Tag / NOLA

by Mary James

14. ON A BOAT! NOLA to ‘at Sea’, Nov 9-13, 1937

By now I thought we’d already be to South Africa, if not further. But here we have just shoved away from The Big Easy’s decadent docks. There are just so many good bits to share.

From a distance, we are now steaming steadily ahead, eastward ho, on the three-week salt-water-y trek to Cape Town, South Africa. Shall we peek in?

The Letter

(As a refresher, we look at the passage from the nice and concise after-the-trip letter and then the corresponding bits from the day to day journal.)

The passengers were left to themselves to get on as best they could. I chose to take part in the daily routine of the ship. During the 23 short days on the Atlantic I studied navigation with the Captain every morning, painted lifeboats with the apprentices, peered into the intricacies of the engine room, learned to send morse signals, sewed canvas with the quartermaster, made myself a sailors hammock and slept on deck under the southern stars. 

End Scene!

Kinda like a movie trailer, right? Just giving the highlights. But then the lights go down, and we watch it all unfold, one morse signal at a time.

The Journal

Lights, camera, action! 

[Present location:] 

Lat. 26" 57' N 
Long. 87° 52" N 

Wed. Nov. 10:  

8:30 — Breakfast — prunes.  

Wander over to watch the apprentices work and get a job setting grommets in a piece of canvas that's to enclose the Captain's deck.

Side note: She did wait until after prunes to find the engineers and land a job, but this was her first morning at sea, so she certainly didn’t waste time.

The apprentices are the ‘clean, intelligent looking youths from Canada’ from the last post, mind you. We will get to know (at least one of) them plenty. 

After lunch the Captain tells me he has discussed with the Mate my studying navigation — decided they'd experiment and see if an inexperienced person of normal intelligence can really learn how to steer a course in five months.

Side note: Normal intelligence. Pfft. Her two degrees from Columbia U would beg to differ! But maybe five months is a short amount to learn to navigate a freight boat? So if she could do it she was not just of normal intelligence, but extra?

Sadly, this was probably the only way she could learn ship navigation. Women weren’t navigating boats in 1937 (and barely even today). I looked this up, and a few women were ‘allowed’ to navigate when they got stuck at sea because the Captain became incapacitated or dead. And a few women disguised themselves as men and got to navigate… until they got found out. You may read more about it here.

But Helen got to learn while dressed as she pleased and while all the men on board were at full capacity. Good on you, men of the Silverwillow!

She was clearly meant to maneuver ships, as you can see:

M.S. Silverwillow, 1937, with its Captain and with Helen Skinner, learning to navigate with a sextant (this must be the Captain she went dancing with in NOLA??). 
Listened to "One Man's Family" and the Chesterfield Program on the Capt.'s radio.

Side note: I love when she mentions movies, politics, radio. It puts a timestamp (era-stamp?) on things. One Man’s Family was a radio soap opera, that, like the soaps still do, ran forever (silly me didn’t know they had soap operas before TV!).

The ‘Chesterfield Program’ means ‘Chesterfield Time‘ radio variety show (named after their sponsor, Chesterfield cigarettes). And I’m listening now to Chesterfield Time, and I suggest you do too, as it is leg shaking, fast talking fun. Era-stamps are important.

And then note that she is listening to these programs ON THE CAPTAIN’S RADIO — I hadn’t caught that before. Nice mood music, too. Hm. 

Weather: wind force 4. 

Sun in a.m. It may just be the day, but there is almost no sensation of motion of the ship. The engines throb through your conscience, but unless you look at the water you can't be sure you're moving. 

Inspection of after deck with Capt., the ship's potatoes are kept in a huge bin. News: Ramsay McDonald is dead. Brazil set up a dictatorship on the Nazi pattern.

Side note: a lovely thing about random journal entries is how they jump from topic to topic so effortlessly. From throbbing engines, to potato storage, to Nazis.

You can almost hear the staticky Walter Cronkite crackly type voice, more static, and then ***ATTENTION: We interrupt this programming with breaking news out of Her Majesty’s England. We have just learned that the former Prime Minister, Ramsay McDonald, has died. I repeat…***

Maybe they wouldn’t break in for Ramsay? But you can still hear the voice, can’t you?

And on November 10, 1937, Brazil’s Getúlio Vargas did indeed make for himself a new constitution and cancelled elections. Not good.

The bath procedure: Bucket of hot water, placed in rack in tub, sponge off or dump it in the tub. For a rinse fill the tub with sea water.

Side note: like I mentioned, a no frills trip. 

Present location: 

Lat. 22" 22' N
Long. 85° 04" W

Thru. Nov. 10

10 a.m. at the Captain's desk — I am set to work learning definitions for my first lesson in navigation. Study until 11:30.

Side note: For what she’s gonna be learning, this eighth grade level short on nautical navigation was way too much for my brain.

At dinner lettuce cooked with a fried onion and tomato sauce, artichokes. 

Pacing the Capt.'s deck after dinner. Learned how the Dutch are displacing the English in South Africa, since all in govt jobs must be bilingual — Africans and English, and the English won't bother.

Capt. says I may follow the 'prentices — do what jobs I want, and he'll have them practice Morse code sending with me. 

Side note: How about the Dutch and English just leave it all well enough alone??

And now the promising young men from Canada have been ordered to teach her whatever she wants, whenever she wants. And she wants to know everything.

Nov. 11 Foster taught me 4 knots: bowline on a bite, the knot used for handcuffs, hangman's noose, crown. Capt.'s wife expecting a second child momentarily.

Side note: The ‘prentices get right to work helping her do what she wants. And again, a married captain! Hm.

Notes from journal on ‘Capacity of Tanks’ and ‘Anchors’, perhaps taught to her by ‘prentices
Present location: 

Lat. 20" 23' N
Long. 30° 11" W
Dist. 330 mi.
Av. Speed 13.95 mph 

Fri. Nov. 12: I begin my pursuit of navigation this a.m., The Capt. explains the ecliptic and in a flash it is mine permanently.

After lunch — on the Engineers deck, had a try at Foster's hammock. It was a delightful sensation, mentioned it to the Capt. and he said, "why don't you make one?'. Within 5 min. the canvas was cut and ready. Service!

7:30 p.m. — "Not to be opened until Fri. Nov. 12" — so the box of candy Kay and Ann gave me made its debut in the Capt.'s room tonight.

Side note: The ecliptic is a navigational thing I just read about but don’t understand (not ‘in a flash mine’), so see the link from the beginning of this sentence.

And also, enter… the hammock! She mentioned it in the letter snippet above and here it is, happening, on day four.

Lastly, she is back in the Captain’s room, eating candy. Hm.

Helen (right) hanging out on the M.S. Silverwillow. (Yes, the woman on the left seems to be missing an arm, but I think that is a photo illusion, as Helen describes all the passengers, and with her level of detail, that would have come up).
Present location: 

Lat. 18" 21' N 
Long. 74° 48" W
Dist. 330 mi.
Av. Speed 13.96 mph 

Sat. Nov. 13: Woke at 4:00 a.m. Up and had a look at the stars, they seem so much closer in these southern skies. Up again to see the sunrise and watch the boat come to life about 6 a.m. 

In a haze off to starboard lies the mountain that looked like a cloud bank, but is Jamaica. Started figuring GMT, and am painfully dumb at it. Navassa Is. to starboard this a.m. and shortly after the beautiful slopes of Haiti loom up to port. Low banks of cumulus clouds give the effect of a volcano from the highest peak. Foster undertakes to give me some help in navigation, until tea time working problems. 

4:15 — Worked on my hammock with one eye on the clouds. The last view of Haiti was a soft gray mist with purple shadows on the land as a peak shone thru here and there. This morning the water was sapphire, and the waves so smooth it seemed you could slide on the surface. At sunset: puffs of pink cloud all around the horizon, and the water almost motionless, a turquoise color with iridescent reflections.

End scene!

“This morning the water was sapphire, and the waves so smooth it seemed you could slide on the surface.” – Helen Skinner

And side note: if stars look close in a good way, I suspect her heart is full (she has her trifecta of machines, travel, and men). If the stars were close in a bad way, they’d feel claustrophobic, and that is gleaned nowhere in her writing.

I’m also sure she’s not dumb at GMT (Greenwich Mean Time). They are moving around the world, slowly, so the time is constantly changing. How, without Google, would anyone know the time!?

I am ending this one here, as I believe Haiti is the last bit of land she sees for about 20 days, and that seems a good place for an intermission.

Next up: latitudes, handwriting analysis, a tiny bit more land (oops), the backhouse trot, and engineer intrigue (not just the how of it, but some of the ‘who is this smart hot cute engineer’ of it?’). Stay tuned!!

by Mary James

13. Come Sail Away, Come Sail Away With Meeeeeee! 🎵

Setting Sail

In The Helen Files, I mentioned that my uncle Bob had transcribed Helen’s travel journal from her 1937 trip around the world, with its eensie handwriting, and that it came out to 70 typed pages. When a printed version made its way to me, a smart-me would have scanned it and used a software to make it into editable typed text. But stupid-me got excited, underlined a bunch of it, circled some, and put stars and exclamation points all over.

When I went to scan it, the transcribing software got confused by my scribbling and made half of the text like *)H%%soiwue)(. But the other half was ok, and, through re-re-transcribing it, I got to live the tale again, and I noticed all sorts of new detail.

There are two main artifacts. The first is the journal, with all the daily detail and juicy bits, peppered with buried hints. That along with A LOT of particulars. And the other is a three page letter, summarizing it all beautifully. I shall section them in a juxtaposed way, in chronological order.

The Letter – Post-Trip 1938

To preface, when Helen was 34, she did a 360 degree world-loop, solo, on a freight boat, with nary a few civilian passengers (but at least one really nice crewman).

Here it is:

M.S. Silverwillow. Helen spent five months aboard, from 1937-38, going worldwide, dodging real and figurative fireworks

The letter is likely a carbon copy, and the same letter sent to multiple people. And it was written from Arlington, New Jersey, where her parents lived. By October 1938, her parents definitely would have known all that is in the letter, as she returned several months’ prior. As would her sister. So maybe she wrote this to friends and less immediate family.

See:

Post trip letter from Helen, likely a carbon copy sent to multiple people, Part I, 1938

Here she starts:

October 29, 1938 

The Motorvessel Silverwillow is heading north from Panama on her way to New Orleans again. She has been around the world since I left her last March at San Francisco, and it's nearly a year since I sailed for Cape Town and points east. It is high time I attended to some sadly neglected correspondence.

Side note: ‘Motorvessel’ must be the M.S. in the boat’s name: The M.S. Silverwillow. Google says this could mean Motor Ship and that is interchangeable with Motor Vessel. As for how she knows where the boat is located a year later after her trip, it is likely because she maintained relations with a, now former, crewman.

It was Nov. 9 when, loaded with lumber, mining machinery, asphalt, shingles, apples, canned salmon, Ford trucks (to mention a few items of cargo) and eight passengers, the freighter Silverwillow nosed out into the Mississippi and set her course for South Africa. 

Side note: November 9, 1937, to clarify. Right around when a certain World War was brewing.

My fellow travellers were a heterogeneous assortment: a retired rancher and his wife from Canada, who left us in Africa (he had fought in the Boer War, and was going back to see what it was all about)... a fluttery 70-year old spinster from Frisco... a neurotic woman of about my age who was dangling on the brink of divorce...three widows, two of them past 70 years of age, and the third, my roommate, was a dear, a good traveller, easy to live with. 

Side note: Heterogeneous for middle income civilian travelers from America with the means to travel for five months in 1937, yes. But this wasn’t a highball-up, pinky-out kind of trip. Though the Booze Cruise freight boat experience did seem quite opulent, this one was no frills. No costume parties or Gin Rickeys whilst perched on railings. The eight civilian passengers had buckets for showers, slop with the crew, and glorified cubby holes for rooms. We will learn all this…

It chipped years from my age to be the youngest in the crowd, and guess I was the 'enfant terrible’ of the voyage. Anyway I'm sure I had the best time and saw the most, even if I skipped a museum now and then. 

Side note: She absolutely had the best time.

End first scene!

The Journal – The Realtime Timeline

And over to the journal now, where we get to dive in and see what was really going on. She starts by meeting the boat. 

Present Location:  

Lat. 26" 57' N 
Long. 87° 52" N  

Mon, Nov 8 

At last — the Silverwillow. 

Captain said, "I'm glad to see some young blood getting on — it looks like an old ladies' home." A cheerful thrust for an introduction — went on board.

Side note: Cheeky captain! We learned from her last travel log that she quite enjoys a good flirt.

Wandering around the boat, C___ encounters the Captain, we all go up on his deck where he makes us at home, offers smokes and beverages. We talk for a couple of hours. He takes us back to town in his cab. Capt. asks if I want to go back to the boat or for a bit of a dance — to the Blue Room. He listens to my navigation aspirations, sounds hopeful about the possibilities. Back to the ship at 1:30 — roommate still up. The Capt. is a fine person — if only the trip may be as pleasant as the send off.

Side note: She drops off her things, and finds herself promptly on the Captain’s deck, smoking, drinking, and schmoozing, and I’m certain this is exactly where she wanted to be, as it’s the Captain who needs to make her navigation aspirations real. The place where she goes to boogie with the Captain (until 1:30am!) was NOLA’s swanky new club, The Blue Room, which would see the likes of Frank and Louis and Ella in its day.

Tue. Nov 9: 

5:30 a.m. wake when the loaders start shouting and the winches begin to creek putting aboard objects of 10,000 lb. At 8:00 and 8:30 jangling of a bell: warning and breakfast. 

Boiled potatoes are depressing in the morning even if someone else is eating them. Good toast and eggs. Stewards and cooks Chinese — food British. 

9:00 a.m. — I take a taxi to town, buy stationery, gum, some golf clubs at a bargain. 

Side note: She goes to town to get necessities for her trip at sea… like golf clubs. Hm. Also, she only had four hours of sleep due to all the dancing. And while I’m a big fan of the potato and don’t like it disparaged, this is golden:

“Boiled potatoes are depressing in the morning even if someone else is eating them.” – Helen Skinner

To the boat. Mr. Sparks introduces the apprentices and things look up. There are four, three of them and a Junior Engineer are clean, intelligent looking youths from Canada. 

Side note: This is key, as one of these youths is a 23 year old Mr. Royal E. Shadbolt of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. And when you see what he looks like, you’ll understand why she said ‘things are looking up’. But you’ll have to wait until South Africa for that. Also, it’s too cute that she is already meddling again with the crew rather than lounging with the passengers. 

At 5:45 we cast off, the wharf recedes, we are turning in a wide arc and heading down the river. 

It has actually happened — I am starting around the world.

I feel excited and nervous for her, even though I know what all transpired.

That is the end of the pre-boat preparations! We are sailing!!