo, Texas, for lunch where I saw a pair of longhorns for sale for $100.00. Cheap!! Since we were crossing the panhandle of Texas we didn't have all that much of a drive before we crossed over the line into Oklahoma and into Oklahoma City. As we drove through downtown Oklahoma City, I was totally amazed to see oil wells in the middle of town! That evening we stayed for the night at Bell's Cabins which certainly wasn't the nicest place we had stayed in during our trip. I guess we were just spoiled by then. February 17, 1952. The eighth and last day of our trip. After anoher wake up call at 5:45 A.M. we were on the road again. We stopped and had breakfast in a little general store in Choctah, Oklahoma, and traveled a while more before the sun came up. We drove over the border into Arkansas and after passing through Fort Smith, we stopped in the small town of Russellville, Arkansas for lunch. We noticed that there was still snow on the ground and on the trees. The last leg of the trip that day took us through Little Rock and the rest of the way across Arkansas east into Memphis, Tennessee. I wrote in my Trip Journal that I noticed a number of poor colored people living in rickety shacks and walking along the road. However, I also mentioned my delight in seeing the daffodils, redbud and forsythia in bloom! After crossing the boarder from West Memphis, Arkansas, into Memphis, Tennessee, we pulled right up in front of the elegant Peabody Hotel in downtown Memphis. The doorman helped us out of the car, the valet took care of parking our dusty car, and after our luggage and souvenirs had been carried into the hotel lobby, Daddy checked our family into our rooms. No doubt that the Desk Clerk behind the counter looked down his nose at us and viewed us as a bunch of inappropriately dressed Yankee vagabonds, but after seeing Daddy's name, and the company he was now working for, he all but bowed and scraped to ensure that we would be treated very well, very well indeed! The Desk Clerk knew that our family could stay at the hotel as guests of Montana Ferroalloys, Inc. as long as we wanted to. Which, in our case meant we could stay there until we were able to find suitable housing for ourselves. Oh my, what a glorious stay there and what glorious new sights we saw in Memphis! The whole trip was a magnificent experience to remember. vee

Oatman, Arizona is not so deserted now. It's known for tourists and semi-wild donkeys, both of which wander by the dozens through the streets. You can usually tell which are the donkeys as they have tails. Ha! Vee, you are so fortunate if you bought Navaho jewelry back then. The real Navajo jewelry is sky-high, now, as are their rugs. When I first arrived in Arizona back in the mid-1950s, I had a chance to buy a beautiful. large Two-Grey Hills Navajo rug. I thought that at $80.00 it was more than I could afford. I could almost cry every time I think about that opportunity I missed. Faith

Dear Folks, AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL, PART 4 January 28, 2004 February 13, 1952 continued. Outside of Bakersfield, California, we drove through Tehachipi, California, and headed into the Mojave Desert. There the scenery changed drastically. There were cacti and tall spiny Joshua trees all over the landscape. Other than that, it was a barren landscape with snow on the distant hills. Nonetheless we had to stop on the side of the two-lane road and take pictures of each other against the background of big cacti or bigger Joshua trees. We stopped at Barstow for what I had described as "a very poorly tasting lunch." I wonder if that was where I had that HOT, HOT enchilada?? The temperature had warmed up to 62 degrees even though it still felt a bit chilly. Leaving Barstow, we picked up Route 66 and arrived in Needles, California, around 5:00 and stayed in a real nice motel, the El Rancho that actually had an outdoor swimming pool. Wow! After we ate supper in town we settled in for the night ready for the next day. February 14, 1952. After some maintenance on the car we crossed into Arizona only about fifteen miles outside of Needles. We soon took a smaller road heading north parallel to Route 66 where we found ourselves driving through the most desolate countryside this side of a moonscape. There were only huge boulders and rock outcroppings. It seemed we were on different planet with virtually nothing surrounding us but rocks and the only hint of civilization was the view of the narrow winding road ahead. During that stretch of the road, we passed through several deserted old gold mining towns. One of them was Oatman. We stopped to look down the deserted main street of Oatman and we knew we were looking at a real ghost town right out of a Western movie, complete with weather grayed buildings abandoned and falling into decay and tumbleweed blowing down the middle of the unpaved street. The only sound was that of the wind and the faint whisper of the tumbling tumbleweed. We joined back with Route 66 at Kingman and as we headed east again toward Seligman, Arizona, we began to realize that we were in Navajo Indian country. Little souvenir shops lined the route advertising Navajo jewelry and we eventually stopped somewhere near Seligman to buy some of their beautiful silver and turquoise jewelry. Everything the Indians had for sale were so beautiful and there was no doubt but what every piece was handmade. Not long after passing through Seligman, Daddy veered off again due north. He told us that we were going to visit the Grand Canyon!! Of course I knew my geography and I had been taught how grand the Grand Canyon was, but unless you stand at the rail at the rim, look over the canyon and then straight down into it, there are no words to adequately describe it. It's like you're looking off forever to fix your eyes on the other side of the canyon. I can still remember my looking down into it to the bottom. I had to focus my eyes and then refocus them a couple of times more before I could actually see the Colorado River so far below. What a pity we didn't have color film back in the 1950s! It might have helped me remember the many vivid colors that I saw there. After we had soaked up our share of magnificent scenery, we drove back south to Flagstaff, Arizona, where we stayed the night and ate dinner at the Grand Canyon Café and went to bed shortly afterward.

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL, PART 3 January 27, 2004 February 11, 1952. We had stopped in Redding, CA, for lunch and from there we continued to head due south toward San Francisco. There was so much unique scenery to see along the route. We saw lots of olive trees and almond (?) trees and we saw roses in bloom and narcissus and daffodils in bloom and lots of green, green grass and leaves on lots of trees. It was the middle of February and we couldn't believe our eyes. In addition we saw pretty white large birds that looked like they may have been cranes. As we approached San Francisco across the San Francisco Bay, I made comment that I couldn't believe that we would actually be crossing the Golden Gate Bridge! As we approached the bridge at night we were hypnotized by the beautiful view of "Frisco" across the Golden Gate Bridge with all of the city's lights shining across the Bay. As we crossed the bridge it was a magical moment for me! What a magical city! Note: When I eventually actually lived in San Francisco over ten years later, I still cringe at the reference to "My City by the Bay" as "Frisco!" I knew that I lived in San Francisco, the most enchanting city in the world! Don't you DARE call it "Frisco!" We briefly drove through San Francisco that night and traveled just a few miles south where we stayed in a motel in Mountain View which was near Sunnyvale where Daddy used to live for a few short successful months when he worked for Kaiser Aluminum at the time. But the next day we returned to San Francisco via the most magnificent highway we had ever seen! It was SIX lanes across! Daddy treated us to a sight seeing trip around the city and we marveled at the cable cars and the BEAUTIFUL Victorian homes. There were others that were Spanish style with exteriors of stucco and painted with beautiful pastel colors such as light blue and pink and yellow and green. Even in the suburbs the boxy houses were of stucco painted the same colors. The sights to see were more than the eye and mind could really comprehend at the time. However, at some quiet period that afternoon, my brother Johnny and I found ourselves enjoying feeding the ducks and swans in the pool of water at the Palace of Fine Arts built for the 1915 Panama Pacific Expo. For both of us it was such a nice quiet moment in the midst of such an exciting spring-like day in the city of San Francisco. The temperature was a sunny 47 degrees and I walked around in just a suit jacket, blouse and skirt.We left San Francisco shortly after noon and drove the few miles south to Sunnyvale where we stopped for lunch. In my Trip Journal I was compelled to report that I had a REAL Italian Spaghetti dinner there! Further south we stopped at San Martin in the Santa Clara Valley and stopped at a roadside stand were we purchased some French-fried ALMONDS! BOY, are they ever good!! Traveling further south in California we stopped for the night in Paso Robles and stayed at a nice Travelodge motel. We had dinner nearby and spent a quiet evening in our motel writing post cards and letters. The next morning we got up at the unearthly hour of 5:45 and found that it was really frosty and cold outside. After breakfast we were off again! We started heading east by then and found that we were getting into desert country and were totally surprised to see lots of oil derricks and oil fields outside of Lost Hills, CA, near Wasco in the San Joaquin Valley. I have a snapshot of part of an oil field with a large sign that said, "Lost Hill One," with the logo of the Chevron "flying horse" above it. Not only that but we were again surprised to see lots of cotton fields. It was the first time any of us had seen a cotton field. Along the highway we saw bales of cotton in addition to where they bale them and remove the seeds. Gee!!

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL, PART 2 January 26, 2004 It had only been seven months since we had unpacked our household goods from our move from Niagara Falls to Spokane in July 1951. Now in February 1952, we had packed them all up once again, the moving van had picked them up and we were on our way to Memphis, Tennessee. February 10, 1952. The car was all packed up, the four of us piled into the car (Mother, Daddy, brother Johnny and me) and at 7:00 A.M. we left S. 1418 Adams Street, Spokane, Washington, behind us in the 31 degree weather. I was certainly dressed for the weather in my storm coat with the warm lining and the large mouton lapels and collar that I could hug up to my neck in the worst weather. Driving the roads through Washington wasn't any problem at all in spite of it being definitely winter there. As I recorded in my Trip Journal, we stopped along the way at Connell, WA, for a cup of coffee. It was the same place we had stopped at on our trip out to Spokane just a few months prior. I also reported that it was a beautiful, beautiful spring-like day. I even heard a bird singing! It was a really beautiful day. However, the road had quite a few potholes in it! We crossed into Oregon later that morning and drove along the Columbia River. To quote my journal, "The sun's a-shining!" We continued to drive in a southwesterly direction and stopped at Arlington, OR, for lunch. I made comment that it was a warm day! Note: during our entire journey so far, we went through mountainous country with deep canyons along the way and crossed over bridges so high over the canyons that the sight took my breath away. We continued driving on and on with Daddy at the wheel and after twelve hours of driving, we finally stopped for the night in Klamath Falls, OR, near the border into California. I noted that it was a windy and much colder night. When we got ready to leave the next morning we realized that a LOT of snow had fallen overnight. However, I could still appreciate how white and pretty all of it was. We crossed over into California at an early hour and found that the roads were snowy and slick. As I recorded in my journal, "Really slippery!! WHOOEE!!" We had to stop at Doris, CA, just over the state line to put snow chains on the car. (Snow chains in California????) However, where we stopped to put the chains on the tires, there were six other cars pulled over, doing the same thing. As I noted in my journal, "Snow's really comin' down in SUNNY California!!" We stopped for lunch in Redding, CA, and although I didn't make note of it, I'm certain that along the way we had seen Mt. Shasta and the Cascade Mountains in the distance. Maybe I had become rather blasé about such marvelous sights by then! Outside Redding we FINALLY ran out of snow! Phew! I thought we'd never get out of the mountains and the snow. It was one scary curve after another. But nowthat we were on a straight road, I hoped we'd make better time. To top it off we saw our first palm and orange trees and actually saw a cherry tree in bloom! vee

Dear Folks, AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL, Part 1 January 25, 2004 The following is a story based on my memories and transcription of the notes I wrote in my Trip Journal including the snapshots that were taken at the time in 1952 regarding our trip from Spokane, Washington, to Memphis, Tennessee. As a bit of a background, my mother, my brother Johnny and my husband (at the time) Ric, and I had made the long trek across the country from Niagara Falls, NY, to Spokane, WA. We eventually arrived there in July 1951. However a lot transpired between the time we all settled into our house in Spokane in July 1951 to when we moved from Spokane in February 1952. I guess most importantly to me was what happened in December of 1951. My husband Ric was given only one of two choices in the mail. The Draft Board would either draft him into the Army or allow him to pick his choice of service. It was during the Korean War and Ric chose the Marines. He left for Boot Camp in Parris Island, SC, shortly after the New Year and I was devastated. He was going off to war!! We had been married for only a year! In addition to that, the ferroalloys company that had recently employed my father as supervisor, felt that he was THE man to move to Memphis to supervise the construction of a brand new ferroalloys plant, from the very bottom up to the first tap of the furnace. It was a gigantic task. (Note: I eventually stood alongside Daddy with the building of the plant from the beginning to the end!). Considering all of that, after only seven months of living in Spokane, we set off again in February 1952 for another wonderful trip across America the Beautiful that we had never seen before. I'll try to share with you the wonder of it all.

Dear Folks, This is the prelude to my narrative about our trip from Spokane, WA, to Memphis, TN. It has to do with Route 66. vee ROUTE 66 January 25, 2004 This afternoon I was making plans to transcribe my Trip Journal that I kept in February 1952 when we moved from Spokane, Washington, to Memphis, Tennessee. I read my brief notes and studied the pictures we had taken en route and the trip all came back to me. It dawned on me that we had traveled almost 1,300 miles on the old Route 66 from Barstow, California, to Oklahoma City, on our trip eastward. It's the history of Route 66 that I want to talk about right now. Although I probably had heard the lyrics of the song "Get your Kicks on Route 66" that was written in 1946, I have an idea that the song didn't really catch on until the program "Route 66" was on TV from 1960 to 1964. Either way, I never learned the history of Route 66 until now as I searched about it on Google. Oh what a shame that none of knew its history at that time we were traveling it! It was built around 1926 as a route between Chicago and Los Angeles, through rural areas enabling farmers to transport their grain and produce for redistribution. In 1939 John Steinbeck wrote about the Great Depression years of the 1930s and the part that Route 66 played in his classic book, "The Grapes of Wrath." It has been estimated that during that time 210,000 people had migrated to California to escape the despair of the Dust Bowl. Route 66 wasn't continuously paved until 1938. >From the website http://www.national66.com/66hstry.html, this is what they say about the post WWII years. After the war, Americans were more mobile than ever before. Thousands of soldiers, sailors, and airmen who received military training in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas abandoned the harsh winters of Chicago, New York City, and Boston for the "barbecue culture" of the Southwest and the West. Again, for many, Route 66 facilitated their relocation. One such emigrant was Robert William Troup, Jr., of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Bobby Troup, former pianist with the Tommy Dorsey band and ex-Marine captain, penned a lyrical road map of the now famous cross-country road in which the words, "get your kicks on Route 66" became a catch phrase for countless motorists who moved back and forth between Chicago and the Pacific Coast. The popular recording was released in 1946 by Nat King Cole one week after Troup's arrival in Los Angeles. Note: please check out that URL for the remaining history of Route 66. Getting back to Bobby Troup's song, I'll quote the portion of it that applied to us on our trip of 1952. Note: of course we were traveling from west to east. And Oklahoma City is mighty pretty. You see Amarillo, Gallup, New Mexico, Flagstaff, Arizona. Don't forget Winona, Kingman, Barstow, San Bernardino The old Route 66 is barely still there. It was replaced by Interstate Highway 40. Nonetheless, it's still there. However, the true ghost towns we traveled through (Oatman, Arizona, in particular) are now populated with tourist attractions complete with daily shootouts. If only I had known in 1952 what I know now over fifty years later, all of us would have been awed by our journey across that portion of Route 66. Nonetheless, back in 1952 we were really awed by it at the time. And trust me, we had gotten our kicks on Route 66! Give me some time to start writing about that eight-day journey and I'll share it with you.

FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA January 24, 2004 We continued driving west, until we finally stopped for the night at Price, Utah, at the nice Mission Bell Motel. It was a unique experience for all of us when we ate supper at a Chinese-American restaurant. None of us had ever tasted Chinese food before. But what I recall most of all about that experience wasn't the food, it was the ice-cold glass of the most delicious water I had ever tasted before! We had been traveling over the dry desert and were drinking out of our thermos jug for days it seemed and it was heavenly to drink water that was ice-cold and delicious! July 5, 1951. I believe that we crossed the Colorado River on the 5th and traveled on to Salt Lake City, Utah, and spent a moment at lunchtime to allow Ric and my brother Johnny to have a swim in the glorious Moroni(?) pool of mineral water. Back on the road again we crossed the border into Idaho. We stopped at a motel in Twin Falls, Idaho, for the night and we enjoyed shopping for groceries so that we could fix dinner in our kitchenette in the motel. It was a treat. July 6, 1951. After fixing our breakfast in our kitchenette the next morning we went out once again. We stopped for lunch in Boise, Idaho, and then crossed the Snake River into Oregon. The scenery along the Snake River Valley was so beautiful. The scenery changed dramatically as we approached the state of Washington. We wondered at the mountains from our viewpoint in the Umadilla Indian Reservation, Oregon. The mountains were so beautiful, covered with pine trees and the sight of the La Grande River north of La Grande, Oregon, was equally as beautiful. We passed through the Immigrant Springs State Park and continued to cross the rolling mountains of Oregon. When we crossed the Columbia River into the state of Washington we were totally surprised with the sight of the vast wheat fields and more wheat fields in all directions! We never thought of wheat growing in Washington! We stopped at Conell, Washington, and ate our supper at the "Coffee Cup." We were all excited because we knew that our next day's trip would take us into Spokane, Washington, our destination. We were SO CLOSE! July 7, 1951. The next day's trip continued to contain all sorts of sights. It was at that time that we realized why Washington was known as the "Evergreen State." The pine trees were everywhere. As I stated in my trip journal after I had mentioned that we were shortly approaching our "new home," I added, "Beautiful scenery all the way across!! I wouldn't have missed it for the world!" We rolled into Spokane at 12:10 P.M. on the 7th and Daddy was there to greet us! We hadn't seen him for months and we had so much to tell him about our trip! So there you have my story "From Sea to Shining Sea!" Over the period of just nine days we experienced the glory of "America the Beautiful" However, we didn't realize at the time that we were about to experience the other half of America the Beautiful when a year later we moved to Memphis, TN, by way of down through California, across Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and then into Tennessee. That was another experience totally different from our first one. Hopefully I can write down that experience also. vee

Dear Folks, I've just GOTTA tell you about the email messages I received a couple of days ago. The first one was from Charlene (who, BTW, was my almost-sister-in-law some years back!) and the other from Mary who had contacted Char in the first place. Char knew that I had a lot of information on the McCollum family of the Town of Porter and asked me about Thelma McCollum. I believe that Mary might have contacted me directly because I'm listed as a volunteer lookup on the Niagara County genealogy web site. Whatever. Both of them were curious about Thelma and her FEDDER family which also included Thelma's SCHUL family around here. I knew who Thelma was and I gave them the information that I had in my files. They were really pleased and then asked pointed questions about marriage and birth dates and all of that sort of thing. Since I felt uncomfortable giving out birth dates of the Fedder children born in the 1940s, I checked the phone book to see how the present FEDDER family felt about my giving out that information. I found a Patrick Fedder in Ransomville who had the same first name of Thelma's husband. And bingo! Yes, Thelma and Patrick were his grandparents! Pat and I had a warm conversation regarding the Fedder family and after a long conversation, he sent me an attachment with all of the Fedder history that he had at hand, and told me he would try to answer any questions that Mary and Char had in their minds. I gave him my email address and he gave me his address and with his permission I passed it on to Mary and Char along with a synopsis of our phone conversation. I haven't hear back from them yet but I have the fealing that they're still jumping up and down with joy over such a real genelogy connection who is still ALIVE!!!! Can you picture the grin on my face right now?? :-) vee

FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA January 22, 2004 Note: I just uncovered two pages of notes that I had jotted down regarding the photos that were taken on the trip Prior to our stay at Eagle, Colorado, we drove through the San Isabel National Forest. I don't know why they call it a forest in that any trees along the streams weren't all that tall. However, maybe the part we drove through wasn't like the rest of the park. Outside of Leadville, Colorado, in the summer heat we could see some of the mountains with snow on their peaks. Truly amazing! When we drove through Leadville, Colorado, we couldn't believe our eyes when we saw the buildings along their short main street! It was as if we had just entered the late 1800s! The one-story storefronts and other businesses looked like they probably did back when Leadville was a roaring mining town in the late 80s! However, we did notice that the storefronts were only façades and figured that the small town was trying to keep up its Old Wild West flavor. They certainly managed it in great style! We continued on and started driving across the 175-mile-wide desert west of Grand Junction, Colorado. We had stopped in Grand Junction to purchase a canvas water bag for the car that we had been advised to carry with us. The very hot, dry desert wind never stopped and opportunities to get water for the radiator were few and far between. We also purchased a sizable thermos water jug for personal drinking water. As we crossed the Colorado state border into Utah, the desert was hot with sparse vegetation. It did have many patches of cactus but I doubt that any of them were even a foot tall. Regarding the 4th of July rodeo in Green River, Utah, in the middle of the desert I had forgotten that I had taken a number of pictures of the cowboys and the events of the day. I don't recall any grandstands for the spectators but I do recall the excitement that was going on only a bit of a distance between the action and me. First, the rodeo started up with a race from one pole on the far right to another pole at the other end. What a magnificent sight and sound as the four horses kicked up dust and sand and roared past us! Note: I noticed that one of the cowboys was a GIRL! Regarding the calf-roping contest that too was exciting. We watched as one of the cowboys roped and tied a calf in 29 seconds! Note: All in all there were only about ten cowboys competing. What a marvelous once-in-a-lifetime real-life experience!

SEA TO SHINING SEA January 21, 2004 (Referring to July 2, and Eagle, Colorado), Note: from what I've since ascertained, the population of Eagle, Colorado, is about 2,000 now; therefore I assume that the population was less than that back in 1951. In addition it's about 7,000 feet above sea level and is close to the Continental Divide. July 3, 1951. After breakfast we hadn't driven very far (straight UP) when we saw a sign announcing the Continental Divide about fifty feet ahead. Ric stopped the car along the road and I ran up to the sign to read what it said. I was totally surprised that I was completely out of breath and was having difficulty breathing in the thin air. As I recall, we were at around the 10,000-foot elevation. I got back in the car, we crossed the Divide, but it was only minutes afterward when I felt the full effects of the high altitude. I felt very sick to my stomach and I even had Ric stop the car to let me out in case I couldn't keep my breakfast down. When I got back in the car and we started up again, I found myself very shaky and nauseous and it was agreed that we would turn around and go back to the Diamond J Cabins. We pulled up in front of our recently vacated cabins and found the "maid" preparing to refreshen our cabins for the next occupants. I was the one who approached her and told her of my condition and asked if we could stay in our rooms one more day. I'll never forget her frank response, "You can stay as long as you damned well want to, honey!" Oh my, she was such a warmhearted woman! I took to my bed and stayed there the entire day and night, feeling my stomach calming down and my strength coming back. July 4, 1951. The next morning I felt well enough to continue and we started out again. Back over the Continental Divide and down the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. The scenery continued to be breathtaking. HUGE rock formations that were unbelievable and gave us a glimpse into the ice age and what had put them there. The long miles downward were absolutely frightening. It was one frightening curve after another on the two-lane road. I was sitting on the passenger side of the car and when I looked out my side window, my only scenery was a scant few feet of road on the side and then straight down HUNDREDS of feet into a deep canyon. I can't recall that there were even guardrails along the road! I couldn't bear to think of the possibility of what could happen to us with just a wrong turn of the steering wheel and I moved over as far away as I could from the window. When we got down to lower altitudes we began seeing lots of sagebrush and COWBOYS! WOW! Regarding vegetation, with the exception of sagebrush the only other thing of note were trees along the streams. We crossed into Utah in the afternoon and found ourselves surprised that we surrounded by almost desert! That afternoon we stopped at Green River, Utah, where they were having a 4th of July rodeo. We couldn't pass up such an opportunity to see a honest-to-goodness rodeo! And it was beyond our wildest dreams! What made it so special is that we knew that the cowboys were for REAL and that it was put on for and by cowboys and the local people for a special 4th of July celebration of their own. What made it even more special to me were the conversations I struck up with the local people. The people were the BEST! They were so warmhearted and friendly and welcomed us Easterners with almost open arms. After the rodeo was over, I really, really wanted to stay later so that I might have a chance to talk with some of the cowboys and ask them lots and lots of questions. But I guess it wouldn't have been proper since I was a married woman (especially since I was only nineteen years old!). And somehow, I guess that my husband and mother thought it wouldn't be either! But oh my, what I could have learned about the cowboy's lives and their work and their horses! That's what I dearly wanted to talk with them about! vee

Dear Folks, I hope that Mary Ellen doesn't mind my sharing her response to my "Sea to Shining Sea" story personally but I feel that all of you would appreciate her feelings and similar memories. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Don and Mary Ellen Newsom" <[email protected]> To: "Vee L. Housman" <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 12:18 AM Subject: Re: [FOLKS] From Sea to Shining Sea > Vee, > > I had a very similar experience one summer when I drove to Washington, > D.C., and back to Chicago and then took the Amtrak to Flagstaff, AZ, and > back to Chicago. I used to hate field, after field, after field, of > corn---growing up in the midwest can do that to you. It is pretty > boring sometimes. But, after traveling cross country and returning to > the lush green of the midwest, with its incredible fields of wheat, > barley, rye, oats, alfalfa, clover, soy, corn, (yadda-yadda), truck > farms, fruit orchards, blueberries that grow along the roads as well as > in the fields, cattle and dairy farms, pigs, ducks, geese, chickens of > all sorts and sizes (many of which are able to graze "on the land" > rather than on feed lots),etc., I suddenly had a new appreciation for > the farms and farmers of the "food" belt of this great country. I cried > real tears for the beautiful, albeit FLAT, midsection that feeds not > only this country, but many other countries as well. OK, we can't grow > citrus here except in greenhouses, and I can't walk out back and pull > off enough lobes to make Cactus candy, but, if it weren't for the flat, > old, boring midwest, we'd all starve!! > > How's that for "America the Beautiful" and how about America the Bountiful!? > > Luv ya, > Mary Ellen Newsom

FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA January 20, 2004 July 1, 1951. Starting out again we ate breakfast in Marysville, Kansas, and when we were outside of Oberlin, Kansas, we stopped along the road so that I could take of picture. What a magnificent scene! Looking toward the horizon, no matter in which direction we turned, all we could see were fields of golden wheat and nothing else but the road we were driving on. It was an inspiring sight. We crossed into Colorado outside of St. Francis, Kansas, and turned back our watches again because we were then in Mountain Standard Time. We continued traveling when we stopped for something to eat in Last Chance, Colorado, which consisted of nothing but a very few houses and buildings at the intersection of Route 36 and Route 71. We dined at the Last Chance Store. This time we were amazed that as far as you could see in the distance there was nothing but flat grazing lands. As I mentioned in my trip journal, "Phew!! It's been a long journey!" We had never seen such flat roads that kept stretching on and on forever across the entire eastern half of Colorado. Not even a hill or a dale and barely even a curve in the road. We continued to drive miles and miles across the same flat road toward Colorado Springs. It was a bright sunny summer day with totally cloudless azure blue skies. That is until far ahead of us we could see what appeared to be a huge towering dark thundercloud. But as we got closer and closer to Colorado Springs we suddenly figured out what the huge thundercloud actually was. It was Pike's Peak!! Oh my goodness it went straight up for miles into the sky! We had a feeling that day's journey would be the last of any flat lands we would see for a long, long time! We checked in the Travotel Motel in Colorado Springs and after we settled in, we then left to pick Paul, Ric's brother, at the large Camp Carson Army camp. Paul had been drafted into the Korean War and was stationed there before he left for Korea. He was glad to see us and we were glad to see him too! After we all had dinner together Ric drove Paul back to the camp. July 2, 1951. When we left Colorado it was a blistering hot early afternoon in with a temperature of 90 degrees! As we drove further west (and UP!) into the Rocky Mountains there was magnificent mountain scenery all around us. It was like nothing we had ever seen in our lives! We stayed at the Diamond Jay Bar Ranch Motel outside the small town of Eagle, Colorado. We stayed in very nice cabins plus a dining room and a bar. After a very nice dinner, Ric and I went into the bar for a drink and while there we had a VERY interesting conversation with a dude rancher. The rancher and I talked nothing but horses, horses and more horses!

FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA January 19, 2004 By 9:45 A.M. on June 28, 1951, we had our new 1951(?) gray and pink Chevy or Ford car packed up and ready to head cross-country from Youngstown, New York (north of Niagara Falls) to Spokane, Washington, where my father was waiting for us to move in with him in a nice house he had rented for the five of us-Mother, Daddy, Johnny (age ten), me (age nineteen) and my then husband Ric. Daddy had recently accepted the position of General Superintendent of Montana Ferro Alloys, Inc. located in Spokane. Just picture it as a steel mill. Mother, Ric and I had already packed up all of our household goods and furniture and the moving van was going to pick all of it later that day. Note: we packed the fragile dishes, glassware, etc. in wooden barrels. Mother's friend Irene Randall would stay at our house until everything was loaded up and emptied out. After waving goodbye to Irene we set off on our 3,407-mile-journey. I kept a brief journal of our trip and I had jotted down that odometer showed we had 1,629 miles on the car. Five hours later we crossed the New York border into Pennsylvania. Two hours later we crossed the Pennsylvania boarder into Ohio. Four hours later we stopped overnight in the Sunnyside Cabins between Lorain and Vermillion, Ohio. Trust me, those cabins were so rustic they were almost primitive, but they did have indoor plumbing. June 29 1951. The next day we crossed the boarder between Ohio into Indiana. In my trip journal I made the notation, "Stopped at Logansport, Indiana, for the car's 2,000 mile checkup. We shopped around for two hours and I noticed we were starting to hear a Western drawl!" Just over two hours later we crossed into Illinois and stopped at Bates AAA Motel in New Berlin, Illinois. Note: motels that we had in the early 1950s didn't even come close to the motels that we have now, but the Bates Motel beds were much, much less lumpy than those at the Sunnyside Cabins! I must make comment about the scenery along the way so far. Since there were no thruways at the time, we drove the two-lane state or county roads and the scenery was truly beautiful. The green rolling hills in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois were almost breathtaking at the time. The farmlands, the small towns and the roadside Burma Shave signs kept our attention. June 30, 1951. We crossed the Mississippi River into Hannibal, Missouri. We stopped the car and took pictures of the river. None of us had ever seen it before. On the whole, it wasn't a wide river at the time and not that impressive, but we all stood and looked at in wonder. The muddy Mississippi River! Wow! We then crossed the Missouri River outside St. Joseph, Missouri, going into Kansas. We noticed a few very badly flooded fields around there but as we kept driving through Kansas in the area of Laurence, Kansas, we saw the most marvelous fields of corn and wheat. We even stopped to take a picture of three cute mules just standing there watching the passing parade. Outside Topeka a detour sign stopped us because of the flooded road ahead. The man in charge of the detour directed us to the only road open to Colorado Springs, Colorado, 100 miles out of our way. There were a couple other cars stopped there also and we got out of cars and discussed the situation. But what we didn't expect was when a Mrs. Miller introduced herself. She was a friendly perfect stranger but when she said she lived in the small town of Bridgeville, Pennsylvania, our mouths dropped open! Bridgeville was where we had lived back in the early 1930s! What a unique "coincidence" in the middle of Kansas! We stopped for the night at Schmidt's Motel in the very small town of Baileyville, Kansas. I'll never forget where we dined out that evening. It was the only place in town, a general store!!! vee

Dear Folks, The other evening for some reason the song "America the Beautiful" kept going through my head. I know the words to it but this time I really paid attention to them. The waving fields of grain, the purple mountains' majesty above the fruited plains. All of a sudden I realized that I had experienced America the Beautiful back in 1951 when we drove from Youngstown, NY, all the way to Spokane, Washington. There were no thruways/freeways back then and we generally took the two-lane state and county roads. We drove through western NY to PA to OH to IN to IL to MO to KS to CO to UT to ID to WA, 3,407 miles. But what we saw and experienced along the way could never be duplicated now what with the high speed thruways. Therefore I thought it was about time that I described that experience. I used the notations I had jotted down in my trip journal and with the use of the snapshots that we took all the way, I believe I can piece together the story. I've just finished the first "chapter" suitable for email that I'll send to the list. I can't promise that the next chapter will be written by tomorrow evening but at least you'll know what the message continues to be about. I'll identify the chapters as From Sea to Shining Sea, Pt. 1, etc. In the meantime refresh your memory as to all of the verses of "America the Beautiful" at http://www.smart-central.com/USA/America.htm . They're quite stirring. luvya vee

Jane ~ What a deal! Warm weather and low taxes. I'm beginning to like the sound of it more and more! Sounds like you made a good choice for yourself. Hope all is going well for you. It was fun being with you this summer. Jo in Michigan ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jane Achbach" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2004 9:35 PM Subject: [FOLKS] Re: NYNIAGAR-FOLKS-D Digest V04 #8 > I loved the Gulf of Mexico so well in FLA. for 6 months each year as a > snowbird I decided to make it permanent. The cost of living is much > less than up North and the weather is great most of time. Our property > taxes for the whole year were $79.00 for our 2 bedroom, one acre > property. > Driving a school bus in -40 windchill is just a dim memory for me now > and one I don't ever care to relive! > Jane in FLA > >

I loved the Gulf of Mexico so well in FLA. for 6 months each year as a snowbird I decided to make it permanent. The cost of living is much less than up North and the weather is great most of time. Our property taxes for the whole year were $79.00 for our 2 bedroom, one acre property. Driving a school bus in -40 windchill is just a dim memory for me now and one I don't ever care to relive! Jane in FLA

I am new to this Niagara list....so I hope there is some help here. I have an ancestor John Elliot who was in the War of 1812. He lived in the Cambria area. My husband and I visited there last year and were told that there were few records left. I would like ANY info on this family....Also, I have a Benjamin Fairchild, who worked for the United States as an Indian interpreter... thank you ronnie elliott martin Yorba Linda, Ca

We're headed out to AZ in May. My brothers (2) live there, two friends as well. Our son and his wife want to vacation with us. Smiling, Anna ----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2004 11:40 AM Subject: Re: [FOLKS] Make the weather go away > Come to Arizona. We love the desert. And the weather is fabulous... but I > must admit there is no place like home when spring comes. We go back to Lewiston > for the summer. > Barbara Moll > Oro Valley (North of Tucson), AZ > >

Come to Arizona. We love the desert. And the weather is fabulous... but I must admit there is no place like home when spring comes. We go back to Lewiston for the summer. Barbara Moll Oro Valley (North of Tucson), AZ