52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks
Week 18
Prompt – Road Trip
My husband and I enjoy our holiday road
trips. There is nothing like hitting the wide open road. We put on
our favorite music or a audio book and watch the miles go by. For
us it is all about the journey and not so much the destination.
I remember several road trips as a
child with my parents. Often we were headed out to Vancouver to visit
my paternal grandmother, Elisabeth Peters. My mom hated the drive
through the high mountain passes so we went the southern route on
what is now the #3 Highway. There was mountains but not as high.
The particular trip I recall was about 1961 or 1962 when I was 6 or 7
years old. Dad could only get holidays in September because his seniority (or lack of seniority) at The Olympic Meat Processing Plant never allowed
summer holidays. We got to start school late which was no big deal
for me when I was younger, but later on it was kind of cool. Our
family car was a small 4 door Chevy of some type. It was a tight fit
for mom and dad and 6 of their 7 children. My oldest sister was in
nursing school and never went along. These were the days of no seat
belts. My 3 brothers and older sister crammed the back seat. My
younger sister sometimes drove in between mom and dad in the front
seat, but I recalled her sleep time being spent lying across the
shelf of the rear window. And poor me – I got the back seat floor.
The one with a hump in the middle of the floor and all my brother's stinky feet. Til
this day I do not know how mom and dad survived us on that trip. We
complained, screamed, fought, whined and begged to be let out for a
bathroom break or a break for just walking around. Oh dad you were
a saint to put up with the kicking feet in the back of your seat while driving all
the way to Vancouver.
We could not afford hotels so we slept
in campgrounds along the way. The tent was only 10 by 10 feet. We
arrived late at night and dad and my brothers put up the tent using
the car headlights to see. It didn't matter because it was always
put up on the most uncomfortable tree trunks and rocks of the
campground. That one particular night was super late and too late
for a campfire so we got to eat sugar cubes and crackers for supper.
To say the least 8 of us in that one
tent was uncomfortable. One of us slept across the top and the other
slept crosswise at the zipper end of the tent. That person grumbled
the most because they were always being stepped on as one or another
of us had to leave to use the bathroom.
In the morning we had a campfire which
had coffee on the go for dad. I don't remember what we ate for
breakfast – probably cereal. I distinctly remember going to the a nearby stream / river to scoop up our water for consuming. No seat
belts and drinking stream water; how did we ever survive?
We packed up very quickly after
breakfast when the boys came running to tell mom and dad that they
spotted a bear across the stream just hanging out. I knew very
little about bears but it lit a fire under everyone else.
How did they fit a tent, camping
cooking equipment, blankets, sleeping bags, suitcases or bag for the
clothes into the trunk? There was sure no room in the car for any of
it.
The cramped tent and car was the
memorable part of the trip for me. It was so different from how we
lived in the city.
 |
| Finding Grandmother Peters Home! |
There was always tension for mom and dad once we
got to Vancouver. We never knew where grandmother lived. She lived
on Social Welfare and moved from place to place quite frequently.
Dad had one family member who was more stable and as soon as we got
to the city dad found a pay phone and called him for the address and
directions. There was no GPS, cell phones or city maps. We depended on the
directions given to us. It was never as easy to find them as they
said it would be. We drove for what seemed like hours. Dad on several
occasions went the wrong way down a one way street. This was
something that Saskatoon did not have. However we always found
grandmother Peters and her daughters Mary and Kate and several cousins of varying ages. I don't remember where we all slept but I am sure
that it was just as cramped as the tent.
It was all so worth it because dad was
a completely different man with his sisters and mother. He spoke
German which blew me away. You must know that dad was a man of few
words in English and we never heard him speak German except around
his family. He smiled and joked. It was so beautiful to see him
truly happy while with his family.
Going home was less memorable but
seeing how it was September, mom always bought crates of apples to
take home. Those ended up in the car on someone's lap or at the feet
where I stayed. They were very special apples because they tasted so
much sweeter than the store ones we got in Saskatoon. I got to take
my teacher one on my first day back at school. She was so thrilled
about it. I also gave her a present of a leaf of a Maple Leaf tree that I found in Vancouver Stanley Park.
It was the size of my head. That hung around the classroom for
sometime.
I look back fondly at our road trips.
Road trips are the thing that gives the family the best stories about
themselves. Some of it was true, some of it became family legend and
some stories turned into family folk lore that became impossible to
believe.
Wendy
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