1938 TRIP TO FRANCE AND SWITZERLAND February 7, 2004 In the letter that Daddy had sent to Mother from Ugine, France, he indicated that he and Earl Dunn would be heading back to Paris around December 7, 1938. Assuming they left Ugine in the morning, they arrived in Paris about eight hours later. At least it took that length of time to go from Paris to Geneva, Switzerland. Therefore, they had the whole evening free in Paris. It appears that the Vanadium Corp. had managed to book them passage aboard the R.M.S. Queen Mary sailing on December 10 for their return to New York City. That gave Earl and Daddy two full days to get their shopping done in Paris. While there Daddy bought an attractive original etching of a church cathedral for our house, a round wooden box of unusual gum-drop-sort of candy for Mother, and better than that, he bought her a bottle of Amour Amour perfume by Jean Patou of Paris. I mean real PERFUME, not just cologne! I still have the empty bottle and I can still smell the fragrance. It's the most wonderfully smelling perfume I had ever smelled in my life including all through the years up to the present. Another thing he bought there for Mother was what he called a pocketbook. Picture a wallet-looking sort of affair. When it's unfolded (side to side) there are two slots for paper currency and then at the left end there is a snap-purse for keeping coins in. Fold it up again, snap the two ends together and it makes for a nice compact billfold or wallet. I still have it. It's of imitation silk cloth (rayon?) in black with accents of white and vibrant red. I seem to recall that Mother used it for the longest time in her purse and then it was relegated to being a holder of a collection of coins. Still in it are coins mainly from France and Switzerland. The oldest one has the date of 1917 on it. It's a French ten centimes piece with the typical hole in the middle of it. After they had loaded all of their souvenirs and presents into their luggage Daddy and Earl boarded the Queen Mary and set sail on December 10, 1938. In the scrapbook I found a nicely printed folder listing all of the passengers alphabetically of that sailing. However, I was disappointed that I didn't find Earl Dunn's name in the "D" section or Charles Housman in the "H" section. No doubt but what the company had managed to book passage at the last moment. I continued to read through the names of the other passengers and it was interesting to note that some women were listed as being accompanied by their (unnamed) maid or their nurse. But when I got to the "K" section and started reading the list of passengers I almost fell out of my chair when I read the following: Hon. Joseph P. Kennedy (United States Ambassador to the Court of St. James) along with a Manservant and underneath was listed Mr. Jack Kennedy Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness! To think that my father was sailing on the Queen Mary along with the Ambassador to England with his 21-year-old son Jack Kennedy, future President of the United States!!! I wonder if Daddy ever exchanged words with them or even nodded to them in passing each other on the Promenade Deck. And to think that Daddy had made earlier comment that there had been an actual Countess aboard on his voyage over to France! This time they sailed out of the port of Cherbourg instead of Le Havre, their port of entry. But I'm much too excited over the discovery of the above to continue on with their voyage tonight. Just think, I could officially lay claim to fame that my father sailed with John F. Kennedy!!!!