A long road trip

One of the stories my mama told a few times about her childhood was when her family moved from Texas to California. She had just turned 4 at the time but still had vivid memories about the long road trip in the fall of 1924.

Her father was answering a call to be the religious education director at the rapidly growing Trinity Methodist Church in Los Angeles. He loaded up his five children (aged 2-11), wife, camping equipment and personal belongings into a big seven-passenger Marmon touring car for the trip.

Before paved roads and useful maps

The Marmon had a front and back seat with two jump seats in between. The top was made of heavy canvas. There were no windows. When it rained, up came the isinglass curtains to keep out the water and the mud, which frequently splashed up from the dirt roads. 

A few months before the long road trip in 1924. From left: Bonnie holding onto Helen (my mama), Hubert in Grandmama’s arms, Harlow, Donald

This was well before all the roads were paved and consequently, there were very few gasoline stations, motels or places to eat.

A large trunk stuck out from the rear of the car body, which had running boards on each side. All luggage and supplies were put into the trunk or strapped onto the running boards. This meant that the back doors of the car could not be opened and the children sitting in the back had to climb through the openings to get in or out.

Since road maps were limited, the family frequently had to ask for directions whenever they could find someone to ask. They spent a lot of time back-tracking from having lost their way. When they could find a public campground, which were few and far between, they would stay there. Most nights, they simply pulled over to the side of the road and set up camp. 

One late rainy afternoon after following a railroad line all day, the car got stuck in the mud and couldn’t move out of the middle of the road. Since it was about dark, the family spent a miserable night in the car.

Mama said every time she heard a train whistle for the rest of her life, she’d remember hearing a train go by that night mournfully blowing its whistle. 

A long road trip everyone remembered

Somewhere out in Arizona, on a long flat stretch of road, the left front wheel suddenly came off and started rolling across the prairie. It rolled for at least a quarter of a mile with 11-year-old Donald in full chase. He finally caught up with it and rolled it back to the broken-down car.  

I recently found a version of that long road trip my grandmother wrote half a century later. She started writing after my grandfather died when she was 73. By then, she had crisscrossed the country a dozen or more times and had numerous stories she wanted to write about her adventures.

She said friends had warned her husband that the wire wheels on a Marmon were prone to roll off like that, but he hadn’t believed it. Now he did.

She also described how hard it was to maneuver the long car on tight turns. My grandfather would have to inch back and forth several times to get around the mountain curves without going off the road or down an embankment.

The kids would pile out of the car and stand on the side watching their father manipulate the hazardous task, gasping for breath every time the car looked like it was going nose-down the mountainside. 

After they loaded back up in the car after one particularly tight horseshoe turn, the children noticed 6-year-old Harlow walking up the road ahead of the car. 

When his father asked what in the world he was doing, he replied with a serious look on his face: “I’m walking to California. I don’t want to ride in that car anymore.” 

Grandmama said she couldn’t much blame him. It was, indeed, a scary experience.

They finally convinced Harlow that the worst of the curves was past and that it would take him way too long to walk. He reluctantly jumped back in the window of the car and they moved on to their new world of opportunity. The long road trip was finally over.

Little did they know that less than a decade later, they would leave Los Angeles for a much more harrowing trip to Oregon. Only they would be nearly destitute and have additional mouths to feed.