Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Findlay Glessner Travels to California 1921 and 1927





Peg Glessner Weaver, was gracious in publishing her detailed memoir, outlining different phases of her long life.  In Rememberings, she described her fathers love for California and the visits to relatives around the LA area on the maternal, Chappelear side of his family. 

Here she describes her journey, p 13 + "For my second trip to California, when I was in the fifth grade, my parents took me out of school. Again we took the Santa Fe from Chicago. The train became uncomfortably hot, but if we opened a window for air we might get cinders in our eyes. At Flagstaff; Arizona, our train car was switched off for a side-trip to the Grand Canyon. Because it was snowing hard, most of the day was spent in a small,  stone lookout building with a warm fire in a large fireplace and a wonderful view of the Canyon. Going through Arizona I had a glance at a large meteor crater as the train traversed its edge. On this, or our earlier trip, we got off the train to eat some of our meals at Fred Harvey Restaurants next to the train depot. (I suppose some trains lacked dining cars.)


In 1921, at age 10, here in Peg Glessner with her dad at one of the Santa Fe train stations in the spring of 1921. 
1921 Albuquerque Train station, selling of native wares . 
 Another news stand in the photo album 1921, with Harry C Glessner and Peg Glessner 

The Pearne's had once lived in Findlay and were friends of the Sr Glessners. Here is Anna "Tod?" with Irv and son John, with Harry C and Margaret Glessner p37 album

p13 "With my parents' friends, Iry and Stella Pearne and their son, John, we drove up into the mountains and the redwood trees to Big Bear for a picnic, eating beside a gurgling mountain stream, where John and I played at making a dam in the icy water. Easter weekend was spent in Riverside, in an elegant, old hotel, Mission Inn On Easter morning we joined in a procession of cars ascending Mt. Rubidoux in the dark to participate in a sunrise service."

In the mean time, in the mid 1920's the Glessner's built a new home at 204 Glendale Ave in Findlay. 


 
Front of 204 Glendale priro to landscaping.....
p 57  Front of 204 Glendale, Margaret and her dad, Harry C Glessner, CA 1927-28, Peg's Senior Year in High School 

At the end of my junior year in high school (1927) I made my last trip to California when we drove in our Buick sedan, equipped with extra gasoline in a large can on the running board.


Bob Alge, my current beau, gave me a box of rich, Gilbert's Panama Chocolates as a parting gift. 

 
 L - R page 60, Bob Alge, Peg Glessner, Helen Mann, and ?
Using Blue Book cards (about 5x10 inches) which we had obtained from the American Automobile Association, we followed the Santa Fe Trail, which frequently paralleled the Santa Fe Railroad. Because roads lacked signs with route numbers, each card included a small map with explicit directions to the next town, such as the number of miles to the next railroad track and, in town, the number of blocks to the next turn. "Blow your Claxon" signs appeared before sharp curves or one-way bridges. Claxon was a brand of automobile horn.  Arriving in St. Louis the day when Lindberg landed in Paris after his solo flight across the Atlantic, the big pipe organ at the movie theater played "Lucky Lindy" and we all sang:
Lucky Lindy up in the sky, Lucky Lindy flying so high.
Our route then took us to Columbia and Kansas City in Missouri, Wichita, Emporia and Lawrence into en Kansas. In Lawrence we visited relatives affiliated with the University. The farther west, the worse the roads became. Many were not paved, though often in the process, making long detours rather common on narrow, bumpy roads. We drove into the beautiful mountains, through Trinidad in Colorado, Raton Pass, La Junta, Santa Fe, and Gallop in New Mexico. In the hot desert we encountered a sandstorm making it necessary to drive with the windows closed. There was no air-conditioning.
An interesting side trip to the Isleta American Indian Ruins in New Mexico took us on a narrow road fording dry stream beds. At the Petrified Forest in Arizona, we acquired a polished sample of vividly colored, striated agate, and at the Painted Desert bought a small glass vial containing strata of the many colored sands.
At the Grand Canyon we had reservations at the old, famous, historic El Tovar Hotel. Since we were there on my birthday, to celebrate, my mother and I rode horseback with a guide. I had never ridden anything but a Shetland pony; my mother had ridden horses on the farm, many, many years before. We were stiff and sore for the bumpy detours the next day.

 

 
Peg Glessner at the wheel with Harry C as passenger 

 
 At the Grand Canyon we had reservations at the old, famous, historic El Tovar Hotel. Since we were there on my birthday, to celebrate, my mother and I rode horseback with a guide. I had never ridden anything but a Shetland pony; my mother had ridden horses on the farm, many, many years before. We were stiff and sore for the bumpy detours the next day.  June 3, 1927
 Pearne Famiy Irv, Alan, Anna, Inez and Peg Glessner with John Pearne




Peg Glessner and John Pearne 
  
Buick and Joshua tree. 


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